The Lost - J. D. Robb [42]
I nudged him with my head until it was under his arm. We sat like that awhile.
“Dad says she’ll wake up. He promised. We do prayers at night. We go look at her. He pretends like she can hear and reads stuff to her.” He flopped down on his back. “She can’t move or anything.”
He stretched his arms up and played with his fingers. Dear, stubby, dirty, little-boy fingers. “She worked a lot, but we used to ride bikes. And run and stuff. We played games. She talked a lot. Spaghetti!” He bolted up and scrambled off the bed.
I’d been smelling it, too. “He makes it all the time,” Benny said, “but it’s good.” His mood changed again and he stood still in his wreck of a room, staring into space. He’d grown in two months, or maybe it was all the curly hair making him look taller. But it was his face that broke my heart. Not as round, the bones more prominent. And this new silence. How many times I’d wished he would put a cork in it, my nonstop talker, my sweet If-I -think-i t-I - must-say-i t son.
“Benny!” I said. “Bruf!”
“Let’s eat,” he said, and we ran down to dinner.
“How about Gumball?”
“Gumball!” Hysterical laughter.
“Or . . . Falafel?”
Benny blew milk out of his nose.
“Easy,” Sam said, chuckling, handing him his napkin. “Hey, I know. She sticks to you—we could call her Velcro.”
Another laugh attack. “Or Glue!” Benny drummed his feet against his chair.
Under the table, I was having mixed feelings. On one hand, it was nice to be the center of attention, plus every now and then Benny dropped a piece of French bread on the floor; much better than Purina Dog Chow. But on the other hand, these name suggestions were ridiculous. Benny’s were worse than Sam’s—Jezebel, Caramba, Muffin, Baloney. Be serious! I wanted to tell them. I don’t want to go through life called Hairy-et.
Benny got sidetracked and started telling Sam about school supplies he needed for the first day of first grade, which crayons, what kind of colored pencils. I’d been looking forward to that shopping trip since spring. Now I wouldn’t even get to take him to school. Soon, though, the conversation swerved back to what to name the dog.
“Blunderbuss,” Benny snorted, swaying in his seat, overcome with his cleverness. “Blinderbluss. Bladdabladda. Bliddablidda. Bliddabladdabliddabl—”
“Hey, I have an idea,” Sam said seriously. About time he settled Benny down. If he got revved up this close to bedtime, he couldn’t fall asleep for hours. “How about if we call her Sonoma?”
Sonoma. I crawled out from under the table. That’s not bad.
“Sonoma?” Benny said. “Why?”
“Because that’s where we were when we hit her. Georgetown and Sonoma Road.”
They looked at me. I looked at them. “Sonoma,” they said together. “Do you like it?” Sam asked.
“Yes,” said Benny.
Me, too.
Good thing they didn’t hit me on Roosevelt.
“One more, Daddy, please? Just one more, I promise.”
That’s what he said after the last story. This was new behavior; Benny was a pretty good sleeper, rarely had histrionics at bedtime, would often drift off in the middle of the first chapter. From my spot at the bottom of the bed, I could see he was exhausted, hear it in his croaky voice.
Sam sighed. “Hey, buddy,” he said gently, closing the book. “We talked about this before, remember? What we said?”
“Yeah.”
“What did we say?”
“I can go to sleep.”
“You can go to sleep . . . and what?”
“Wake up.”
“That’s right.”
“Not like Mom.”
Oh, no.
“Right. You can let yourself fall asleep, and in the morning you’ll wake up—what?”
“Bigger, better, and stronger.”
“That’s right. Brand-new day.” He gave Benny a soft kiss on the forehead. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay. You sleep tight, Benster. Love you.”
“Love you. Can Sonoma stay with me?”
“Nope.” Sam stood up and slapped his thigh—my cue to leave. I considered my options. Jumped off the bed.
“Leave the light on, okay? And the door open!”
“Don’t I always?”
That ritual was familiar to me: hall light on, bedroom door