All the devils many wrong in here tonight, he said.
Alarmed, she rushed to the landing and called down to her mother to get up here, now,please,because, one, he was awake and talking, and two, from the sound of it, things were getting sort of—Could she, Momma, please get up herenow,please, stat, pronto, thank you?
Hearing no response from her mother, she left the room and pounded down the stairs to find her.
—
Not a devil, I said.
He let out a low groan.
Actual groan.
Had his daughter or wife been in the room, they would have heard it.
More than anything that had preceded it (the bird onslaught, his interactions with the Pennsylvania girl, Miss Eva, his father, Ed Dell) this had stung him. By this, his enemies had won. They’d succeeded in turning his only child against him. They’d poured poison into her ear and she’d believed them. She was his dear girl, constant defender, biggest fan. And now, for the rest of her life, long as she lived, she was going to think of him like that?
In that way?
As that guy?
A darker, trickier bastard than she’d ever—
No.
Jesus, no.
What he needed to do was hop out of this bed and go downstairs and fetch the bag of black licorice stashed above the fridge and sit that gal down and say: Cupcake, whatever beef you’ve got with me, it’s because you had it all handed to you on a silver platter, which is why half the time you don’t have any damn idea of how things work out in the real world, angel, I’m sorry to say, and why you have, all your life, been easily misled by people who meant you no good and were trying to take advantage of your kind nature, sweet pea. So, sit down, let’s talk this thing out.
He became aware of me again.
You reading my mind? he said.
Yes, I said.
I want you to stop it, he said.
No, I said.
You seem different, he said.
I am different, I said. I’m Jill. Jill Blaine. Jill “Doll” Blaine.
Weren’t you always? he said.
Not this much, I said.
From downstairs came the sound of his daughter crying hysterically, her mother comforting her, a glass breaking, a sudden silence.
What’s all that about? he said.
I smiled a sad smile.
No, he thought. This wasn’t it. Couldn’t be. Not yet. His death was meant to take place in an ancient stone mansion. A gray manse on a misty moor. In Europe somewhere. Like in a 1940s movie. He’d always thought that. Why had he always thought that? No idea. He just had. All across the property his peasants would be weeping. In the doorway a butler was trying not to cry. Like that. The doctor with whom he’d aways played chess was racing to him by horse-drawn sleigh through a blizzard. The village luminaries had gathered around his bedside. He’d always been the best among them. Finally, they saw it. It didn’t hurt. It was Death but it didn’t hurt. He was just growing increasingly tired and philosophical.
Next stop, Heaven, where everyone would be waiting: Grandpa, Mee-Mee, Mother and Father, Uncle Theo; Norman, his older cousin and first confidant, killed in Korea; Bip Wren, crushed on a rig in Debolt County. Well done, would be the consensus up there, great job, K.J., you were right all along, and even if some found you toooverbearing/powerful/decisive,we, up here in Heaven, always approved of everything you did and were with you all the way. You were always the grown-upin every room. Sometimes babies need to be picked up and moved away from dangers they’re too idiotic to grasp. Ditto with subordinates, underlings, the public.
There was a world to run, and you ran it, K.J.
