John Saul - Nathaniel

"Then why didn't you answer me when I called you?"

"I-I didn't hear you." He felt a throbbing in his left temple. "I must have been daydreaming."

"For an hour?" his mother asked.

"It hasn't been that long-"

"It has ," Janet replied. She saw a flicker of what looked like fear in Michael's eyes, and turned to Laura. "Why don't you wait for us in the car? We'll be right out."

Nodding her understanding, Laura smiled encouragingly at Michael, then disappeared down the stairs.

"Are you mad at me?" Michael asked when he and his mother were alone.

"Well, it seems to me-" She stopped, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked at him. "Michael," she said, her voice gentle now. "Are you all right?"

The throbbing in his head faded away, and Michael nodded. "I'm sorry," he said softly. "I was just daydreaming, I guess." His eyes roamed over the room, and he smiled. "Can this be my room?" he asked.

"This room?" Janet asked. She looked around the tiny room, wondering why Michael would ask for it. Of the three bedrooms, it was the smallest. "I suppose so, if you want it."

"I do," Michael told her.

From his tone, Janet was sure that something had happened in that room, that it had affected Michael in some way. "But why?" she asked.

Because Daddy's here , Michael thought. He opened his mouth to voice the thought, but then changed his mind. Instead, he glanced around the room, and then, as before, his eyes were drawn to the window. "I like the view," he said. Janet crossed the little room in four easy steps and stood in the dormer, her hands resting on Michael's shoulders as she looked past him out over the prairie vista.

"It isn't much different from the view from the other windows, is it?" she asked.

"It's the barn," Michael said quietly. "I like being able to look at the barn."

"But you can't even see the barn from here-" Janet began, and then stopped as she realized he wasn't talking about their barn, but another barn, one she could see in the near distance. There was nothing special about the structure; indeed, if anything, it was remarkable only for its shabbiness.

"It looks like it's going to fall down," she commented.

Michael said nothing.

"Am I missing something?" Janet asked. "Do you see something about it that I don't?"

Michael hesitated, then she felt him shrug under the touch of her hands. "I just like it," he said at last.

"Well, then, I guess that's that."

Michael turned and faced her. "Then I can have it? This room?"

Janet nodded, the odd tension she had been feeling in the room, and in herself and Michael, suddenly evaporating. She smiled. "And it's a good thing you wanted it. I was afraid I was going to have to fight you for the other big one."

"I'd have lost," Michael replied.

"But you'd have argued," Janet observed.

Michael was silent for a few seconds, apparently thinking about it. Finally, he shook his head. "Maybe last week." His voice was quiet, and Janet tensed, certain that he was about to say something she didn't want to hear. "Last week, you'd have had Dad on your side, but now you don't." His dark blue eyes-Mark's eyes-held her own. "I'll try not to fight with you anymore, Mom."

"Fight?" Janet asked, feeling tears form in spite of herself. "We've never fought."

Michael shifted uncomfortably, and his gaze broke away from hers. "You know what I mean. Arguing, trying to get around you. I-well, I'm not gonna do that anymore."

Janet reached out to her son and took him in her arms, holding him tight.

"Thank you, Michael," she whispered. "We're going to be all right here, you and I. I know it. I can just feel it."

Then, as she felt Michael's arms tighten around her, she glanced once more out the window toward the barn that had so captured her son's attention.

There was a bleakness to it, deprivation and neglect that doused the spark of optimism she had just felt.

Janet hung up the phone, then moved pensively into the kitchen, where Anna, expertly maneuvering her chair with one hand, was sweeping the floor with the other. As Janet watched, Anna moved the pile of dust toward the open back door, then gave the chair a quick spin, catching the screen door with one of its handles and knocking it open. At the same time, a last whisk of the broom sent the accumulated dirt flying into the backyard. As the screen door slammed shut, she turned the chair back to face Janet. "It took me two months to learn how to do that," she said in a voice that carried with it no emotion whatsoever.

Janet shook her head. "I wish you'd let me help-"

But Anna had already rolled across the kitchen to put the broom away. "I've been doing it for years." She wheeled herself over to the table, and gestured for Janet to join her. "Well, is it all taken care of?"

Janet nodded. "I guess so, but I'm still not certain I'm doing the right thing."

Anna shrugged. "It's done, anyway, and believe me, it's a lot easier to go along with Amos than to try to do it your way. Besides, I'm afraid he's right-it doesn't make any sense for you to go back to New York just to pack up. All you'd do is wear yourself out, and we don't want you to do that, do we? Carrying a baby always has its risks, you know."

Though there was nothing in Anna's voice to indicate that she was thinking of her own last pregnancy, Janet decided to use her mother-in-law's words as an opening. "Laura told me what happened," she said, softly. When Anna made no response, she pressed a little harder. "The night Mark left-"

Suddenly understanding, Anna's eyes hardened. "Laura had no right to burden you with that," she said. "Besides, she doesn't know the first thing about it. She was just a child."

"But she wasn't burdening me," Janet protested. "She's frightened. We were talking about you, and I asked her what happened. So she told me. At least she told me about you losing your baby, and Mark never coming home again." Janet's voice dropped slightly. "And she said that you never told her exactly what happened that night. I think she's been terrified ever since. Terrified that the same thing might happen to her."

Anna stared at Janet for a few seconds, then shook her head. "She shouldn't worry," she said at last. And then Anna's voice took on the same tone of recitation Janet had heard from Laura. "All that happened to me was that I overworked myself and brought the labor on prematurely. It was a breech birth, and the cord wrapped around the baby's neck." She paused a moment, then: "That's what they told me, and that's what I believe," she finished. The emphasis in her voice, though, only made Janet certain there was something Anna was leaving out, something she was not about to talk about. Indeed, she had already wheeled herself out of the kitchen to the foot of the stairs, and was now calling to her husband and grandson.

"You mean we're not going back to New York at all ?" Michael asked. He'd sat in silence while Janet had explained to him that she'd decided to arrange for movers to pack them and let an agent handle the subleasing of the apartment. Now he was on his feet, his eyes stormy, a vein throbbing angrily in his forehead.

"It just seems best-" Janet began, but Michael cut her off.

"Best for who?" he demanded. "What about my friends? Don't I even get to say goodbye to them?"

"But you said goodbye when we came out here-"

"That was different!" Michael's voice began to rise., "When we left, we were coming back!"

Amos rose and moved toward the angry boy. "Michael! Don't talk to your mother in that tone of voice."

With no hesitation, Michael swung around to face his grandfather. "Don't tell me what to do," he said. "You're not my father!" Whirling around, his face contorted with fury, he stormed out of the dining room. Amos started to follow him, but Janet blocked his path.