Helen said. She gave him a fragile, not-quite-eyecontact smile, then slipped the pink tote-bag off her shoulder and set it on the counter. Natalie began to gabble impatiently and hold her hands out again as soon as she saw the plastic shell of the Playtex Nurser. Ralph had a vivid but mercifully brief flash of memory: Helen staggering toward the Red Apple, one eye puffed shut, her cheek lashed with beads of blood, carrying Nat on one hip, the way a teenager might carry a textbook.
"Want to give it a try, old fella?" Helen asked. Her smile had strengthened a little and she was meeting his eye again.
"Sure, why not? But the coffee-"
"I'll take care of the coffee, Daddy-O," Gretchen said. "Made a million cups in my time. Is there half-and-half?"
"In the fridge." Ralph sat down at the table, letting Natalie rest the back of her head in the hollow of his shoulder and grasp the bottle with her tiny, fascinating hands. This she did with complete assurance, guiding the nipple into her mouth and beginning to suck at once. Ralph grinned up at Helen and pretended not to see that she had begun to cry a little again. "They learn fast, don't they?"
"Yes," she said, and pulled a paper towel off the roll mounted on the wall by the sink. She wiped her eyes with it. "I can't get over how easy she is with you, Ralph-she wasn't that way before, was she?"
"I don't really remember," he lied. She hadn't been. Not standoffish, no, but a long way from this comfortable.
"Keep pushing up on the plastic liner inside the bottle, okay?
Otherwise she'll swallow a lot of air and get all gassy."
"Roger." He glanced over at Gretchen. "Doing okay?"
"Fine. How do you take it, Ralph?"
"Just in a cup's fine."
She laughed and put the cup on the table out of Natalie's reach.
When she sat down and crossed her legs, Ralph checked-he was helpless not to. When he looked up again, Gretchen was wearing a small, ironic smile.
What the hell, Ralph thought. No goat like an old goat, I guess.
Even an old goat that can't manage much more than two or two and a half hours' worth of sleep a night.
"Tell me about your job," he said as Helen sat down and sipped her coffee.
"Well, I think they ought to make Mike Hanlon's birthday a national holiday-does that tell you anything?"
"A little, yes," Ralph said, smiling.
"I was all but positive I'd have to leave Derry. I sent away for applications to libraries as far south as Portsmouth, but I felt sick doing it. I'm going on thirty-one and I've only lived here for six of those years, but Derry feels like home-I can't explain it, but it's the truth."
"You don't have to explain it, Helen. I think home's just one of those things that happens to a person, like their complexion or the color of their eyes."
Gretchen was nodding. "Yes," she said. "Just like that."
"Mike called Monday and told me the assistant's position in the Children's Library had opened up. I could hardly believe it. I mean, I've been walking around all week just pinching myself. Haven't I, Gretchen?"
"Well, you've been very happy," Gretchen said, and that's been very good to see."
She smiled at Helen, and for Ralph that smile was a revelation.
He suddenly understood that he could look at Gretchen Tillbury all he wanted, and it wouldn't make any difference. If the only man in this room had been Tom Cruise, it still would have made no difference.
He wondered if Helen knew, and then scolded himself for his foolishness. Helen was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them.
"When do you start?" he asked her.
"Columbus Day week," she said. "The twelfth. Afternoons and evenings. The salary's not exactly a king's ransom, but it'll be enough to keep us through the winter no matter how the... the rest of my situation works out. Isn't it great, Ralph?"
"Yes," he said. "Very great."
The baby had drunk half the bottle and now showed signs of losing interest. The nipple popped halfway out of her mouth, and a little rill of milk ran down from the corner of her lips toward her chin.
Ralph reached to wipe it away, and his fingers left a series of delicate gray-blue lines in the air.
Baby Natalie snatched at them, then laughed as they dissolved in her fist. Ralph's breath caught in his throat.
She sees. The baby sees what I see, That's nuts, Ralph. That's nuts and you know it.