him. He was afraid if he opened his mouth he would start wailing and not be able to stop. It was happening again, he thought. Everything was changing. The air felt supercharged, and there was a weight to every passing moment that said nothing would ever be the same. He saw how wrong he had been to believe he was no longer a child. He was a child, only a child, too young to know what to do. Everything was too hard and too complicated, and he was too young, he was too weak and powerless and dumb.
He wanted to be alone. He was tired and confused and filled with anxiety at not knowing what was going to happen next. Too much had happened already, and he wasn’t able to put all his trust in God the way PW and Tracy and the others did. He would try, but it wouldn’t work. It was like trying to stick a piece of paper to the wall with spit.
He wanted to be alone. He thought that if he was alone some idea would come to him. If he was in his room he could start to draw something, and that would make him feel calm and normal again. But then the thought of drawing—the thought of all the drawings he had done and the pleasure they had given him and the pride he’d felt at being praised for them—suddenly all this struck him as embarrassing, cause for shame. He thought of the comics he’d lavished so much of himself on, and he cringed. He’d made a fool of himself, he thought. Just like when he was on the radio. It would be a relief to destroy them, to burn every one of them. Then he could start all over again. This thought made his throat ache.
He wanted to be alone. But he could not leave PW. He had to wait until PW—already breathing heavily and listing at his side—was ready to pass out. Then Cole would help him get up the stairs and to bed.
THAT NIGHT HE RODE THE HORSE AGAIN.
A game—long forgotten—from the days when his mother used to tuck him in. Time to ride the horse! Scooping him up in her arms. Not into bed but onto the back of a horse he’d pretend to climb—Now, off you go, pumpkin—to ride through the night.
His mother’s smell.
His bronco sheets.
That night he rode the horse again. A hero’s horse, fast and thunderous as a train. Here and there along the path masked figures rushed at them. Hands reached up to grab and yank Cole to the ground. But the horse knew never to stop or slow down.
And he could never get lost, his mother said; the horse knew the way.
Morning: this was where she always promised to meet him.
He sat up, drying his eyes.
He had slept as usual with the blinds open. Outside the light was pale. The sky looked low and as fragile as eggshell, as if a rock hurled hard enough could smash it.
He glanced uneasily around the room, gripped by a vague pang of fear—but no, it was all right. He hadn’t actually burned or destroyed anything, he remembered now. It was just a silly passing thought. Coming in last night and seeing the drawings lying around or taped to the walls, he’d felt sheepish about his vow to get rid of them. Most of them still made him cringe. They were childish, they belonged to yesterday, they should be put away in a box or a drawer somewhere. But there was no reason to destroy them. What if it turned out he never saw Starlyn again? Wouldn’t he hate himself for not having kept those drawings of her?
His senses told him he was the only one in the house who was up. He got out of bed and dressed quickly.
Downstairs, he went first to the porch and collected the bottles. This morning the whiskey smell, though faint, made him queasy.
The moth! He searched, but it was gone.
He was waiting for the computer to boot up when he heard someone coming up the back walk. He had no idea who it might be at this hour, or why he went cold, his heart hopping like a bird from rib to rib. When the bell rang, he stayed in his chair as if welded there, terrified and ashamed of his terror at the same time. He remembered a boy in their building back in Chicago who’d answered the door while