Needful Things Part 23

Fine, Alan. I'm fine.

In fact, she was terrified. It wasn't that her hands were so awfully painful at this very second; she almost wished they did hurt, because the pain, bad as it was when it finally came, was still better than the waiting.

Shortly after noon today, she had become aware of a warm tingling-almost a vibration-in her hands. It formed rings of heat around her knuckles and at the base of her thumb; she could feel it lurking at the bottom of each fingernail in small, steely arcs like humorless smiles. She had felt this twice before, and knew what it meant. She was going to have what her Aunt Betty, who'd been afflicted with the same sort of arthritis, called a real bad spell. "When my hands start to tingle like electric shocks, I always know it's time to batten down the hatches," Betty had said, and now Polly was trying to batten down her own hatches, with a notable lack of success.

Outside, two boys walked down the middle of the street, tossing a football back and forth between them. The one on the right-the youngest of the Lawes boys-went up for a high pa.s.s. The ball ticked off his fingers and bounced onto Polly's lawn. He saw her looking out the window as he went after it and waved to her. Polly raised her own hand in return... and felt the pain flare sullenly, like a thick bed of coals in an errant gust of wind. Then it was gone again and there was only that eerie tingling. It felt to her the way the air sometimes felt before a violent electrical storm.

The pain would come in its own time; she could do nothing about it. The lies she had told Alan about Kelton, though... that was quite another thing. And, she thought, it's not as though the truth is so awful, so glaring, so shocking... and it's not as though he doesn't already suspect or even know that you've lied. He does. I've seen it in his face. So why is this so hard, Polly? Why?

Partially because of the arthritis, she supposed, and partially because of the pain medication she had come to rely on more and more heavily-the two things together had a way of blurring rational thought, of making the clearest and cleanest of right angles look queerly skewed. Then there was the fact of Alan's own pain... and the honesty with which he had disclosed it. He had laid it out for her inspection without a single hesitation.

His feelings in the wake of the peculiar accident which had taken Annie's and Todd's lives were confused and ugly, surrounded by an unpleasant (and frightening) swirl of negative emotions, but he had laid them out for her just the same. He had done it because he wanted to find out if she knew things about Annie's state of mind that he did not... but he had also done it because playing fair and keeping such things in the open were just part of his nature. She was afraid of what he might think when he found out that playing fair wasn't always a part of hers; that her heart as well as her hands had been touched with early frost.

She stirred uneasily in the chair.

I have have to tell him-sooner or later I have to. And none of that explains why it's so hard; none of that even explains why I told him the lies in the first place. I mean, it isn't as if I killed my son... to tell him-sooner or later I have to. And none of that explains why it's so hard; none of that even explains why I told him the lies in the first place. I mean, it isn't as if I killed my son...

She sighed-a sound that was almost a sob-and s.h.i.+fted in her chair. She looked for the boys with the football, but they were gone. Polly settled back in her chair and closed her eyes.

12.

She wasn't the first girl to ever turn up pregnant as the result of a date-night wrestling match, or the first to ever argue bitterly with her parents and other relations as a result. They had wanted her to marry Paul "Duke" Sheehan, the boy who had gotten her pregnant. She had replied that she wouldn't marry Duke if he was the last boy on earth. This was true, but what her pride would not let her tell them was that Duke didn't want to marry her her-his closest friend had told her he was already making panicky preparations to join the Navy when he turned eighteen... which he would do in less than six weeks.

"Let me get this straight," Newton Chalmers said, and had then torn away the last tenuous bridge between his daughter and himself. "He was good enough to screw, but he's not good enough to marry-is that about right?"

She had tried to run out of the house then, but her mother had caught her. If she wouldn't marry the boy, Lorraine Chalmers said, speaking in the calm and sweetly reasonable voice that had driven Polly almost to madness as a teenager, then they would have to send her away to Aunt Sarah in Minnesota. She could stay in Saint Cloud until the baby came, then put it up for adoption.

"I know why you want me to leave," Polly said. "It's Great-aunt Evelyn, isn't it? You're afraid if she finds out I've got a bun in my oven, she'll cut you out of her will. It's all about money, isn't it? You don't care about me at all. You don't give a s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t about m-" about m-"

Lorraine Chalmers's sweetly reasonable voice had always masked a jackrabbit temper. She had torn away the last tenuous bridge between her daughter and herself by slapping Polly hard across the face.

So Polly had run away. That had been a long, long time ago-in July of 1970.

She stopped running for awhile when she got to Denver, and worked there until the baby was born in a charity ward which the patients called Needle Park. She had fully intended to put the child up for adoption, but something-maybe just the feel of him when the maternity nurse had put him in her arms after the delivery-had changed her mind.

She named the boy Kelton, after her paternal grandfather. The decision to keep the baby had frightened her a little, because she liked to see herself as a practical, sensible girl, and nothing which had happened to her over the last year or so fit that image. First the practical, sensible girl had gotten pregnant out of wedlock in a time when practical, sensible girls simply did not do such things. Then the practical, sensible girl had run away from home and delivered her child in a city where she had never been before and knew nothing about. And to top it all off, the practical, sensible girl had decided to keep the baby and take it with her into a future she could not see, could not even sense.

At least she had not kept the baby out of spite or defiance; no one could hang that on her. She found herself surprised by love, that simplest, strongest, and most unforgiving of all emotions.

She had moved on. No-they had moved on. She had worked a number of menial jobs, and they had ended up in San Francisco, where she had probably intended to go all along. In that early summer of 1971 it had been a kind of hippie Xanadu, a hilly head-shop full of freaks and folkies and yippies and bands with names like Moby Grape and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. had moved on. She had worked a number of menial jobs, and they had ended up in San Francisco, where she had probably intended to go all along. In that early summer of 1971 it had been a kind of hippie Xanadu, a hilly head-shop full of freaks and folkies and yippies and bands with names like Moby Grape and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators.

According to the Scott McKenzie song about San Francisco which had been popular during one of those years, summertime was supposed to be a love-in there. Polly Chalmers, who had been no one's idea of a hippie even back then, had somehow missed the love-in. The building where she and Kelton lived was full of jimmied mailboxes and junkies who wore the peace-sign around their necks and, more often than not, kept switchblades in their scuffed and dirty motorcycle boots. The most common visitors in this neighborhood were process servers, repo men, and cops. A lot of cops, and you didn't call them pigs to their faces; the cops had also missed the love-in, and were p.i.s.sed about it.

Polly applied for welfare and found she had not lived in California long enough to qualify-she supposed things might be different now, but in 1971, it had been as hard for a young unwed mother to get along in San Francisco as it was anywhere else. She applied for Aid to Dependent Children, and waited-hoped-for something to come of it. Kelton never missed a meal, but she herself lived hand to mouth, a scrawny young woman who was often hungry and always afraid, a young woman very few of the people who knew her now would have recognized. Her memories of those first three years on the West Coast, memories stored at the back of her mind like old clothes in an attic, were skewed and grotesque, images from a nightmare.

And wasn't that a large part of her reluctance to tell Alan about those years? Didn't she simply want to keep them dark? She hadn't been the only one who had suffered the nightmare consequences of her pride, her stubborn refusal to ask for help, and the vicious hypocrisy of the times, which proclaimed the triumph of free love while simultaneously branding unmarried women with babies as creatures beyond the pale of normal society; Kelton had been there as well. Kelton had been her hostage to fortune as she slogged angrily along the track of her sordid fool's crusade.

The horrible thing was that her situation had been slowly improving. In the spring of 1972 she had finally qualified for state help, her first ADC check had been promised for the following month, and she had been making plans to move into a slightly better place when the fire happened.

The call had come to her at the diner where she worked, and in her dreams, Norville, the short-order cook who had always been trying to get into her pants in those days, turned to her again and again, holding out the telephone. He said the same thing over and over: Polly, it's the police. They want to talk to you. Polly, it's the police. They want to talk to you. Polly, it's the police. They want to talk to you. Polly, it's the police. They want to talk to you.

They had indeed wanted to talk to her, because they had hauled the bodies of a young woman and a small child from the smoky third floor of the apartment building. They had both been burned beyond recognition. They knew who the child was; if Polly wasn't at work, they would know who the woman was, too.

For three months after Kelton's death she had gone on working. Her loneliness had been so intense that she was half-mad with it, so deep and complete that she hadn't even been aware of how badly she was suffering. At last she had written home, telling her mother and father only that she was in San Francisco, that she had given birth to a boy, and that the boy was no longer with her. She would not have given further details if she had been threatened with red-hot pokers. Going home had not been a part of her plans then-not her conscious conscious plans, at least-but it began to seem to her that if she did not re-establish some of her old ties, a valuable inside part of her would begin dying by inches, the way a vigorous tree dies from the branches inward when it is deprived of water too long. plans, at least-but it began to seem to her that if she did not re-establish some of her old ties, a valuable inside part of her would begin dying by inches, the way a vigorous tree dies from the branches inward when it is deprived of water too long.

Her mother had replied at once to the box number Polly gave as a return address, pleading with her to come back to Castle Rock... to come home. She enclosed a money order for seven hundred dollars. It was very warm in the tenement flat where Polly had been living since Kelton's death, and she stopped halfway through the task of packing her bags for a cold gla.s.s of water. While she was drinking it, Polly realized that she was making ready to go home simply because her mother had asked-almost begged-her to do so. She hadn't really thought about it at all, which was almost certainly a mistake. It was that sort of look-before-you-leap behavior, not Duke Sheehan's puny little dingus, which had gotten her in trouble to begin with.

So she sat down on her narrow single-woman's bed and thought about it. She thought long and hard. At last she voided the money order and wrote a letter to her mother. It was less than a page long, but it had taken her nearly four hours to get it right.

I want to come back, or at least try it on for size, but I don't want us to drag out all the old bones and start chewing on them again if I do, she had written. she had written. I don't know if what I really want-to start a new life in an old place-is possible for anyone, but I want to try. So I have an idea: let's be pen-pals for awhile. You and me, and me and Dad. I have noticed that it's harder to be angry and resentful on paper, so let's talk that way for awhile before we talk in person. I don't know if what I really want-to start a new life in an old place-is possible for anyone, but I want to try. So I have an idea: let's be pen-pals for awhile. You and me, and me and Dad. I have noticed that it's harder to be angry and resentful on paper, so let's talk that way for awhile before we talk in person.

They had talked that way for almost six months, and then one day in January of 1973, Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers had shown up at her door, bags in hand. They were registered at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, they said, and they were not going back to Castle Rock without her.

Polly had thought this over, feeling a whole geography of emotions: anger that they could be so high-handed, rueful amus.e.m.e.nt at the sweet and rather naive quality of that highhandedness, panic that the questions she had so neatly avoided answering in her letters would now be pressed home.

She had promised to go to dinner with them, no more than that-other decisions would have to wait. Her father told her he had only booked the room at the Mark Hopkins for a single night. You had better extend the reservation, then, Polly said.

She had wanted to talk with them as much as she could before coming to any final decision-a more intimate form of the testing which had gone on in their letters. But that first night had been the only night they had had. It was the last night she had ever seen her father well and strong, and she had spent most of it in a red rage at him.

The old arguments, so easy to avoid in correspondence, had begun again even before pre-dinner gla.s.ses of wine were drunk. They were brush-fires at first, but as her father continued to drink, they developed into an uncontrollable wall of fire. He had struck the spark, saying they both felt Polly had learned her lesson and it was time to bury the hatchet. Mrs. Chalmers had fanned the flames, dropping into her old cool, sweetly reasonable voice. Where is the baby, dear? You might at least tell us that that much. You turned him over to the Sisters, I suppose. much. You turned him over to the Sisters, I suppose.

Polly knew these voices, and what they meant, from times long past. Her father's indicated his need to re-establish control; at all costs there must must be control. Her mother's indicated that she was showing love and concern in the only way she knew, by demanding information. Both voices, so familiar, so loved and despised, had ignited the old, wild anger in her. be control. Her mother's indicated that she was showing love and concern in the only way she knew, by demanding information. Both voices, so familiar, so loved and despised, had ignited the old, wild anger in her.

They left the restaurant halfway through the main course, and the next day Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers had flown back to Maine alone.

After a three-month hiatus, the correspondence had begun again, hesitantly. Polly's mother wrote first, apologizing for the disastrous evening. The pleas to come home had been dropped. This surprised Polly... and filled some deep and barely acknowledged part of her with anxiety. She felt that her mother was finally denying her. This was, under the circ.u.mstances, both foolish and self-indulgent, but that did not change those elemental feelings in the slightest.

I suppose you know your own mind best, she wrote to Polly. she wrote to Polly. That's hard for your father and me to accept, because we still see you as our little girl. I think it frightened him to see you looking so beautiful and so much older. And you mustn't blame him too much for the way he acted. He hasn't been feeling well; his stomach has been kicking up on him again. The doctor says it's only his gall bladder, and once he agrees to have it taken out all will be well, but I worry about him. That's hard for your father and me to accept, because we still see you as our little girl. I think it frightened him to see you looking so beautiful and so much older. And you mustn't blame him too much for the way he acted. He hasn't been feeling well; his stomach has been kicking up on him again. The doctor says it's only his gall bladder, and once he agrees to have it taken out all will be well, but I worry about him.

Polly had replied in the same conciliatory tone. She found it easier to do so now that she had started taking business-school cla.s.ses and shelved her plans to return to Maine indefinitely. And then, near the end of 1975, the telegram had come. It was short and brutal: YOUR DAD HAS CANCER. HE IS DYING. PLEASE COME HOME. LOVE, MOM.

He was still alive when Polly got to the hospital in Bridgton, her head spinning with jet-lag and the old memories seeing all the old places had prodded forth. The same wondering thought arose in her mind at each new turn of the road which led from the Portland Jetport into the high hills and low mountains of western Maine. The last time I saw that, I was a child! The last time I saw that, I was a child!

Newton Chalmers lay in a private room, dozing in and out of consciousness, with tubes in his nose and machines gathered around him in a hungry semicircle. He died three days later. She had intended to go back to California right away-she almost thought of it as her home now-but four days after her father was buried, her mother suffered a crippling heart attack.

Polly had moved into the house. She nursed her mother for the next three and a half months, and at some point every night she would dream of Norville, the short-order cook at Yor Best Diner. Norville turned to her again and again in these dreams, holding the telephone out in his right hand, the one with the eagle and the words DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR tattooed on the back. Polly, it's the police, Polly, it's the police, Norville said. Norville said. They want to talk to you. Polly, it's the police. They want to talk to you. They want to talk to you. Polly, it's the police. They want to talk to you.

Her mother was out of bed, on her feet again and talking about selling the house and moving to California with Polly (something she would never do, but Polly did not disabuse her of her dreams-she was older by then, and a little kinder) when the second heart attack struck. So it was that on a raw afternoon in March of 1976, Polly had found herself in Homeland Cemetery, standing next to her Great-aunt Evelyn, and looking at a coffin which stood on bands next to her father's fresh grave.

His body had lain in the Homeland crypt all winter, waiting for the earth to unlimber enough so it could be interred. In one of those grotesque coincidences which no decent novelist would dare invent, the interral of the husband had taken place just one day before the wife died. The sods on top of Newton Chalmers's final apartment had not yet been replaced; the earth was still raw and the grave looked obscenely naked. Polly's eyes kept straying from the coffin of her mother to the grave of her father. It was as if she was just waiting for him to be decently buried, It was as if she was just waiting for him to be decently buried, she thought. she thought.

When the short service was over, Aunt Evvie had called her aside. Polly's last surviving relative stood by the Hay & Peabody funeral hack, a thin stick of a woman dressed in a man's black overcoat and strangely jolly red galoshes, a Herbert Tareyton tucked into the corner of her mouth. She flicked a wooden match alight with one thumbnail as Polly approached, and set fire to the tip of her cigarette. She inhaled deeply and then hacked the smoke back out into the cold spring air. Her cane (a simple ash stick; it would be three years yet before she would be awarded the Boston Post Post Cane as the town's oldest citizen) was planted between her feet. Cane as the town's oldest citizen) was planted between her feet.

Now, sitting in a Boston rocker that the old lady undoubtedly would have approved of, Polly calculated that Aunt Evvie must have been eighty-eight that spring-eighty-eight years old and still smoking like a chimney-although she had not looked much different to Polly than she had when Polly was a little girl, hoping for a penny sweet from the apparently endless supply Aunt Evvie kept in the pocket of her ap.r.o.n. Many things in Castle Rock had changed in the years she had been gone, but Aunt Evvie was not one of them.

"Well, that's that's over," Aunt Evvie had said in her cigarette-raspy voice. "They're in the ground, Polly. Mother and father both." over," Aunt Evvie had said in her cigarette-raspy voice. "They're in the ground, Polly. Mother and father both."

Polly had burst into tears then, a miserable flood of them. She thought at first that Aunt Evvie would try to comfort her, and her flesh was already shrinking from the old woman's touch-she didn't want want to be comforted. to be comforted.

And need not have worried. Evelyn Chalmers had never been a woman who believed in comforting the grief-stricken; might in fact have believed, Polly sometimes thought later, that the very idea of comfort was an illusion. In any case, she only stood there with her cane planted between her red galoshes, smoking and waiting for Polly's tears to give way to sniffles as she brought herself under control.

When this had been accomplished, Aunt Evvie asked: "Your chap-the one they spent so much time fussing over-is dead, isn't he?"

Though she had guarded this secret jealously from everyone, Polly found herself nodding. "His name was Kelton."

"A goodish name," Aunt Evvie said. She drew on her cigarette and then exhaled slowly from her mouth so she could draw the smoke back up her nose-what Lorraine Chalmers had called a "double-pump," wrinkling her nose in distaste as she said it. "I knew it the first time you come over to see me after you got home. Saw it in your eyes."

"There was a fire," Polly said, looking up at her. She had a tissue but it was too soggy to do any more business; she put it in her coat pocket and used her fists instead, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g them into her eyes like a little girl who has fallen off her scooter and banged her knee. "The young woman I hired to babysit him probably started it."

"Ayuh," Aunt Evvie said. "But do you want to know a secret. Trisha?"

Polly nodded her head, smiling a little. Her real name was Patricia, but she had been Polly to everyone since her babyhood. Everyone except Aunt Evvie.

"Baby Kelton's dead... but you're you're not." Aunt Evvie tossed her cigarette away and used one bony forefinger to tap against Polly's chest for emphasis. not." Aunt Evvie tossed her cigarette away and used one bony forefinger to tap against Polly's chest for emphasis. "You're "You're not. So what are you going to do about it?" not. So what are you going to do about it?"

Polly thought it over. "I'm going back to California.'' she said finally. That's all I know."

"Yes, and that's all right for a start. But it's not enough." And then Aunt Evvie said something very close to what Polly herself would say, some years later, when she went to dinner at The Birches with Alan Pangborn: "You're not the culprit here, Trisha. Have you got that sorted out?"

"I... I don't know."

"Then you don't. Until you realize that, it won't matter where you go, or what you do. There won't be any chance."

"What chance?" she had asked, bewildered.

"Your chance. Your chance to live your own life. Right now you have the look of a woman who is seeing ghosts. Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?" chance. Your chance to live your own life. Right now you have the look of a woman who is seeing ghosts. Not everybody believes in ghosts, but I do. Do you know what they are, Trisha?"

She had shaken her head slowly.

"Men and women who can't get over the past," Aunt Evvie said. "That's "That's what ghosts are. Not what ghosts are. Not them." them." She flapped her arm toward the coffin which stood on its bands beside the coincidentally fresh grave. "The dead are dead. We bury them, and buried they stay." She flapped her arm toward the coffin which stood on its bands beside the coincidentally fresh grave. "The dead are dead. We bury them, and buried they stay."

"I feel..."

"Yes," Aunt Evvie said. "I know you do. But they they don't. Your mother and my nephew don't. Your chap, the one who died while you been Away, don't. Your mother and my nephew don't. Your chap, the one who died while you been Away, he he don't. Do you understand me?" don't. Do you understand me?"

She had. A little, anyway.

"You're right not to want to stay here, Polly-at least, you're right for now. Go back where you were. Or go someplace new-Salt Lake, Honolulu, Baghdad, wherever you want. It don't matter, because sooner or later you will will come back here. I know that; this place belongs to you and you belong to it. That's written in every line of your face, in the way you walk, the way you talk, even the way you have of narrowin your eyes when you look at someone you ain't met before. Castle Rock was made for you and you for it. So there is no hurry. 'Go where ye list,' as the Good Book says. But go there come back here. I know that; this place belongs to you and you belong to it. That's written in every line of your face, in the way you walk, the way you talk, even the way you have of narrowin your eyes when you look at someone you ain't met before. Castle Rock was made for you and you for it. So there is no hurry. 'Go where ye list,' as the Good Book says. But go there alive, alive, Trisha. Don't be no ghost. If you turn into one of those, it might be better if you stayed away." Trisha. Don't be no ghost. If you turn into one of those, it might be better if you stayed away."

The old woman looked around broodingly, her head rotating above her cane.

"G.o.ddam town's got enough ghosts already," she said.

"I'll try, Aunt Evvie."

"Yes-I know you will. Trying-that's built into you, too." Aunt Evvie looked her over closely. "You were a fair child, and a likely child, although you weren't ever a lucky child. Well, luck is for fools. It's all they have to hope for, poor devils. It strikes me that you are still likely and fair, and that's the important thing. I think you'll make out." Then, briskly, almost arrogantly: "I love you, Trisha Chalmers. I always have."

"I love you, too, Aunt Evvie."

Then, in that careful way which the old and young have of showing affection, they embraced. Polly had smelled the old aroma of Aunt Evvie's sachet-a tremor of violets-and that made her weep again.

When she stood back, Aunt Evvie was reaching into her coat pocket. Polly watched for her to bring out a tissue, thinking in an amazed way that at last, after all the long years, she would see the old woman cry. But she hadn't. Instead of a tissue, Aunt Evvie brought out a single wrapped hard candy, just as she had in those days when Polly Chalmers had been a little girl with braids hanging over the front of her middy blouse.

"Would you like a sweet, honey?" she had asked cheerfully.

13.

Twilight had begun to steal across the day.

Polly straightened up in the rocker, aware that she had almost fallen asleep. She b.u.mped one of her hands, and a hard bolt of pain raced up her arm before being replaced once more by that hot antic.i.p.atory tingle. It was going to be bad, all right. Later tonight or tomorrow, it was going to be very bad indeed.

Never mind what you can't change, Polly-there's at least one thing you can change, must change. You have to tell Alan the truth about Kelton. You have to stop harboring that ghost in your heart.

But another voice rose up in response-an angry, frightened, clamorous voice. The voice of pride, she supposed, just that, but she was shocked by its strength and ardor as it demanded that those old days, that old life, not be exhumed... not for Alan, not for anybody. That, above all, her baby's short life and miserable death should not be given over to the sharp, wagging tongues of the town gossips.

What foolishness is that, Trisha? Aunt Evvie asked in her mind-Aunt Evvie, who had died so full of years, double-pumping her beloved Herbert Tareytons to the last. Aunt Evvie asked in her mind-Aunt Evvie, who had died so full of years, double-pumping her beloved Herbert Tareytons to the last. What does it matter if Alan finds out how Kelton really died? What does it matter if every old gossip in town, from Lenny Partridge to Myrtle Keeton, knows? Do you think anyone cares a fig about your bun anymore, you silly goose? Don't flatter yourself--it's old news. Hardly worth a second cup of coffee in Nan's. What does it matter if Alan finds out how Kelton really died? What does it matter if every old gossip in town, from Lenny Partridge to Myrtle Keeton, knows? Do you think anyone cares a fig about your bun anymore, you silly goose? Don't flatter yourself--it's old news. Hardly worth a second cup of coffee in Nan's.

Maybe so... but he had been hers, G.o.d d.a.m.n it, hers. In his life and in his death, he had been hers. And she had been hers, too-not her mother's, her father's, Duke Sheehan's. She had belonged to herself. She had belonged to herself. That frightened, lonely girl who had washed her panties out every night in the rusty kitchen sink because she had only three pairs, that frightened girl who always had a cold-sore waiting to happen at the corner of her lip or on the rim of one nostril, that girl who sometimes sat at the window overlooking the airshaft and laid her hot forehead on her arms and cried-that girl was That frightened, lonely girl who had washed her panties out every night in the rusty kitchen sink because she had only three pairs, that frightened girl who always had a cold-sore waiting to happen at the corner of her lip or on the rim of one nostril, that girl who sometimes sat at the window overlooking the airshaft and laid her hot forehead on her arms and cried-that girl was hers hers. Her memories of herself and her son together in the dark of night, Kelton feeding at one small breast while she read a John D. MacDonald paperback and the disconnected sirens rose and raved through the cramped, hilly streets of the city, those memories were hers. The tears she had cried, the silences she had endured, the long, foggy afternoons in the diner trying to avoid Norville Bates's Roman hands and Russian fingers, the shame with which she had finally made an uneasy peace, the independence and the dignity she had fought so hard and so inconclusively to keep... those things were hers hers, and must not belong to the town.

Polly, this is not a question of what belongs to the town, and you know it. It's a question of what belongs to Alan.

She shook her head back and forth as she sat in the rocker, completely unaware she was making this gesture of negation. She supposed she had spent too many sleepless three o'clocks on too many endless dark mornings to give away her inner landscape without a fight. In time she would tell Alan everything-she had not meant to keep the complete truth a secret even this long-but the time wasn't yet. Surely not... especially when her hands were telling her that in the next few days she would not be able to think about much of anything at all except them.

The phone began to ring. That would be Alan, back from patrol and checking in with her. Polly got up and crossed the room to it. She picked it up carefully, using both hands, ready to tell him the things she believed he wanted to hear. Aunt Evvie's voice tried to intrude, tried to tell her this was bad behavior, childishly self-indulgent behavior, perhaps even dangerous behavior. Polly pushed that voice aside quickly and roughly.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said brightly. "Oh, hi, Alan! How are you? Good."

She listened briefly, then smiled. If she had looked at her reflection in the hallway mirror, she would have seen a woman who appeared to be screaming... but she did not look.

"Fine, Alan," she said. "I'm just fine."

14.