How much to say? The truth, as much as it was fair to tell someone as young and innocent as Stevie. "I was mad, but mostly at myself, because I didn't protect Betsy well enough. And also I was afraid, because we came so close to something bad happening."
"What?" asked Stevie. "What bad thing?"
"There are people in the world who do bad things to children," said Step. "People like that are the worst people in the world. Jesus said that if any man harmed a child, it would be better for him if he tied a millstone around his neck and threw himself in the sea. And if you think somebody like that might hurt your child, well, it makes you really angry and afraid."
Stevie nodded. "Yeah," he said.
"But nothing bad happened, OK? I was just upset because I thought maybe we came close to having something bad happen, that's all."
"Sometimes the bad things really do happen," said Stevie.
"Yes, I guess they do," said Step. "But if I can help it, it'll never happen to any child of mine."
"I know," said Stevie. "You and Mom are really good." He turned and went back to his room.
This was the most Stevie had said to him about anything since the y moved to Steuben. He couldn't wait for DeAnne to get through bathing Betsy so he could tell her.
But when DeAnne came into the room Step had fallen asleep. He didn't get to tell her what Stevie had said until late that night, when they were in bed together, and when he told her what Stevie said at the end she nestled closer to Step and said, "Maybe we are pretty good parents, Junk Man. At least we're not Ray Keene or his wife."
That was why Step got back to thinking about Ray Keene, and realizing that Ray almost certainly knew about Glass's predilections, and yet he kept him around Eight Bits Inc., and hired other people to work with him, people for whom Glass would certainly offer to babysit, and Ray said not one word to help other people protect their children. Now, maybe Ray didn't really know, maybe it was just coincidence that he didn't let his wife hire Glass to babysit Allison anymore. But maybe Ray did know, and just didn't tell anybody because he needed Glass too much, needed Scribe 64 too much to risk losing the strange sick boy- man who had created it for him.
Dr. Weeks didn't come to the door of her office anymore when Stevie's hour was up. He pushed the heavy wooden door open by himself, and came out, looking-or so it seemed to DeAnne --smaller every time he did.
She really is shrinking him in there, she thought. Yet Stevie never complained about going and never talked afterward about what went on. It was as if it didn't really happen to him, or as if it was something not important enough to be discussed.
On Monday, the eighteenth of July, DeAnne got the kids home from the psychiatrist's office and let Robbie and Elizabeth run out into the back yard to play, while she and Stevie got the mail.
She headed for the side door that led from the carport into the laundry room and then to the kitchen- it was the door they always used. But Stevie called to her. "Mom, there's a package at the front door!"
In fact, it wasn't a package at all. It was a manila envelope. It had been mailed, but the postman had left it at the door, probably because it had a rubber stamp on it, DO NOT BEND, and there would have been no way to get it into the mailbox without bending it. It had a Steuben postmark, but no return address, and the mailing label had been neatly typed: "S tephen & Diane Fletcher, 4404 Chinqua Penn, Steuben, N.C."
No zip, and while they had got Stephen's name right, DeAnne's was wrong. Usually people either got both right or got both wrong. It probably meant it was from someone who knew Step and not her. Or from someone who wanted to peeve her and not Step! Why was someone careful enough to get it stamped DO NOT BEND
and then careless enough not to include a return address?
Stevie came into the house with her, and as she opened the mail at the kitchen table she heard him start up the Atari. It bothered her that he didn't go outside enough, even though it was summer. He was spending altogether too much time at the computer. It was probably time for her and Step to institute time limits on computer games just as they had for television. An hour a day-that wasn't unreasonable. And then let Stevie find something else to do. Something healthier, something that would get him out in the sun. He looked downright pallid compared to Robbie and Elizabeth, who were getting quite a golden glow, with nice highlights in their hair.
Most of the mail was ordinary. She set aside the letter from the mortgage company in Indiana- it could only be bad news, and it could wait. Then she opened the anonymous manila envelope.
Inside was a 45-rpm record, and nothing else. It was by a group DeAnne was only vaguely aware of. She really didn't follow rock music, not the way Step did. But she did enjoy watching the new videos now and then.
Cable had MTV here in Steuben, the way they had in Vigor, and she left the TV tuned to that channel sometimes while she worked. She liked the "Billy Jean" video--the lighting sidewalk appealed to her. But that one where Michael Jackson became a monster had scared the children and she had stopped just leaving MTV on when the kids were up. Still, she was aware of rock music, however vaguely. She must have seen something by the Police before.
They never bought forty- fives, and so DeAnne had no idea where she could find one of those little plastic doodads you had to put in the middle of them to play them on the stereo. It had to be somewhere near the stereo.
They certainly wouldn't have thrown it away-throwing things away was not their problem.
There was a knock at the back door, the one that led from the family room into the back yard. It was Robbie. "Can we have the sprinkler?"
"OK," said DeAnne. "Come on in, both of you, and get into your swimsuits."
Elizabeth trooped in after Robbie with an exaggerated lope. Giant steps. "Pink-er, pink-er, pink-er," she chanted. It took a moment to realize that Elizabeth was saying "sprinkler." Why it had become a chant, and what it had to do with taking great galumphing steps through the family room, DeAnne could not begin to guess. It was the great mystery of childhood-what they thought they were doing when they did such weird things.
Of course, that was also the great mystery of adulthood.
Then DeAnne glanced down at the stereo and saw immediately what she had missed before: the 45-rpm adapter was built into the turntable.
She got the record from the kitchen table and slipped it onto the adapter and turned on the stereo and set the needle on the record. It sounded like big dumb lummoxes singing lumberjack songs. She lifted the needle, changed the speed to 45, and set the needle down again. Now it was a rock song.
It was a strange kind of love song. No matter what the woman did, the man would be there watching her. It didn't sound like he loved her, either. Or even liked her. It talked about her faking smiles, staking claims, breaking promises. And the rhyming was relentless. "Every cake you bake," she thought, and almost laughed.
"Every child you wake. Every thirst you slake. Every duck and drake. Every well-done steak." Amazing the number of words in English that rhymed with take. The songwriter had barely scratched the surface.
Then it didn't seem funny anymore. Because somebody had sent that record to them anonymously. Why would they do that? They wanted to send a message. And what was the message? That no matter what they did, somebody would be watching.
She went around the house, checking the locks on all the doors. In the meantime the record had ended. She came back into the family room and started it over. After just a few notes of the song, she lifted the needle and turned off the stereo. Step would play it tonight, and that would be plenty.