There was a click, the hum of an open line, then a robot voice saying “Nine-forty A.M. . Eastern Daylight. . July. . twentieth.” John punched U pounds T, collected his tape, and stored it back in his briefcase.

“I hung up on her.” He sounded like a man telling you about his first skydive. “I actually did. She was mad, wasn’t she? Wouldn’t you say she was seriously pissed?”

“Yeah.” It was what he wanted to hear but not what I really believed.

Pissed, yes. Seriously pissed? Maybe not. Because Mattie’s location and state of mind hadn’t been her concern; Rogette had called to talk to me.

To tell me she was thinking of me. To bring back memories of how it felt to tread water with the back of your head gushing blood. To freak me out. And she had succeeded.

“What was the question you didn’t answer?” John asked me.

“I don’t know what she meant by that,” I said, “but I can tell you why hearing her turned me a little white in the gills. If you can be discreet, and if you want to hear.”

“We’ve got eighteen miles to cover; lay it on me.”

I told him about Friday night. I didn’t clutter my version with visions or psychic phenomena; there was just Michael Noonan out for a sunset walk along The Street. I’d been standing by a birch tree which hung over the lake, watching the sun drop toward the mountains, when they came up behind me. From the point where Devore charged me with his wheelchair to the point where I finally got back onto solid ground, I stuck pretty much to the truth.

When I finished, John was at first utterly silent. It was a measure of how thrown for a loop he was; under normal circumstances he was every bit the chatterbox Ki was.

“Well?” I asked. “Comments? Questions?”

“Lift your hair so I can see behind your ear.”

I did as he asked, revealing a big Band-Aid and a large area of swelling. John leaned forward to study it like a little kid observing his best friend’s battle-scar during recess. “Holy shit,” he said at last.

It was my turn to say nothing.

“Those two old fucks tried to drown you.”

I said nothing.

“They tried to drown you for helping Mattie.” Now I really said nothing.

“And you never reported it?”

“I started to,” I said, “then realized I’d make myself look like a whiny little asshole. And a liar, most likely.”

“How much do you think Osgood might know?”

“About them trying to drown me? Nothing. He’s just a messenger boy.”

A little more of that unusual quiet from John. After a few seconds of it he reached out and touched the lump on the back of my head. “Ow!”

“Sorry.” A pause. “Jesus. Then he went back to Warrington’s and pulled the pin. Jesus. Michael, I never would have played that tape if I’d known—”

“It’s all right. But don’t even think of telling Mattie. I’m wearing my hair over my ear like that for a reason.”

“Will you ever tell her, do you think?”

“I might. Some day when he’s been dead long enough so we can laugh about me swimming with my clothes on.”

“That might be awhile,” he said. “Yeah. It might.”

We drove in silence for a bit. I could sense John groping for a way to bring the day back to jubilation, and loved him for it. He leaned forward, turned on the radio, and found something loud and nasty by Guns ’n Roses—welcome to the jungle, baby, we got fun and games. “Party ’til we puke,” he said. “Right?”

I grinned. It wasn’t easy with the sound of the old woman’s voice still clinging to me like light slime, but I managed. “If you insist,” I said.

“I do,” he said. “Most certainly.”

“John, you’re a good guy for a lawyer.”

“And you’re a good one for a writer.”

This time the grin on my face felt more natural and stayed on longer. We passed the marker reading TR-90, and as we did, the sun burned through the haze and flooded the day with light. It seemed like an omen of better times ahead, until I looked into the west. There, black in the bright, I could see the thunderheads building up over the White Mountains.

For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand. Very few—perhaps one in twenty—have any concept of what it really is or how deep it runs. That’s probably just as well for their sleep and peace of mind. And I’m not talking about the lust of satyrs and rapists and molesters; I’m talking about the lust of shoe-clerks and high-school principals.

Not to mention writers and lawyers.

We turned into Mattie’s dooryard at ten to eleven, and as I parked my Chevy beside her rusted-out Jeep, the trailer door opened and Mat-tie came out on the top step. I sucked in my breath, and beside me I could hear John sucking in his.

She was very likely the most beautiful young woman I have ever seen in my life as she stood there in her rose-colored shorts and matching middy top. The shorts were not short enough to be cheap (my mother’s word) but plenty short enough to be provocative. Her top tied in floppy string bows across the shoulders and showed just enough tan to dream on. Her hair hung to her shoulders. She was smiling and waving. I thought, She’s made it—take her into the country-club dining room now, dressed just as she is, and she shuts everyone else down. “Oh Lordy,” John said. There was a kind of dismayed longing in his voice. “All that and a bag of chips.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Put your eyes back in your head, big boy.” He made cupping motions with his hands as if doing just that.

George, meanwhile, had pulled his Altima in next to us. “Come on,” I said, opening my door. “Time to party.”

“I can’t touch her, Mike,” John said. “I’ll melt.”

“Come on, you goof.” Mattie came down the steps and past the pot with the tomato plant in it. Ki was behind her, dressed in an outfit similar to her mother’s, only in a shade of dark green. She had the shys again, I saw; she kept one steadying hand on Mattie’s leg and one thumb in her mouth. “The guys are here! The guys are here!”

Mattie cried, laughing, and threw herself into my arms. She hugged me tight and kissed the corner of my mouth. I hugged her back and kissed her cheek. Then she moved on to John, read his shirt, patted her hands together in applause, and then hugged him. He hugged back pretty well for a guy who was afraid he might melt, I thought, picking her up off her feet and swinging her around in a circle while she hung onto his neck and laughed. “Rich lady, rich lady, rich lady!” John chanted, then set her down on the cork soles of her white shoes. “Free lady, free lady, free lady!” she chanted back. “The hell with rich!” Before he could reply, she kissed him firmly on the mouth. His arms rose to slip around her, but she stepped back before they could catch hold. She turned to Rommie and George, who were standing side-by-side and looking like fellows who might want to explain all about the Mormon Church. I took a step forward, meaning to do the introductions, but John was taking care of that, and one of his arms managed to accomplish its mission after all—it circled her waist as he led her forward toward the men.

Meanwhile a little hand slipped into mine. I looked down and saw Ki looking up at me. Her face was grave and pale and every bit as beautiful as her mother’s. Her blonde hair, freshly washed and shining, was held back with a velvet scrunchy.

D/k. k… /ldk… /INIZD “Guess the fridgeafator people don’t like me now,” she said. The laughter and insouciance were gone, at least for the moment. She looked on the verge of tears. “My letters all went bye-bye.” I picked her up and set her in the crook of my arm as I had on the day I’d met her walking down the middle of Route 68 in her bathing suit. I kissed her forehead and then the tip of her nose. Her skin was perfect silk. “I know they did,” I said. “I’ll buy you some more.”

“Promise?” Doubtful dark blue eyes fixed on mine. “Promise. And I’ll teach you special words like zygote and bibulous. I know lots of special words.”