'Everything's fine there,' he said. 'Roger got the last Cereal Professor commercial on the rails single-handed ... with Rob Martin's help, of course. Now we're involved in a major new campaign for the whole Sharp line.' Half a lie; Roger was involved.
Vic went in three, sometimes four days a week, and either pushed his pencil around or looked at his typewriter. 'But the Sharp people are being very careful to make sure that none of what we're doing
will go beyond the two-year period we signed for. Roger was right.
They're going to dump us. But by then it won't matter if they do.'
'Good,' she said. She had bright periods now, periods when she seemed very much like her old self, but she was still listless most of the time. She had lost twenty pounds and looked scrawny. Her complexion was not very good. Her nails were ragged.
She looked at the TV for a while and then turned to him. She was crying.
'Donna,' he said. 'Oh babe.' He put his arms around her and held her. She was soft but unyielding to his arms. Through the softness he could feel the angles of her bones in too many places.
'Can we live here?' she managed in an unsteady voice. 'Vic, can we live here?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'I think we ought to give it a damned good shot.'
'Maybe I should ask if you can go on living with me. If you said no, I'd understand. I'd understand perfectly.'
'I don't want anything else but to live with you. I knew that all along, I think. Maybe there was an hour - right after I got Kemp's note - when I didn't know. But that was the only time.
Donna, I love you. I always have.
Now she put her arms around him and hugged him tight. Soft summer rain struck the windows and made gray and black shadow patterns on the floor.
'I couldn't save him,' she said. 'That's what keeps coming back on me. I can't get rid of it. I go over it again ... and again . . . and again. If I'd run for the porch sooner ... or gotten the baseball bat. .
.'She swallowed. 'And when I finally did get up the guts to go out there, it was just ... over. He was dead.'
He could have reminded her that she'd had Tad's welfare in mind above her own all the time. That the reason she hadn't gone for the door was because of what would have happened to Tad if the dog had gotten to her before she could get inside. He could have told her that the siege had probably weakened the dog as much as it had Donna herself, and if she had tried Cujo with the baseball bat earlier on, the outcome might have been terribly different; as it was, the dog had almost killed her in the end. But he understood that these points had been brought to her attention again and again, by himself and by others, and that not all the logic in the world could blunt the pain of coming upon that mute pile of coloring books, or seeing the swing, empty and motionless at the bottom of its arc, in the back yard. Logic could not blunt her terrible sense of personal failure. Only time could do those things, and time would do an imperfect job.
He said, 'I couldn't save him either.'
'You –‘
'I was so sure it was Kemp. If I'd gone up there earlier, if I hadn't fallen asleep, even if I hadn't talked to Roger on the phone.'
'No,' she said gently. 'Don't.'
'I have to. I guess you do too. We'll just have to get along. That's what people do, you know? They just get along. And try to help each other.'
'I keep feeling him sensing him ... around every comer.'
'Yeah. Me too.'
He and Roger had taken all of Tad's toys to the Salvation Army two Saturdays ago. When it was done, they had come back here and had a few beers in front of the ballgame, not talking much.
And when Roger went home, Vic went upstairs and sat on the bed in Tad's room and wept until it seemed the weeping would pull all
his insides apart. He wept and wanted to die but he hadn't died and the next day he had gone back to work.
'Make us some coffee,' he said, and slapped her lightly on the rump. 'I'll light a fire. Chilly in here.'
'All right.' She got up. 'Vic?'
'What?'
Her throat worked. 'I love you too.'
'Thanks,' he said. 'I think I needed that.'
She smiled wanly and went to make the coffee. And they got through the evening, although Tad was still dead. They got through the next day as well. And the next. It was not much better at the end of August, nor in September, but by the time the leaves had turned and began to fall, it was a little better. A little.
She was wired with tension and trying not to show it.
When Brett came back from the barn, knocked the snow from his boots, and let himself in the kitchen door, she was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea. For a moment he only looked at her, He had lost some weight and had grown taller in the last six months. The total effect was to make him look gangling, where he had always before seemed compact and yet lithe. His grades during the first quarter hadn't been so good, and he had been in trouble twice - scuffles in the schoolyard both times, probably over what had happened this last summer. But his second-quarter marks had been a lot better.
'Mom? Momma? Is it –‘
'Alva brought him over,' she said. She set the teacup on the saucer carefully, and it did not chatter. 'No law says you have to keep him.'
'Has he had his shots?' Brett asked, and her heart broke a little that this should be his first question.
'As a matter of fact, he has,' she said. 'Alva tried to slip that over on me, but I made him show me the Yet's bill. Nine dollars, it was.
Distemper and rabies. Also, there's a tube of cream for ticks and ear mites. If you don't want him, Alva will give me my nine dollars back.'
Money had become important to them. For a little bit she hadn't been sure if they would be able to keep the place, or even if they should try to keep it. She had talked it over with Brett, being level with him. There had been a small life insurance policy. Mr.
