eight thousand tickets to Magyck! during the first three months of its run. Then at one o’clock the entire cast and the crew would assemble for the final dress rehearsal.
She fluffed her pillows, rearranged the covers, and tugged at the short nightgown in which she slept. She tried to relax by closing her eyes and envisioning a gentle night tide lapping at a silvery beach.
Thump!
She sat straight up in bed.
Something had fallen over in another part of the house. It must have been a large object because, though muffled by the intervening walls, the sound was loud enough to rouse her.
Whatever it had been . . . it hadn’t simply fallen. It had been knocked over. Heavy objects didn’t just fall of their own accord in deserted rooms.
She cocked her head, listening closely. Another and softer sound followed the first. It didn’t last long enough for Tina to identify the source, but there was a stealthiness about it. This time she hadn’t been imagining a threat. Someone actually was in the house.
As she sat up in bed, she switched on the lamp. She pulled open the nightstand drawer. The pistol was loaded. She flicked off the two safety catches.
For a while she listened.
In the brittle silence of the desert night, she imagined that she could sense an intruder listening too, listening for her.
She got out of bed and stepped into her slippers. Holding the gun in her right hand, she went quietly to the bedroom door.
She considered calling the police, but she was afraid of making a fool of herself. What if they came, lights flashing and sirens screaming—and found no one? If she had summoned the police every time that she imagined hearing a prowler in the house during the past two weeks, they would have decided long ago that she was scramble-brained. She was proud, unable to bear the thought of appearing to be hysterical to a couple of macho cops who would grin at her and, later over doughnuts and coffee, make jokes about her. She would search the house herself, alone.
Pointing the pistol at the ceiling, she jacked a bullet into the chamber. Taking a deep breath, she unlocked the bedroom door and eased into the hall.
2
TINA SEARCHED THE ENTIRE HOUSE, EXCEPT FOR Danny’s old room, but she didn’t find an intruder. She almost would have preferred to discover someone lurking in the kitchen or crouching in a closet rather than be forced to look, at last, in that final space where sadness seemed to dwell like a tenant. Now she had no choice.
A little more than a year before he had died, Danny had begun sleeping at the opposite end of the small house from the master bedroom, in what had once been the den. Not long after his tenth birthday, the boy had asked for more space and privacy than was provided by his original, tiny quarters. Michael and Tina had helped him move his belongings to the den, then had shifted the couch, armchair, coffee table, and television from the den into the quarters the boy had previously occupied.
At the time, Tina was certain that Danny was aware of the nightly arguments she and Michael were having in their own bedroom, which was next to his, and that he wanted to move into the den so he wouldn’t be able to hear them bickering. She and Michael hadn’t yet begun to raise their voices to each other; their disagreements had been conducted in normal tones, sometimes even in whispers, yet Danny probably had heard enough to know they were having problems.
She had been sorry that he’d had to know, but she hadn’t said a word to him; she’d offered no explanations, no reassurances. For one thing, she hadn’t known what she could say. She certainly couldn’t share with him her appraisal of the situation: Danny, sweetheart, don’t worry about anything you might have heard through the wall. Your father is only suffering an identity crisis. He’s been acting like an ass lately, but he’ll get over it. And that was another reason she didn’t attempt to explain her and Michael’s problems to Danny—she thought that their estrangement was only temporary. She loved her husband, and she was sure that the sheer power of her love would restore the luster to their marriage. Six months later she and Michael separated, and less than five months after the separation, they were divorced.
Now, anxious to complete her search for the burglar— who was beginning to look as imaginary as all the other burglars she had stalked on other nights—she opened the door to Danny’s bedroom. She switched on the lights and stepped inside.
No one.
Holding the pistol in front of her, she approached the closet, hesitated, then slid the door back. No one was hiding there, either. In spite of what she had heard, she was alone in the house.
As she stared at the contents of the musky closet—the boy’s shoes, his jeans, dress slacks, shirts, sweaters, his blue Dodgers’ baseball cap, the small blue suit he had worn on special occasions—a lump rose in her throat. She quickly slid the door shut and put her back against it.
Although the funeral had been more than a year ago, she had not yet been able to dispose of Danny’s belongings. Somehow, the act of giving away his clothes would be even sadder and more final than watching his casket being lowered into the ground.
His clothes weren’t the only things that she had kept: His entire room was exactly as he had left it. The bed was properly made, and several science-fiction-movie action figures were posed on the deep headboard. More than a hundred paperbacks were ranked alphabetically on a five-shelf bookcase. His desk occupied one corner; tubes of glue,
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