The Bookseller(44)

“I thought it was you. Delightful to see you.” She smiles at Michael. “And how are you today?”

He looks at the floor and mumbles.

The woman looks back at me. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, loudly and dramatically. “I never know what I’m meant to—”

“I can hear you!” Michael yells at the top of his voice. “I can hear you, I can hear you. I—can—hear—YOU!”

During this outburst, he continues staring at the floor. Carts stop in the aisle; heads turn in our direction.

“It’s okay,” I say, getting down to his level. “The river,” I say frantically, remembering what Lars did. “The river, the river, Michael . . .”

“You’re not saying it right!” He breaks away from me and tears down the aisle, knocking over a display of on-sale Wheaties cereal boxes as he turns the corner. He bolts for the door.

“Oh, my, I’m—” Without finishing, I rush out of the store, leaving my cart in the middle of the aisle.

Cars screech as Michael runs headlong through the parking lot. I expect him to run toward our station wagon, but he goes in the opposite direction. He is astonishingly fast; I would not have expected that of him. I would have thought him too weak and clumsy to be much of an athlete, but his legs seem to have taken on a life of their own. Terrified, I get in the car and drive toward him, praying that no vehicle will hit him before I get there. I cut him off and he almost slams into the front bumper of the Chevy. I get out, grab him by the arm, and drag him into the car. He is screaming incoherently, and I pray for the dream to end. I buckle him into his seat, hoping he won’t know how to unbuckle it. I lock the passenger-side door and scoot around the car. Sliding in on the driver’s side, I slam the door shut and pull out of the parking lot.

Having a pretty good sense of where I am now, I make my way home to Springfield Street. Though the drive is short, these are among the worst minutes of my life—real or imagined. The screaming is fever-pitched; I cannot hear myself think, and my head is pounding by the time we pull into the driveway. This has got to end soon, I think. I’m going to wake up any second now.

But I don’t. I turn off the car’s engine and wait to see what Michael will do. He continues to scream. There are no words, just high-pitched screeches issuing from his lungs. I don’t know whether to try to bring him inside or leave him here until he calms down.

While I am thinking about it, the front door opens and Alma appears, pulling her arms into her coat sleeves. I open the car window and lean out. “Se?ora Andersson,” Alma says. “?Estás bien?”

I can feel tears welling in my eyes. “I’m just fine,” I say. “Just dandy.” I glance over at Michael. “Please tell me how to make him stop,” I beg Alma.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Se?ora, I do not know,” she says starkly. “You know that you do not let me near el ni?o.”

I don’t? Whyever not?

“Well, then,” I say, opening my car door and standing next to her in the drive. “If he were your child, what would you do?”

She shrugs. “I guess I do what Se?or Andersson does.”

“The river song, you mean? I tried that, and he didn’t like it.”

“Did you . . .” She wraps her arms around herself. “?Abrazarlo? Hold him?”

“I was afraid to touch him!”

“Se?or Andersson . . . se?ora, I know you are not comfortable doing it, but Se?or Andersson holds him.”

Damn right I’m not comfortable.

She shakes her head. “Se?ora, the iron is on inside. Por favor, I go back in?”

I nod. “Yes, Alma, go on.”

“You want me llamar por teléfono Se?or Andersson?”

I take a second to think about that. Do I want her to telephone Lars? Do I want to admit to him—even if all of this is imaginary—that I cannot handle it myself?

“No,” I say slowly. “No, thank you. Gracias, Alma.”

She goes inside.

Wobbly on my heels, I walk around the car to Michael’s side. I use the key to unlock the door, but before I open it, I tap on the window. “Michael, honey, can you hear me?”

Rapid-fire, with astonishing strength, he pounds his small fists against the window. I am almost afraid he’ll break the glass. He may be undersize, but I realize now that that doesn’t mean he’s weak. I open the door and lean in toward him.

He keeps pounding, but now instead of the window, he begins hitting me. I step back, rubbing my upper arm. How am I expected to hold him, when any time I come near him, he lashes out at me?

Finally I go around to the driver’s side of the car. Quickly, before he can hit me more than a few times, I reach in and unbuckle his seat belt.

“You want to scream, stay out here and scream as long as you want,” I tell him. “But the seat belt is undone and the door is open if you want to come in.”

And then, letting the screams subside behind me, I go into the house, leaving the front door standing wide open.


Alma is ironing in the living room, the television tuned to Guiding Light. She looks up when I enter. Neither of us says anything.

I go down the hall to Lars’s office. I make a beeline for the bar and pour myself a sizable glass of whiskey. Taking it to the kitchen, I add water and ice, and then stir my drink with a clean butter knife that I find in the dish rack. I brush past Alma and stand in front of the picture window, waiting to see what Michael will do.