Later(42)

Old days.

I took the stairs and let myself in to find Mom had dragged her home office chair up to the living room window, where she was reading and drinking coffee. “I was just about to call you,” she said, and then, looking down, “Oh my God, that’s a new pair of jeans!”

“Sorry,” I said. “Maybe you can patch them up.”

“I have many skills, but sewing isn’t one of them. I’ll take them to Mrs. Abelson at Dandy Cleaners. What did you have for lunch?”

“A burger. With lettuce and tomato.”

“Is that true?”

“I cannot tell a lie,” I said, and of course that made me think of Therriault, and I gave a little shiver.

“Let me see your arm. Come over here where I can get a good look.” I came over and displayed my battle scar. “No need of a Band-Aid, I guess, but you need to put on some Neosporin.”

“Okay if I watch ESPN after I do that?”

“It would be if we had electricity. Why do you think I’m reading at the window instead of at my desk?”

“Oh. That must be why the elevator isn’t working.”

“Your powers of deduction stun me, Holmes.” This was one of my mom’s literary jokes. She has dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. “It’s just our building. Mr. Provenza says something blew out all the breakers. Some kind of power surge. He said he’s never seen anything like it. He’s going to try to get it fixed by tonight, but I’ve got an idea we’ll be running on candles and flashlights once it gets dark.”

Therriault, I thought, but of course it wasn’t. It was the deadlight thing that was now inhabiting Therriault. It blew the light fixture, it opened some of the mailboxes, and it fried the circuit breakers for good measure when it left.

I went into the bathroom to get the Neosporin. It was pretty dark in there, so I flipped the light switch. Habit’s a bitch, isn’t it? I sat on the sofa to spread antibiotic goo on my scrape, looking at the blank TV and wondering how many circuit breakers there were in an apartment building the size of ours, and how much power it would take to cook them all.

I could whistle for that thing. And if I did, would it come to the lad named Jamie Conklin? That was a lot of power for a kid who wouldn’t even be able to get a driver’s license for another three years.

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Do you think I’m old enough to have a girlfriend?”

“No, dear.” Without looking up from her manuscript.

“When will I be old enough?”

“How does twenty-five sound?”

She started laughing and I laughed with her. Maybe, I thought, when I was twenty-five or so I’d summon Therriault and ask him to bring me a glass of water. But on second thought, anything it brought might be poison. Maybe, just for shits and giggles, I’d ask it to stand on its Therriault head, do a split, maybe walk on the ceiling. Or I could let it go. Tell it to get buzzin’, cousin. Of course I didn’t have to wait until I was twenty-five, I could do that anytime. Only I didn’t want to. Let it be my prisoner for awhile. That nasty, horrible light reduced to little more than a firefly in a jar. See how it liked that.

The electricity came back on at ten o’clock, and all was right with the world.





45


On Sunday, Mom proposed a visit to Professor Burkett to see how he was doing and to retrieve the casserole dish. “Also, we could bring him some croissants from Haber’s.”

I said that sounded good. She gave him a call and he said he’d love to see us, so we walked to the bakery and then hailed a cab. My mother refused to use Uber. She said they weren’t New York. Taxis were New York.

I guess the miracle of healing goes on even when you’re old, because Professor Burkett was down to only one cane and moving pretty well. Not apt to be running in the NYC Marathon again (if he ever had), but he gave Mom a hug at the door and I wasn’t afraid he was going to face-plant when he shook my hand. He gave me a keen look, I gave him a slight nod, and he smiled. We understood each other.

Mom bustled around, setting out the croissants and pats of butter and the tiny pots of jam that came with them. We ate in the kitchen with the mid-morning sun slanting in. It was a nice little meal. When we were done, Mom transferred the remains of the casserole (which was most of it; I guess old folks don’t eat much) to a Tupperware and washed her dish. She set it to dry and then excused herself to use the bathroom.

As soon as she was gone, Professor Burkett leaned across the table. “What happened?”

“He was in the foyer when I came out of the elevator yesterday. I didn’t think about it, just rushed forward and grabbed him.”

“He was there? This Therriault? You saw him? Felt him?” Still half-convinced it was all in my mind, you know. I could see it on his face, and really, who could blame him?

“Yeah. But it’s not Therriault, not anymore. The thing inside, it’s a light, tried to get away but I held on. It was scary, but I knew it would be bad for me if I let go. Finally, when it saw that Therriault was fading out, it—”

“Fading out? What do you mean?”

The toilet flushed. Mom wouldn’t come back until she’d washed her hands, but that wouldn’t take long.

“I told it what you told me to say, Professor. That if I whistled, it had to come to me. That it was my turn to haunt it. It agreed. I made it say it out loud, and it did.”