Hearts in Atlantis(62)

'Put the belt in your mouth.'

She put it between her lips.

'Bite when it hurts.'

'When it hurts.'

'Catch the pain.'

'I'll catch it.'

Ted gave a final stroke of his big forefinger from her elbow to her wrist, then looked at Bobby. 'Wish me luck,' he said.

'Luck,' Bobby replied fervently.

Distant, dreaming, Carol Gerber said: 'Bobby threw a duck at a man.'

'Did he?' Ted asked. Very, very gently he closed his left hand around Carol's left wrist.

'Bobby thought the man was a low man.'

Ted glanced at Bobby.

'Not that kind of low man,' Bobby said. 'Just . . . oh, never mind.'

'All the same,' Ted said, 'they are very close. The town clock, the town whistle - '

'I heard,' Bobby said grimly.

'I'm not going to wait until your mother comes back tonight -I don't dare. I'll spend the day in a movie or a park or somewhere else. If all else fails there are flophouses in Bridgeport. Carol, are you ready?'

'Ready.'

'When the pain rises, what will you do?'

'Catch it. Bite it into Bobby's belt.'

'Good girl. Ten seconds and you are going to feel a lot better.'

Ted drew in a deep breath. Then he reached out with his right hand until it hovered just above the lilac-colored bulge in Carol's shoulder. 'Here comes the pain, darling. Be brave.'

It wasn't ten seconds; not even five. To Bobby it seemed to happen in an instant. The heel of Ted's right hand pressed directly against that knob rising out of Carol's stretched flesh. At the same time he pulled sharply on her wrist. Carol's jaws flexed as she clamped down on Bobby's belt. Bobby heard a brief creaking sound, like the one his neck sometimes made when it was stiff and he turned his head. And then the bulge in Carol's arm was gone.

'Bingo!' Ted cried. 'Looks good! Carol?'

She opened her mouth. Bobby's belt fell out of it and onto her lap. Bobby saw a line of tiny points embedded in the leather; she had bitten nearly all the way through.

'It doesn't hurt anymore,' she said wonderingly. She ran her right hand up to where the skin was now turning a darker purple, touched the bruise, winced.

'That'll be sore for a week or so,' Ted warned her. 'And you mustn't throw or lift with that arm for at least two weeks. If you do, it may pop out again.'

'I'll be careful.' Now Carol could look at her arm. She kept touching the bruise with light, testing fingers.

'How much of the pain did you catch?' Ted asked her, and although his face was still grave, Bobby thought he could hear a little smile in his voice.

'Most of it,' she said. 'It hardly hurt at all.' As soon as these words were out, however, she slumped back in the chair. Her eyes were open but unfocused. Carol had fainted for the second time.

Ted told Bobby to wet a cloth and bring it to him. 'Cold water,' he said. 'Wring it out, but not too much.'

Bobby ran into the bathroom, got a facecloth from the shelf by the tub, and wet it in cold water. The bottom half of the bathroom window was frosted glass, but if he had looked out the top half he would have seen his mother's taxi pulling up out front. Bobby didn't look; he was concentrating on his chore. He never thought of the green keyfob, either, although it was lying on the shelf right in front of his eyes.

When Bobby came back into the living room, Ted was sitting in the straight-backed chair with Carol in his lap again. Bobby noticed how tanned her arms had already become compared to the rest of her skin, which was a pure, smooth white (except for where the bruises stood out). She looks like she's wearing nylon stockings on her arms, he thought, a little amused. Her eyes had begun to clear and they tracked Bobby when he moved toward her, but Carol still didn't look exactly great - her hair was mussed, her face was all sweaty, and there was that drying trickle of blood between her nostril and the corner of her mouth.

Ted took the cloth and began to wipe her cheeks and forehead with it. Bobby knelt by the arm of the chair. Carol sat up a little, raising her face gratefully against the cool and the wet. Ted wiped away the blood under her nose, then put the facecloth aside on the endtable. He brushed Carol's sweaty hair off her brow. When some of it flopped back, he moved his hand to brush it away again.

Before he could, the door to the porch banged open. Footfalls crossed the foyer. The hand on Carol's damp forehead froze. Bobby's eyes met Ted's and a single thought flowed between them, strong telepathy consisting of a single word: Them.

'No,' Carol said, 'not them, Bobby, it's your m - '

The apartment door opened and Liz stood there with her key in one hand and her hat - the one with the veil on it - in the other. Behind her and beyond the foyer the door to all the hot outside world stood open. Side by side on the porch welcome mat were her two suitcases, where the cab driver had put them.

'Bobby, how many times have I told you to lock this damn - '

She got that far, then stopped. In later years Bobby would replay that moment again and again, seeing more and more of what his mother had seen when she came back from her disastrous trip to Providence: her son kneeling by the chair where the old man she had never liked or really trusted sat with the little girl in his lap. The little girl looked dazed. Her hair was in sweaty clumps. Her blouse had been torn off - it lay in pieces on the floor - and even with her own eyes puffed mostly shut, Liz would have seen Carol's bruises: one on the shoulder, one on the ribs, one on the stomach.