funnier, sadder, more menacing and intricate, than it did to others.
All of this had been observable from the beginning.
"See the dog, Paul"; Paul understood at once.
"Say dog," "Spell dog"; Paul did it first. So far, so good. Paul McVeigh was as superior as his
forebears would have expected (and they were very WASP forebears). How bright-eyed,
how interested, how quick. Yet Paul also saw terrible terrors in the most familiar shadows.
And he felt things that were not entirely warranted-more grief than a dead bird demanded,
more beauty and grandeur than a winter night's sky possessed. His sensitivity, in short,
went beyond the useful to the useless and to the harmful itself.
Growing up, Paul had assumed that everyone else felt exactly as he did, saw the exact
same things he did. The difference was that-c-somehow-c-everyone else seemed to control
themselves better. The question of why puzzled him very much. Why shouldn't they twitch
and cry out, too?
Later, of course-now he was thirteen-Paul decided this wasn't true. They didn't understand
and never would. He was a stranger in the world. See simple, act simple, home free-that
was the way of the world after all. To Paul alone fell the struggle of controlling an
uncontrollable self.
Dianne, for example, could come home from a day like today at the Adams' house and
help around the kitchen obediently and unconcernedly. To look at her, an outsider would
conclude that it had been merely another day among many.
Paul, on the other hand, appeared at the dinner table still flushed and trembling with
inexpressible -and they had better be inexpressible-thoughts of the hours just past. The
transgression of the children against adulthood, the possibilities of the Barbara game
yet to come, the inescapable punishment, before which he writhed in anticipation, were
burned more than vividly upon his mind. He dropped his fork in his plate-a splash; he
knocked over his iced tea; he sniffed and twitched and stared into space; he heard no
words when he was spoken to. At length, sent from the table by parents embarrassed
by his bad manners (for themselves), he stomped to his room and sat in furious con-
fusion, half over the events of the day and half over his rage at the world. When Dianne
looked in to say, "Be careful now, don't give anything away," he jumped up and shouted
nearly in tears, "Get out of here! Leave me alone!" And even this wasn't the end of it. ·
He was dreaming (oddly enough, he knew this but could not break the hold 'of the
dream). One of the grown-ups said that he had seen big fish, and Paul went to the river
by the Adams' to look, except that the river was huge-at least a mile wide-and its color
was crystal and clear and green as morning air. Watching from the beach, which fell like
a cliff into the well-lit depths, Paul saw unimaginable shapes moving in the deep shad-
ows at the bottom. Then, gradually, these rose to the middle depths, and he recognized
whales and sharks and barracuda among the undulating currents. Terrified, dis-
believing, yet drawn helplessly to look, he knelt down on his knees in wet sand to see
better. Then-again it was instant-he was out in the water itself, yards from shore, and
beneath him were the horrible fish coming up from the black at the bottom of the clear.
Now there was no shore anymore, and he looked around and
46
floundered helplessly as he sank toward the dark fish. He screamed, even underwater.
"It's all right, Mother." Dianne was the first down the hall. "Paul's just having another
nightmare. rn take care of it. Don't get up." Entering his room and switching on the
light, she saw his thin, bone-rigid face.
"The fish," he said confusedly, "the fish-"
Dianne actually smiled, but from relief, amusement, or contempt it would have been
impossible to say. She looked down on her younger brother like a thin, white Mona Lisa.
Throwing back the sheet, she saw that Paul's pajamas were soaked, his hair limp with
sweat and his eyes abnormally wide. "The fish again," she said. "Well, you look like
you've been swimming." She shook him. "Wake up now. Sit up a minute." Going down
the hall to the bathroom, she busied herself and then returned with a little white, plastic
like capsule, some water, and a towel to dry him with. "Here-"
Sometime afterward, when he had quieted down a little, she turned out the light and
stroked him. She began to tell him all about the scary book that she was reading and he
lay listening, rapt.
At the Adams house the sun took an uncommonly Jong time to set and the evening
forever to pass. After the older kids left, Cindy tried out her newfound freedom by
walking back down to the river. There, alone, she kicked up pebbles with her big toe
and tried skipping them on the water the way she had seen John and Bobby do, but
even her rare successes were uninteresting. Shadows were stretching out; the river was
quite still; and there wasn't anyone around. At length she stood by herself, absolutely
free and solitary, a small person beside the water, and it all bored her to death. In fact,
freedom-the way the older kids described it-was not all that great. She missed the
presence of adults.
In grown-ups' comforting company, there was noise and purposefulness and direction
all the time.
47
Meals must be gotten, potatoes dug, trips to Bryce made, shopping completed.
Telephones rang; meetings were arranged; plans were made for taking the tractor to
the shop. Moreover someone was always asking what she wanted, what she was going to
do, and someone was always watching, correcting, encouraging, and applauding all her
deeds. Freedom was no one there: freedom was no one caring (and Cindy didn't like to
perform without her audience).
Just now, for example, she could drift up from the beach, skirt along the lines of pines
to the north of the house, fall in with the private road into the Adams property, play in
the abandoned tenant house-Freedom Five's meeting place-and return when and as she
pleased, even after dark if she pleased, and yet none of this was tempting. The woods,
the road, the scary old tenant house, the yard, all were empty. Nowhere was there
anyone waiting expressly for Cindy.
Oddly, she didn't miss Mommy and Daddy. She had prepared a little hollow place in her
mind to allow for their trip, and-given surety that they would be back on the dot-she
endured their absence cheerfully enough. Who she really missed, however, was
Barbara, not of course the person of Barbara which she could see at any time she
chose, but the fun and excitement of Barbara.
Cindy remembered the flurry of Barbara's arrival with special pleasure. They all drove
up to Bryce and had ice cream while they waited for the bus. Then it was there, hot and
clattering with the door opening, and then there was Barbara on the steps an neat and
clean and trim and pretty in a pale-blue summer dress just like a big sister delivered in
answer to a prayer. She was nicer and quicker, more dashing than Mommy, and yet she
was younger and closer and more understandable to Cindy.
Once home, Barbara swept into the guest room and opened her bags. There were
dresses and brushes, underthings and bathing suits, books and perfume, all the
fascinating things Cindy would have someday for 48
herself. Barbara swished and ordered, kissed and patted-she brought real life into the