Dr. Weeks didn't come to the door of her office anymore when Stevie's hour was up. He pushed the heavy wooden door open by himself, and came out, looking-or so it seemed to DeAnne --smaller every time he did.
She really is shrinking him in there, she thought. Yet Stevie never complained about going and never talked afterward about what went on. It was as if it didn't really happen to him, or as if it was something not important enough to be discussed.
On Monday, the eighteenth of July, DeAnne got the kids home from the psychiatrist's office and let Robbie and Elizabeth run out into the back yard to play, while she and Stevie got the mail.
She headed for the side door that led from the carport into the laundry room and then to the kitchen- it was the door they always used. But Stevie called to her. "Mom, there's a package at the front door!"
In fact, it wasn't a package at all. It was a manila envelope. It had been mailed, but the postman had left it at the door, probably because it had a rubber stamp on it, DO NOT BEND, and there would have been no way to get it into the mailbox without bending it. It had a Steuben postmark, but no return address, and the mailing label had been neatly typed: "S tephen & Diane Fletcher, 4404 Chinqua Penn, Steuben, N.C."
No zip, and while they had got Stephen's name right, DeAnne's was wrong. Usually people either got both right or got both wrong. It probably meant it was from someone who knew Step and not her. Or from someone who wanted to peeve her and not Step! Why was someone careful enough to get it stamped DO NOT BEND
and then careless enough not to include a return address?
Stevie came into the house with her, and as she opened the mail at the kitchen table she heard him start up the Atari. It bothered her that he didn't go outside enough, even though it was summer. He was spending altogether too much time at the computer. It was probably time for her and Step to institute time limits on computer games just as they had for television. An hour a day-that wasn't unreasonable. And then let Stevie find something else to do. Something healthier, something that would get him out in the sun. He looked downright pallid compared to Robbie and Elizabeth, who were getting quite a golden glow, with nice highlights in their hair.
Most of the mail was ordinary. She set aside the letter from the mortgage company in Indiana- it could only be bad news, and it could wait. Then she opened the anonymous manila envelope.
Inside was a 45-rpm record, and nothing else. It was by a group DeAnne was only vaguely aware of. She really didn't follow rock music, not the way Step did. But she did enjoy watching the new videos now and then.
Cable had MTV here in Steuben, the way they had in Vigor, and she left the TV tuned to that channel sometimes while she worked. She liked the "Billy Jean" video--the lighting sidewalk appealed to her. But that one where Michael Jackson became a monster had scared the children and she had stopped just leaving MTV on when the kids were up. Still, she was aware of rock music, however vaguely. She must have seen something by the Police before.
They never bought forty- fives, and so DeAnne had no idea where she could find one of those little plastic doodads you had to put in the middle of them to play them on the stereo. It had to be somewhere near the stereo.
They certainly wouldn't have thrown it away-throwing things away was not their problem.
There was a knock at the back door, the one that led from the family room into the back yard. It was Robbie. "Can we have the sprinkler?"
"OK," said DeAnne. "Come on in, both of you, and get into your swimsuits."
Elizabeth trooped in after Robbie with an exaggerated lope. Giant steps. "Pink-er, pink-er, pink-er," she chanted. It took a moment to realize that Elizabeth was saying "sprinkler." Why it had become a chant, and what it had to do with taking great galumphing steps through the family room, DeAnne could not begin to guess. It was the great mystery of childhood-what they thought they were doing when they did such weird things.
Of course, that was also the great mystery of adulthood.
Then DeAnne glanced down at the stereo and saw immediately what she had missed before: the 45-rpm adapter was built into the turntable.
She got the record from the kitchen table and slipped it onto the adapter and turned on the stereo and set the needle on the record. It sounded like big dumb lummoxes singing lumberjack songs. She lifted the needle, changed the speed to 45, and set the needle down again. Now it was a rock song.
It was a strange kind of love song. No matter what the woman did, the man would be there watching her. It didn't sound like he loved her, either. Or even liked her. It talked about her faking smiles, staking claims, breaking promises. And the rhyming was relentless. "Every cake you bake," she thought, and almost laughed.
"Every child you wake. Every thirst you slake. Every duck and drake. Every well-done steak." Amazing the number of words in English that rhymed with take. The songwriter had barely scratched the surface.
Then it didn't seem funny anymore. Because somebody had sent that record to them anonymously. Why would they do that? They wanted to send a message. And what was the message? That no matter what they did, somebody would be watching.
She went around the house, checking the locks on all the doors. In the meantime the record had ended. She came back into the family room and started it over. After just a few notes of the song, she lifted the needle and turned off the stereo. Step would play it tonight, and that would be plenty.
Elizabeth came into the room in her diaper, carrying her swimsuit. DeAnne laboriously sat on the couch to help her get it on. "I can't just put it on you like I used to, Elizabeth," said DeAnne. "I can't reach over my tummy. You have to step into the suit."
It took about a dozen tries, but Elizabeth was finally standing in her swimsuit and now DeAnne could pull it up and tie it behind her neck. "Are you going to come out into the sprinkler, too, Stevie?" she asked.
Stevie didn't stop playing even for a moment. "No," he said.
"You used to like to," said DeAnne.
Robbie ran into the room, wearing not only his swimsuit but also the Superman cape that DeAnne had made for him two Halloweens ago. "Ta-da!" he shouted. "Ta-da!"
"Here you are to save the day," said DeAnne.
"Turn on the sprinkler, Mommy!" shouted Robbie.
DeAnne leaned to the side and sort of rolled up onto her feet, supporting her weight on the front of the couch as she did. She felt like an elephant she had seen once in a movie, wallowing in the mud.
"Stevie, " she said. "You used to like to play in the sprinkler."
"It wouldn't be fair," he said.
"What wouldn't be fair?" she asked.
"Cause I can and they can't."
She knew the answer, but still she had to ask. "Who can't?"
"Scotty and Jack and those guys."
She curbed her frustration and spoke in what she hoped was a reasonable tone. "Well, they can't play computer games with you, either."
"Yes they can," he said.
She opened the back door and Robbie and Elizabeth burst out into the sunlight. She turned back into the dark cave of the family room, where Stevie now seemed to be only a shadow in the corner, his head silhouetted against the bright screen, where a train sped along a track.
"Stevie, even if they can't play with you in the sprinkler, if your friends are really your friends, they'd want you to play in the sunlight. Real friends wouldn't stop you from playing with your brother and sister sometimes.
Your brother and sister need you, too."
She couldn't believe she was talking to Stevie as if his imaginary friends were real.
But if these imaginary boys were at the center of Stevie's life, then shutting them out would mean shutting Stevie out, too. She had to try to reach him, and if this was the only door he held open, then she would reach in through that door.
Stevie reached behind the computer and switched it off. "OK," he said. "I'll get my suit on."