Also, since he spent so little of his time awake, she couldn't bear the thought of him wasting any of that time lying alone in his bed. Because he didn't have the use of his arms and legs the way normal babies did, he couldn't experiment with rattles or even with his own body the way most kids did. Thus any time he spent awake and alone was completely empty, and DeAnne was afraid that he'd get bored and lose all interest in life and simply sleep himself to death. She was not about to let that happen. As far as she could manage it, there would be no empty hours. If he woke up at midnight, so did she, and stayed awake with him, talking and playing, moving his hands and feet for him, singing to him. She'd catch catnaps during the day when he was sleeping, and now and then she'd have a full night's sleep. But it was wearing her down and she didn't have much energy for the other kids. She couldn't help it-they were able to supply so much more for themselves that they just didn't need her the way Zap did. She still helped with homework and projects, as did Step, but Robbie and Betsy spent a lot of time entertaining each other-becoming quite good friends as Betsy began to catch on to some of the rules of civilized behavior. Stevie spent a lot of time alone.
Step tried to make up for DeAnne's preoccupation with Zap by playing games with the kids, but as often as not he was fixing meals or doing laundry while DeAnne napped, and so he wasn't actually involved in what the kids were doing. And whenever possible he closed himself off in his office, struggling with IBM PC assembly language until he finally realized that he could get similar results using the new Turbo C language, which amounted to throwing away all he had done so far and starting over. It was maddening work, in part because the computer was so annoyingly designed and he had to use so many kludges to make the graphics work halfway decently or to get the tiny PC speaker to produce sounds that didn't make you want to sledgehammer the machine into silence. When Step was finding a bug or puzzling out a solution to a particular problem, his concentration was so deep that he'd look up from his computer wondering if DeAnne needed him to help fix lunch, only to discover that it was dusk outside and she was already in the kitchen washing up after dinner.
Back in Indiana they had already determined that their lives worked more smoothly if she didn't make it a point to call Step to dinner. If he was concentrating so heavily that he didn't notice her calling the kids, then he wouldn't want her to interrupt him anyway.
So they were both a bit hit-and- miss when it came to the three older children that fall, and when they noticed, as they often did, that Stevie was still involved with his invisible friends to the exclusion of almost everything else, it bothered them, but they were able to console themselves that it didn't mean he was losing his mind or that anybody was out to get him. It was just a trial he was passing through, and in the end it might even strengthen him. In the meantime there was Zap and Hacker Snack and not all that much time left over.
On the first of September CNN was full of the news of Korean Air Lines flight 007, which had gone down over Soviet airspace, probably shot down by the Russians. Step and DeAnne were complete news junkies- they ate dinner with the TV blaring away in the family room so they could hear it in the kitchen.
The phone rang. DeAnne was already up getting something from the fridge and she snagged the receiver off the hook, said a couple of words, and handed it to Step. "It's Lee."
"Hi, Lee," said Step. "You're really something, calling me on the first day of the month. You'll make me into a first-rate home teacher yet."
"Don't waste my time," said Lee.
"Sorry," said Step. What was his problem? "What did you call about?"
"I know all about it," said Lee. "I know what you did. You're the one who has to put everybody under the water yourself, aren't you?"
"What? I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't act innocent with me," said Lee. "I can hear your TV on in the background. You're tuned to CNN
just like Mother. You put them in the water, all of them."
"Lee, do you actually think I had something to do with that Korean Air Lines jet?"
"All I want to know from you is, are prepared for the consequences of nuclear war? Because the Communists won't let you baptize them. They're not Christian, and they won't put up with it. They'll send the missiles. I've studied the effects of nuclear war. I know about nuclear winter. I know what it will be like for the common people. But you're too smart to be trapped. Nobody can trap you."
Whatever precipice Lee had been walking along all these months, Step realized, he was definitely over the edge now.
"Lee, there isn't going to be nuclear war."
Lee laughed. "Did you think you could just lie to me and I'd go away? No, I'm not going to forget you. I'm stuck to you like glue. When you get on that submarine, I'm going to be with you."
"Lee, are you at home right now?"
"God is in me now, Step. I'm not even using the phone, what do you think of tha t?"
"Well I'm using the phone," said Step.
"I don't need telephones when God is in me. I can see you right now. I can see your whole family."
"Where are you?"
"I'm everywhere. I'm in everything. I am love, Step. I am that I am." He giggled. "Moses never did understand what I meant by that."
"Lee, get ahold of yourself."
"All of those people under the water, like Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea. You want to be Moses? Parting the water, drowning people? Well, you can be my prophet if you want to. But you'd better pray first. You'd better offer a sacrifice."
Lee's words had long since gone from strange to disturbing. "Where are you, Lee?"
"You can't find me," said Lee. "Nobody can, because I'm invisible."
"Why did you call me?"
"Because you're the only one who has the power to say no to me."
"Not even your mother?"
"Shh." Suddenly he was whispering. "Don't tell her. Promise."
"I can't promise that, Lee. You need help."
"No, you need help!" Lee sounded very angry, now, but he was still speaking in a fairly low voice. "You need a lot of help, because I'm going to stop you before you put everybody under the water. I will not allow you to destroy the world again."
"Lee, I'm just a guy you go home teaching with."
"I know that," said Lee, derisively. "Do you think I don't know who you are? You must be crazy if you think you can hide from me."
"I'm hanging up now, Lee."
"Don't leave without me." Lee suddenly sounded frightened, desperate. "Let me have a place on the submarine! I won't eat much."
"Good-bye, Lee."
"Do you really have to go?"
"Yes."
"OK." Now he sounded cheerful. "Nice talking to you. Ta-ta for now!"
Step set the receiver back on the hook. "DeAnne, I need Dr. Weeks's number."
Before he finished saying it, she handed him a note card with the number written on it. "Her home phone?" he asked.
"I looked it up," said DeAnne. "I had a feeling you'd be using it."
When he got her on the phone, Dr. Weeks did not sound at all surprised to learn that Lee had called. "He said he was invisible," Step explained. "He said that he was talking to me without using a phone."
"Well, he was using the phone," said Dr. Weeks.
"Yes, I know that." He covered the receiver and whispered to DeAnne, "She thinks I'm crazy." Then to Dr.
Weeks he said, "Listen, something's wrong with Lee and I wanted you to know, that's all. He's really upset and he's talking about being God and he thinks I shot down flight 007."