All the same, she spent the rest of the evening thinking about what Friedrichs had said, and inventing horrible fates for him. Not until she was in bed and almost asleep did she isolate the odd feeling of uneasiness that had plagued her since dinner. "It's not your problem," Mark had said. Just a casual pronoun-only somehow she suspected its choice had not been casual at all.
II
A few days later she decided she had let her imagination run away with her. Mark had apparently accepted the situation with perfect equanimity. He was eating, and drinking beer-and, his mother admitted to herself, playing his hi-fi too loud and perhaps driving just a little too fast-just as he had done before Kathy entered his life.
Friedrichs' unjust criticisms continued to haunt Pat, though she knew she should dismiss them with the lofty contempt they deserved. Any man who would judge a boy by the college he attended had to be the worst kind of snob. The slap in the face-or rather, the plural slaps- irked her all the more because she had hoped so much for congenial neighbors. The two old houses at the end of Magnolia Drive were isolated not only in space but in character from the new houses on the block. It would have been so nice to have Halcyon House occupied by a pleasant woman who shared some of her interests, who would drop in for coffee on Saturday morning or perhaps invite her over for a drink occasionally. Early evening was the worst time. If Mark didn't have basketball practice he had other activities to occupy him, and Pat was often alone at that most melancholy hour of the day, when the body is tired and the mind yearns for communication.
Of course, she reminded herself, all single women had to come to terms with that problem. In some ways it was easier for women who had never been married. Such a woman was accepted as complete in herself; she had never been one of a partnership. But she knew she was luckier than most, not only because of the nature of her relationship with Jerry, but because Mark had given up a year of his life to help her make the painful transition from two to one.
As the lilacs opened lavender spears and the azaleas produced clumps of rosy bloom, Pat continued to brood. Like the flowers, she had been dormant for months. Now she was coming to life, jarred by the annoying presence next door. The process was painful, but perhaps it had a certain potential. Pat wondered wryly if the flowers really enjoyed the act of blooming. Maybe the azaleas ached too.
The problem of what to do about Mark bothered her more and more. Was it too late for him to apply to another college next fall? He had said nothing about it; he seemed quite content with his life, with his friends and girl friends at the junior college, and his undemanding routine. Was he hiding his real feelings or-worse-was he getting into a comfortable rut which would be harder to break as time went on? Pat realized only too well that, beloved as he was, Mark was no substitute for Jerry as a companion. The generation gap was not fiction. She liked Haydn, Mark liked Jimmy Hendricks. To her cars were a means of transportation; to Mark, they were practically a religion.
Ballet was not one of the interests they shared, and it was to the ballet Pat went on the following Thursday, picking up a friend in Chevy Chase and going on to Kennedy Center, where Barishnikov was appearing in Swan Lake. After the performance she stopped for a cup of coffee with Amy, then drove home through the perfumed spring night in a dazzle of remembered pleasure. The white dogwood trees slipped past the car windows like slim Swan maidens fleeing an enchanter, and the lovely, saccharine music echoed in her ears.
Friday was not a working day for her, but it was for most of the residents of Magnolia Drive. The street was dark and quiet when she turned off the highway, with only a few squares of lighted windows burning against the dark. The drive curved. Not until she neared its end did she see something that made her foot move instinctively from gas pedal to brake.
Normally Halcyon House was as dark as the other houses on the street by this time of night. Now lights began to blaze out, one after the other-first the big oriel in the master bedroom, then the windows of the upper hall, then the fanlight over the front door, as if someone were running through the house pressing the light switches as he went.
Pat glanced at the clock. It was after one a.m. She looked then at her own house. Everything was normal there; Mark had left the porch light on for her, as he always did when she was out late.
Her car had just had its spring tune-up, courtesy of Mark. The engine purred softly. When the first scream tipped through the night, there was no louder sound to combat it.
Pat was out of the car before the sound died. In fact, she was through the gate and halfway up the walk before it stopped, as abruptly as if it had been cut off. It was a terrible sound-wordless, but requiring no words-a peremptory demand for help. And the voice had been that of a woman.
The ground-floor windows of Halcyon House were open to the spring air. No wonder the voice had carried so well. As Pat bounded up the porch steps, taking them two at a time, the scream came again. She threw her weight against the door and was somehow not surprised when the heavy portal yielded.
III
The mind works far more quickly than conventional measurements of time can reckon. Pat's mind had already painted a picture of what she expected to see; the reality was so like the vision that she was momentarily paralyzed, as a dreamer would be to find his dream a reality.
The hallway of Halcyon House, the duplicate of her own, was as wide as a normal room, with the carved walnut balustrade of the stairs rising at the rear. The hardwood floor, dark with age but freshly waxed, re-llected the bulbs of the antique crystal chandelier. On the floor, practically at her feet, was a tableau that might have come out of Popular Detective, or some other sensational sex-and-violence tabloid.
Kathy's fair hair spilled like shining water across the dark floor. Her thin blue nylon nightgown was twisted around her hips and her slim bare legs thrashed, kicking the floor. Friedrichs knelt beside her, his hands on her shoulders. As the door burst open he looked up. His face was ashen, bleeding from scratches that marred one cheek, and his expression was so distorted that Pat scarcely recognized him. For a moment the hope flashed through her mind that the man attacking the prostrate girl was not that girl's own father, but a stranger, an intruder… But the shock of black hair was Friedrichs', the heavy shoulders and hard, bruising hands…
Her paralysis could not have lasted more than a second or two. She saw the marks of fingers white against the girl's blotched cheeks, and knew why the scream had been cut off so abruptly. Kathy drew a long, choking breath and again cried out. Her father struck her across the mouth.
Pat launched herself like a missile, all one hundred and ten pounds of her body, straight at Friedrichs. He wasn't expecting it; he went over backwards, hitting his head with an ugly thud, and Pat gathered the sobbing girl into her arms. Kathy fought her at first. Pat quieted the flailing hands by pressing them against her body, cradling the golden head on her shoulder and talking as she had talked to Mark years ago when he had had a bad nightmare. "It's all right now, it's all gone-no one can hurt you, I'm here, I'll not let it hurt you…" Kathy's body finally relaxed. Her light bones and quivering muscles felt no heavier to Pat than Mark's eight-year-old body had felt, so long ago.
When the girl's gasps had subsided to low, moaning breaths, Friedrichs sat up. Pat eyed him warily. She was still so shocked and angry it was hard for her to speak, but she knew what tone she must adopt. Very calm, very firm.
"Just what is going on here?" she demanded.
"I wish to hell I knew." Friedrichs fingered the back of his head and winced. "How did you get-no, never mind that. Is she all right?"