Duma Key

Wireman seemed not to notice. "We're all in the same rowboat," he said.

I started to ask him what he meant, then realized I didn't have to. " S , se or, " I said.

"She fell on her head. I shot myself in the head. You got your head crushed by a payloader."

"Crane."

He waved his hand as if to indicate this made no difference. Then he used the hand to grip my surviving wrist. His fingers were cold. "I have questions, muchacho. How come she stopped painting? And how come I never started?"

"I can't say for certain why she stopped. Maybe she forgot - blocked it out - or maybe she deliberately lied and denied. As for you, your talent's empathy. And on Duma Key, empathy got raised to telepathy."

"That's bullshi..." He trailed off.

I waited.

"No," he said. "No. It's not. But it's also completely gone. Want to know something, amigo?"

"Sure."

He cocked a thumb at the tense family group across the room from us. They had gone back to their discussion. Pop was now shaking his finger at Mom. Or maybe it was Sis. "A couple of months ago, I could have told you what that hoopdedoo was about. Now all I could do is make an educated guess."

"And probably come out in much the same place," I said. "Would you trade one for the other in any case? Your eyesight for the occasional thoughtwave?"

"God, no!" he said, then looked around the caff with an ironic, despairing, head-cocked smile. "I can't believe we're having this discussion, you know. I keep thinking I'll wake up and it'll all be as you were, Private Wireman, assume the position."

I looked him in the eye. "Ain't gonna happen."

x

According to the Weekly Echo, Baby Elizabeth (as she was referred to almost throughout) began her artistic endeavors on the very first day of her at-home convalescence. She quickly went on, "gaining skill and prowess with each passing hour, it seemed to her amazed father." She started with colored pencils ("Sound familiar?" Wireman asked), before progressing to a box of watercolors the bemused John Eastlake brought home from Venice.

In the three months following her accident, much of it spent in bed, she had done literally hundreds of watercolors, turning them out at a rate John Eastlake and the other girls found a little frightening. (If "Nan Melda" had an opinion, it wasn't offered in print.) Eastlake tried to slow her down - on doctor's orders - but this was counterproductive. It caused fretfulness, crying fits, insomnia, bouts of fever. Baby Elizabeth said when she couldn't draw or paint, "her head hurted." Her father said that when she did paint, "She ate like one of the horses she liked to draw." The article's author, one M. Rickert, seemed to find this endearing. Recalling my own eating binges, I found it all too familiar.

I was going over the muddy print for the third time, with Wireman where my right arm would have been, if I'd had a right arm, when the door opened and Gene Hadlock came in. He was still wearing the black tie and bright pink shirt he'd had on at the show, although the tie had been pulled down and the collar was loosened. He was still wearing green scrub pants and green bootees over his shoes. His head was down. When he looked up I saw a face that was as long and sad as an old bloodhound's.

"Eleven- nineteen," he said. "There was never really a chance."

Wireman put his face in his hands.

xi

I got to the Ritz at quarter to one in the morning, limping with fatigue and not wanting to be there. I wanted to be in my bedroom at Big Pink. I wanted to lie in the middle of my bed, push the strange new doll to the floor as I had the ornamental pillows, and hug Reba to me. I wanted to lie there and look at the turning fan. Most of all, I wanted to listen to the whispered conversation of the shells under the house as I drifted off to sleep.

Instead I had this lobby to deal with: too ornate, too full of people and music (cocktail piano even at this hour), most of all, too bright. Still, my family was here. I had missed the celebratory dinner. I would not miss the celebratory breakfast.

I asked the clerk for my key. He gave it to me, along with a stack of messages. I opened them one after another. Most were congratulations. The one from Ilse was different. It read: Are you okay? If I don't see you by 8 AM, I'm coming to find you. Fair warning.

At the very bottom was one from Pam. The note itself was only four words long: I know she died. Everything else that needed saying was expressed by the enclosure. It was her room key.

xii