Bag of Bones CHAPTER FIVE

Once, when I was sixteen, a plane went su personic instantaneously over my head.I was pass in the woods when it happened, thinking of any(prenominal) story I was qualifying to write, by chance, or how gr ingest it would be if Doreen Fournier shortened a couple of(prenominal) Friday night and let me sas welll false her panties while we were put at the closure of Cushman Road.In any case I was traveling far roads in my own opinion, and when that boom went off, I was caught tot anyy by surprise. I went flat on the leafy ground with my work force over my head and my summation drumming crazily, sure Id reached the end of my feel history (and while I was correct-tempered a virgin). In my forty c take ingorys, that was the scarce occasion which equ whollyed the final romance of the Manderley series for utter terror.I lay on the ground, waiting for the m centenarian to f each(prenominal), and when thirty seconds or so passed and no hammer did f e real destructio n(predicate), I began to realize it had full been some jet-jockey from the Brunswick Naval Air Station, too eager to wait until he was by over the Atlantic issue comportment going to Mach 1. and, holy shit, who al managements could blood-redeem guessed that it would be so orotund?I got slowly to my feet and as I stood there with my heart refinement slowing squander, I realized I wasnt the besides af average that had been terrified witless by that fulminant clear-sky boom. For the front or so term in my memory, the interceptadeful patch of woods hindquarters our signaling in Prouts Neck was wholly silent. I stood there in a dusty bar of cheer, crumb guide leaves any over my tee-shirt and jeans, h sr.ing my breath, listening. I had neer heard a stamp down in the mouth kindred it. nevertheless on a cold day in January, the woods would acquire been full of conversation.At last a finch sang. in that location were dickens or three seconds of silence, and indeed a jay replied. Another 2 or three seconds went by, and indeed a crow added his two cents worth. A woodpecker began to hammer for grubs. A chipmunk bumbled through some underbrush on my odd. A minute after I had stood up, the woods were fully subsisting with detailed noises again it was gage to business as usual, and I go on with my own. I never forgot that unexpected boom, though, or the deathly silence which followed it.I mentation of that June day often in the wake of the nightm ar, and there was naught so remark equal in that. Things had changed, somehow, or could change . . . more thanover showtime comes silence while we assure ourselves that we are still unhurt and that the hazard if there was danger is g single.Derry was shut down for most of the following week, anyway. scrap and high points caused a great deal of damage during the storm, and a abrupt twenty-degree plunge in the temperature afterward make the digging out labored and the cleanup slo w. Added to that, the atmosphere after a March storm is always dour and pessimistic we undertake them up this way e reall(a)y family (and two or three in April for approximate measure, if were not lucky), nevertheless we never intoxicatem to expect them. Every time we narrow clouted, we take it personally.On a day toward the end of that week, the weather finally esthesisted to break. I took advantage, going out for a cup of coffee and a mid-morning pastry dough at the brusk restaurant three doorsteps down from the Rite help where Johanna did her last errand. I was sipping and chewing and working the newspaper crossword puzzle when somebody asked, Could I share your booth, Mr. Noonan? Its pretty crowded in here today.I determineed up and saw an old man that I knew solely couldnt so unrivalledr place.Ralph Roberts, he said. I volunteer down at the flushed Cross. Me and my wife, Lois.Oh, okay, sure, I said. I give blood at the Red Cross every six weeks or so. Ralph Robert s was unity of the old claim goingies who passed out juice and cookys afterward, sexual relation you not to get up or make any sudden movements if you ent tumble woozy. Please, sit down. He looked at my paper, folded open to the crossword and falsehood in a patch of sun, as he slid into the booth. Dont you find that doing the crossword in the Derry News is miscellany of corresponding striking out the pitcherful in a baseball game? he asked.I laughed and nodded. I do it for the same reason folks climb Mount Everest, Mr. Roberts . . . because its there. totally(prenominal) with the News crossword, no integrity ever dos off.Call me Ralph. Please.Okay. And Im Mike.Good. He grinned, revealing teeth that were crooked and a little yellow, moreover all his own. I like getting to the origin names. Its like being able to take off your tie. Was quite a little cap of wind we had, wasnt it?Yes, I said, simply its warming up courteously now. The thermometer had made one of its ni mble March leaps, climbing from twenty- atomic number 23 degrees the night forwards to 50 that morning. Better than the rise in air-temperature, the sun was warm again on your face. It was that warmth that had coaxed me out of the tolerate. Springll get here, I guess. Some twelvemonths it gets a little lost, but it always run throughms to find its way sticker home. He sipped his coffee, then fixate the cup down. Havent setn you at the Red Cross lately.Im recycling, I said, but that was a fib Id come eligible to give other pint two weeks ago. The re brainer card was up on the refrigerator. It had only if slipped my mind. Next week, for sure.I only mention it because I know youre an A, and we piece of tail always use that.Save me a couch.Count on it. Everything going all right? I only ask because you look tired. If its insomnia, I can sympathize, believe me.He did charter the look of an insomniac, I belief too wide around the eyes, somehow. But he was also a man in his mi d- to late s plainties, and I dont think anyone gets that far without covering it. Stick around a little while, and life peradventure only jabs at your cheeks and eyes. Stick around a long while and you end up looking like Jake La Motta after a unspoken fifteen. I opened my mouth to say what I always do when someone asks me if Im all right, then wondered why I always felt I had to quilt that tiresome Marlboro Man shit, scantily who I was nerve-racking to fool. What did I think would happen if I told the guy who gave me a chocolate-chip cookie down at the Red Cross after the nurse took the phonograph needle out of my arm that I wasnt feeling a hundred share? Earthquakes? Fire and flood? Shit. No, I said, I really havent been feeling so great, Ralph.Flu? Its been going around.Nah. The flu fall behinded me this time, actually. And Ive been sleeping all right. Which was truthful there had been no recurrence of the Sara Laughs dream in either the median(prenominal) or the hi gh-octane version. I think Ive secure got the blues.Well, you ought to take a vacation, he said, then sipped his coffee. When he looked up at me again, he frowned and set his cup down. What? Is something wrong?No, I thought of saying. You were just the first dame to sing into the silence, Ralph, thats all.No, nothing wrong, I said, and then, because I sort of indispensabilityed to see how the words tasted coming out of my own mouth, I repeated them. A vacation.Ayuh, he said, smiling. People do it all the time.People do it all the time. He was right nearly that compensate people who couldnt strictly endure to went on vacation. When they got tired. When they got all balled up in their own shit. When the world was too much with them, getting and spending.I could certainly afford a vacation, and I could certainly take the time off from work what work, ha-ha? and save Id undeniable the Red Cross cookie-man to point out what should have been axiomatic to a college-educated guy like me that I hadnt been on an actual vacation since Jo and I had gone to Bermuda, the winter forrader she died. My particular grindstone was no long-life busting, but I had kept my nose to it all the same.It wasnt until that summer, when I use up Ralph Robertss obituary in the News (he was struck by a car), that I fully realized how much I owed him. That advice was offend than any grouch of orange juice I ever got after giving blood, let me tell you.When I left the restaurant, I didnt go home but tramped over one-half of the damned town, the section of newspaper with the partly realised crossword puzzle in it dollar billped under one arm. I tossed until I was chilled in spite of the warming temperatures. I didnt think about anything, and heretofore I thought about everything. It was a special kind of thinking, the sort Id always done when I was getting close to writing a book, and although I hadnt thought that way in years, I fell into it substantially and naturally, as if I had never been away(predicate).Its like some guys with a big truck have pulled up in your occupyway and are piteous things into your basement. I cant explain it any better than that. You cant see what these things are because theyre all wrapped up in padded quilts, but you dont need to see them. Its furniture, everything you need to make your contribute a home, make it just right, just the way you needinessed it.When the guys have hopped covering fire into their truck and driven away, you go down to the basement and walk around (the way I went walking around Derry that late morning, slopping up hill and down dale in my old galoshes), touching a padded curve here, a padded angle there. Is this one a sofa? Is that one a dresser? It doesnt matter. Everything is here, the movers didnt forget a thing, and although youll have to get it all upstairs yourself (straining your poor old back in the process, more often than not), thats okay. The important thing is that the vocaliza tion communication was complete.This time I thought hoped the delivery truck had brought the stuff I needed for the back forty the years I might have to spend in a No Writing Zone. To the cellar door they had come, and they had knocked politely, and when after several calendar months there was still no answer, they had finally fetched a battering ram. HEY BUDDY, HOPE THE NOISE DIDNT SCARE YOU TOO BAD, SORRY approximately THE DOORI didnt care about the door I cared about the furniture. Any pieces stony-broken or missing? I didnt think so. I thought all I had to do was get it upstairs, pull off the furniture pads, and put it where it belonged.On my way back home, I passed The Shade, Derrys capture little revival movie house, which has prospered in spite of (or perhaps because of) the picture show revolution. This month they were showing classic SF from the fifties, but April was dedicated to Humphrey Bogart, Jos all-time favorite. I stood under the marquee for several moments, s tudying one of the Coming Attractions posters. accordingly I went home, picked a travel agent pretty much at random from the phone book, and told the guy I wanted to go to detect largo. differentiate West, you mean, the guy said. No, I told him, I mean Key Largo, just like in the movie with Bogie and Bacall. Three weeks. Then I rethought that. I was wealthy, I was on my own, and I was retired. What was this three weeks shit? profit it six, I said. Find me a cottage or something. Going to be expensive, he said. I told him I didnt care. When I came back to Derry, it would be spring. In the meantime, I had some furniture to unwrap.I was enchanted with Key Largo for the first month and bored out of my mind for the last two weeks. I stayed, though, because tiresomeness is easily. People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a can of thinking done. I ate about a billion shrimp, drank about a thousand margaritas, and consume twenty-three John D. MacDonald novels by actual count. I burned, peeled, and finally tanned. I bought a long-billed cap with PARROTHEAD printed on it in bright green thread. I walked the same stretch of beach until I knew everybody by first name. And I unwrapped furniture. A lot of it I didnt like, but there was no doubt that it all fit the house.I thought about Jo and our life together. I thought about saying to her that no one was ever going to confuse Being Two with Look Homeward, Angel. You arent going to pull a lot of frustrated-artist crap on me, are you, Noonan? she had replied . . . and during my time on Key Largo, those words kept coming back, always in Jos voice crap, frustrated-artist crap, all that caning schoolboy frustrated-artist crap.I thought about her long red woods apron, coming to me with a hatful of black trumpet mushrooms, laughing and triumphant Nobody on the TR eats better than the Noonans tonight shed cried. I thought of her painting her toenails, bent over between her own thighs in the way only women doing t hat particular piece of business can manage. I thought of her throwing a book at me because I laughed at some new haircut. I thought of her trying to learn how to play a breakdown on her banjo and of how she looked braless in a thin sweater. I thought of her crying and laughing and angry. I thought of her telling me it was crap, all that frustrated-artist crap.And I thought about the dreams, especially the culminating dream. I could do that easily, because it never faded as the more ordinary ones do. The final Sara Laughs dream and my very first wet dream (coming upon a girl lying defenseless in a hammock and eating a plum) are the only two that remain perfectly clear to me, year after year the rest are either hazy fragments or completely forgotten.thither were a great numerous clear details to the Sara dreams the loons, the crickets, the all the sameing star and my wish upon it, just to name a few but I thought most of those things were just verisimilitude. Scene-setting, if y ou will. As such, they could be dismissed from my considerations. That left three major elements, three large pieces of furniture to be unwrapped.As I sat on the beach, watching the sun go down between my sandy toes, I didnt think you had to be a reverberate to see how those three things went together.In the Sara dreams, the major elements were the woods behind me, the house below me, and Michael Noonan himself, frozen in the middle. Its getting dark and theres danger in the woods. It will be frightening to go to the house below, perhaps because its been vacate so long, but I never doubt I must go there scary or not, its the only shelter I have. Except I cant do it. I cant move. Ive got writers walk.In the nightmare I am finally able to go toward shelter, only the shelter proves false. Proves more dangerous than I had ever expected in my . . . well, yes, in my wildest dreams. My gone wife rushes out, screaming and still tangled in her shroud, to attack me. Even five weeks later and almost three thousand miles from Derry, remembering that straightaway uncontaminating thing with its baggy arms would make me shiver and look back over my shoulder.But was it Johanna? I didnt really know, did I? The thing was all wrapped up. The coffin looked like the one in which she had been buried, true, but that might just be misdirection.Writers walk, writers block.I cant write, I told the voice in the dream. The voice says I can. The voice says the writers block is gone, and I believe it because the writers walk is gone, Im finally headed down the driveway, going to shelter. Im afraid, though. Even before the shapeless white thing makes its appearance, Im terrified. I say its Mrs. Danvers Im afraid of, but thats just my conceive of mind getting Sara Laughs and Manderley all mixed up. Im afraid of Im afraid of writing, I heard myself saying out loud. Im afraid to even try.This was the night before I finally flew back to Maine, and I was half-past sober, going on drunk. B y the end of my vacation, I was drinking a lot of evenings. Its not the block that scares me, its undoing the block. Im really fucked, boys and girls. Im fucked big-time.Fucked or not, I had an conception Id finally reached the heart of the matter. I was afraid of undoing the block, maybe afraid of picking up the strands of my life and going on without Jo. Yet some deep part of my mind believed I must do it thats what the menacing noises behind me in the woods were about. And belief counts for a lot. Too much, maybe, especially if youre imaginative. When an imaginative person gets into mental trouble, the inventory between seeing and being has a way of disappearing.Things in the woods, yes, sir. I had one of them right there in my ease up as I was thinking these things. I lifted my drink, holding it toward the western sandwich sky so that the setting sun seemed to be burning in the glass. I was drinking a lot, and maybe that was okay on Key Largo hell, people were supposed to d rink a lot on vacation, it was almost the law but Id been drinking too much even before I left. The kind of drinking that could get out of throw in no time at all. The kind that could get a man in trouble.Things in the woods, and the potentially safe place follow by a scary bugbear that was not my wife, but perhaps my wifes memory. It made sense, because Sara Laughs had always been Jos favorite place on earth. That thought led to some other, one that made me swing my legs over the side of the chaise Id been reclining on and sit up in excitement. Sara Laughs had also been the place where the ritual had begun . . . champagne, last line, and the all-important benediction Well, then, thats all right, isnt it?Did I want things to be all right again? Did I truly want that? A month or a year before I mightnt have been sure, but now I was. The answer was yes. I wanted to move on let go of my dead wife, rehab my heart, move on. But to do that, Id have to go back.Back to the log house. B ack to Sara Laughs. Yeah, I said, and my body broke out in gooseflesh. Yeah, you got it.So why not? The oral sex made me feel as stupid as Ralph Robertss observation that I needed a vacation. If I needed to go back to Sara Laughs now that my vacation was over, indeed why not? It might be a little scary the first night or two, a hangover from my final dream, but just being there might dis exploit the dream faster.And (this last thought I go outed in only one humble corner of my conscious mind) something might happen with my writing. It wasnt likely . . . but it wasnt impossible, either. interdict a miracle, hadnt that been my thought on New Years Day as I sat on the rim of the tub, holding a damp flannel to the cut on my forehead? Yes. Barring a miracle. Some generation concealment people fall down, knock their heads, and regain their sight. Sometimes maybe cripples are able to throw their crutches away when they get to the top of the church steps.I had eight or nine months bef ore Harold and Debra started really bugging me for the next novel. I decided to spend the time at Sara Laughs. It would take me a little while to tie things up in Derry, and awhile for beak dean to get the house on the lake ready for a year-round resident, but I could be down there by the quarter of July, easily. I decided that was a good date to shoot for, not just the birthday of our country, but pretty much the end of bug gentle in western Maine.By the day I packed up my vacation gear (the John D. MacDonald paperbacks I left for the cabins next inhabitant), shaven a weeks worth of stubble off a face so tanned it no longer looked like my own to me, and flew back to Maine, I was decided Id go back to the place my subconscious mind had set as shelter against the deepening dark Id go back even though my mind had also suggested that doing so would not be without risks. I would not go back expecting Sara to be Lourdes . . . but I would allow myself to hope, and when I saw the eve ning star peeping out over the lake for the first time, I would allow myself to wish on it.Only one thing didnt fit into my neat deconstruction of the Sara dreams, and because I couldnt explain it, I assay to ignore it. I didnt have much luck, though part of me was still a writer, I guess, and a writer is a man who has taught his mind to misbehave.It was the cut on the back of my hand. That cut had been in all the dreams, I would swear it had . . . and then it had actually appeared. You didnt get that sort of shit in the works of Dr. Freud stuff like that was strictly for the Psychic Friends hotline.It was a coincidence, thats all, I thought as my plane started its descent. I was in seat A-2 (the nice thing about flying up front is that if the plane goes down, youre first to the crash site) and looking at pine forests as we slipped along the glidepath toward Bangor outside(a) Airport. The one C was gone for another year I had vacationed it to death. Only coincidence. How many tim es have you cut your hands? I mean, theyre always out front, arent they, waving themselves around? Practically begging for it.All that should have unit of ammunition true, and yet somehow it didnt, quite. It should have, but . . . well . . .It was the boys in the basement. They were the ones who didnt buy it. The boys in the basement didnt buy it at all. At that point there was a thump as the 737 touched down, and I put the whole line of thought out of my mind.One afternoon shortly after arriving back home, I rummaged the closets until I found the shoeboxes containing Jos old ruptures. I sorted them, then studied my way through the ones of Dark Score Lake. in that respect were a staggering number of these, but because Johanna was the shutterbug, there werent many with her in them. I found one, though, that I remembered taking in 1990 or 91.Sometimes even an untalented photographer can take a good picture if septette hundred monkeys fagged seven hundred years bashing away at seven hundred typewriters, and all that and this was good. In it Jo was standing on the bodge with the sun going down red-gold behind her. She was just out of the water, descend wet, wearing a two-piece swimming suit, gray with red piping. I had caught her laughing and brushing her soaked hair back from her forehead and temples. Her nipples were very prominent against the cups of her halter. She looked like an actress on a movie poster for one of those guilty-pleasure B-pictures about monsters at Party Beach or a consecutive killer stalking the campus.I was sucker-punched by a sudden respectable lust for her. I wanted her upstairs just as she was in that photograph, with strands of her hair pasted to her cheeks and that wet bathe suit clinging to her. I wanted to suck her nipples through the halter top, taste the cloth and feel their callousness through it. I wanted to suck water out of the cotton wool like milk, then yank the bottom of her suit off and fuck her until we bot h exploded.Hands shaking a little, I put the photograph aside, with some others I like (although there were no others I liked in quite that same way). I had a huge hard-on, one of those ones that feel like stone covered with skin. Get one of those and until it goes away you are good for nothing.The quickest way to solve a trouble like that when theres no woman around willing to help you solve it is to masturbate, but that time the idea never even crossed my mind. preferably I walked restlessly through the upstairs rooms of my house with my fists crack and closing and what looked like a hood ornament stuffed down the front of my jeans.Anger may be a normal stage of the sorrow process Ive read that it is but I was never angry at Johanna in the wake of her death until the day I found that picture. Then, wow. thither I was, walking around with a boner that just wouldnt quit, maddened with her. Stupid bitch, why had she been running on one of the hottest days of the year? Stupid , inconsiderate bitch to leave me alone like this, not even able to work.I sat down on the stairs and wondered what I should do. A drink was what I should do, I decided, and then maybe another drink to scratch the first ones back. I actually got up before deciding that wasnt a very good idea at all.I went into my office instead, move on the computer, and did a crossword puzzle. That night when I went to bed, I thought of looking at the picture of Jo in her bathing suit again. I decided that was almost as bad an idea as a few drinks when I was feeling angry and depressed. But Ill have the dream tonight, I thought as I turned off the light. Ill have the dream for sure.I didnt, though. My dreams of Sara Laughs seemed to be finished.A weeks thought made the idea of at least summering at the lake seem better than ever. So, on a Saturday afternoon in early May when I calculated that any self-respecting Maine caretaker would be home watching the Red Sox, I called post-horse Dean and told him Id be at my lake place from the Fourth of July or so . . . and that if things went as I hoped, Id be spending the fall and winter there as well.Well, thats good, he said. Thats real good news. A lot of folks down hereve missed you, Mike. Quite a few that want to condole with you about your wife, dont you know.Was there the faintest note of reproach in his voice, or was that just my imagination? Certainly Jo and I had cast a shadow in the area we had made significant contributions to the little depository library which served the Motton-Kashwakamak-Castle View area, and Jo had headed the successful fund drive to get an area bookmobile up and running. In addition to that, she had been part of a ladies sewing circle (afghans were her specialty), and a member in good standing of the Castle County Crafts Co-op. Visits to the sick . . . support out with the annual volunteer fire department blood drive . . . womaning a booth during Summerfest in Castle Rock . . . and stuff like that was only where she had started. She didnt do it in any ostentatious Lady liberal way, either, but unobtrusively and humbly, with her head lowered (often to hide a sort of sharp smile, I should add my Jo had a Biercean sense of humor). Christ, I thought, maybe old Bill had a right to sound reproachful.People miss her, I said.Ayuh, they do.I still miss her a lot myself. I think thats why Ive stayed away from the lake. Thats where a lot of our good times were.I spose so. But itll be damned good to see you down this way. Ill get busy. The place is all right you could move into it this afternoon, if you was a mind but when a house has stood empty the way Sara has, it gets stale.I know.Ill get Brenda Meserve to clean the whole shebang from top to bottom. Same gal you always had, dont you know.Brendas a little old for comprehensive spring cleaning, isnt she?The lady in question was about sixty-five, stout, kind, and gleefully vulgar. She was especially fond of jokes about the travell ing salesman who spent the night like a rabbit, jumping from hole to hole. No Mrs. Danvers she.Ladies like Brenda Meserve never get too old to oversee the festivities, Bill said. Shell get two or three girls to do the vacuuming and heavy lifting. Set you back maybe three hundred dollars. Sound all right? wish well a bargain.The well needs to be tested, and the gennie, too, although Im sure both of ems okay. I seen a hornets nest by Jos old studio that I want to smoke before the woods get dry. Oh, and the roof of the old house you know, the middle piece needs to be reshingled. I shoulda talked to you about that last year, but with you not using the place, I let her slide. You stand good for that, too?Yes, up to ten grand. Beyond that, call me.If we have to go over ten, Ill smile and kiss a pig.Try to have it all done before I get down there, okay?Coss. Youll want your privacy, I know that . . . just so longs you know you wont get any right away. We was shocked when she went so youn g all of us were. surprise and sad. She was a dear. From a Yankee mouth, that word rhymes with Leah.Thank you, Bill. I felt tears prickle my eyes. Grief is like a drunken house guest, always coming back for one more goodbye hug. thank for saying.Youll get your share of carrot-cakes, chummy. He laughed, but a little doubtfully, as if afraid he was committing an impropriety. I can eat a lot of carrot-cake, I said, and if folks overdo it, well, hasnt Kenny Auster still got that big Irish wolfhound?Yuh, that thingd eat cake til he busted Bill cried in high good humor. He cackled until he was coughing. I waited, smiling a little myself. Blueberry, he calls that dog, damned if I know why. Aint he the gormiest thing I fabricated he meant the dog and not the dogs master. Kenny Auster, not much more than five feet tall and neatly made, was the opposite of gormy, that peculiar Maine adjective that means clumsy, awkward, and clay-footed.I suddenly realized that I missed these people Bill an d Brenda and buddy Jellison and Kenny Auster and all the others who lived year-round at the lake. I even missed Blueberry, the Irish wolfhound, who trotted everywhere with his head up just as if he had half a brain in it and long strands of saliva depending from his jaws.Ive also got to get down there and clean up the winter blowdown, Bill said. He sounded embarrassed. It aint bad this year that last big storm was all snow over our way, thank God but theres still a fair amount of happy crappy I aint got to yet. I shoulda put it behind me long before now. You not using the place aint an excuse. I been cashing your checks. There was something amusing about listening to the grizzled old fart whipstitching his breast Jo would have kicked her feet and giggled, Im quite sure.If everythings right and running by July Fourth, Bill, Ill be happy.Youll be happy as a clam in a mudflat, then. Thats a promise. Bill sounded as happy as a clam in a mudflat himself, and I was glad. Goingter come down and write a book by the water? Like in the old days? Not that the last couple aint been fine, my wife couldnt put that last one down, but I dont know, I said, which was the truth. And then an idea struck me. Bill, would you do me a favor before you clean up the driveway and turn Brenda Meserve loose?Happy to if I can, he said, so I told him what I wanted.Four days later, I got a little package with this brusque return address DEAN/GEN DELIV/TR-90 (DARK SCORE). I opened it and shook out twenty photographs which had been taken with one of those little cameras you use once and then throw away.Bill had filled out the roll with various views of the house, most conveying that subtle air of neglect a place gets when its not used enough . . . even a place thats caretook (to use Bills word) gets that overlook feel after awhile.I barely glanced at these. The first quaternion were the ones I wanted, and I lined them up on the kitchen table, where the strong sunlight would fall direct ly on them. Bill had taken these from the top of the driveway, pointing the available camera down at the sprawl of Sara Laughs. I could see the moss which had grown not only on south wings, as well. I could see the litter of fallen branches and the drifts of pine needles on the driveway. Bill must have been tempted to clear all that away before taking his snaps, but he hadnt. Id told him exactly what I wanted warts and all was the phrase I had used and Bill had given it to me.The bushes on either side of the driveway had thickened a lot since Jo and I had spent any significant amount of time at the lake they hadnt exactly run wild, but yes, some of the longer branches did seem to yearn toward each other across the asphalt like uncaring lovers.Yet what my eye came back to again and again was the stoop at the foot of the driveway. The other resemblances between the photographs and my dreams of Sara Laughs might only be cooccurring (or the writers often surprisingly practical imag ination at work), but I could explain the sunflowers growing out through the boards of the stoop no more than I had been able to explain the cut on the back of my hand.I turned one of the photos over. On the back, in a spidery script, Bill had written These fellows are way early . . . and trespassingI flipped back to the picture side. Three sunflowers, growing up through the boards of the stoop. Not two, not four, but three large sunflowers with faces like searchlights.Just like the ones in my dream.