Duma Key - Stephen King

viii

Ilse coming to Duma Key, to Big Pink. Yippee, she was excited, and yippee, I was, too. Jack had found me a stout lady named Juanita to clean twice a week, and I had her make up the guest bedroom. I also asked her if she'd bring some fresh flowers the day after Christmas. Smiling, she suggested something that sounded like creamus cackus. My brain, by then quite comfortable with the fine art of cross-connection, was stopped by this for no more than five seconds; I told Juanita I was sure Ilse would love a Christmas cactus.

On Christmas Eve I found myself re-reading Ilse's original e-mail. The sun was westering, beating a long and brilliant track across the water, but it was still at least two hours to sundown, and I was sitting in the Florida room. The tide was high. Beneath me, the deep drifts of shell shifted and grated, making that sound that was so like breath or hoarse confidential speaking. I ran my thumb over the postscript - I have some special news - and my right arm, the one that was no longer there, began to tingle. The location of that tingle was clearly, almost exquisitely, defined. It began in the fold of the elbow and spiraled to an end on the outside of the wrist. It deepened to an itch I longed to reach over and scratch.

I closed my eyes and snapped the thumb of my right hand against the second finger. There was no sound, but I could feel the snap. I rubbed my arm against my side and could feel the rub. I lowered my right hand, long since burned in the incinerator of a St. Paul hospital, to the arm of my chair and drummed the fingers. No sound, but the sensation was there: skin on wicker. I would have sworn to it in the name of God.

All at once I wanted to draw.

I thought about the big room upstairs, but Little Pink seemed too far to go. I went into the living room and took an Artisan pad off a stack of them sitting on the coffee table. Most of my art supplies were upstairs, but there were a few boxes of colored pencils in one of the drawers of the living room desk, and I took one of those, as well.

Back in the Florida room (which I would always think of as a porch), I sat down and closed my eyes. I listened to the waves do their work beneath me, lifting the shells and turning them into new patterns, each one different from the one before. With my eyes shut, that grating was more than ever like talk: the water giving temporary tongue to the edge of the land. And the land itself was temporary, because if you took the geological view, Duma wouldn't last long. None of the Keys would; in the end the Gulf would take them all and new ones would rise in new locations. It was probably true of Florida itself. The land was low, and on loan.

Ah, but that sound was restful. Hypnotic.

Without opening my eyes, I felt for Ilse's e-mail and ran the tips of my fingers over it again. I did this with my right hand. Then I opened my eyes, brushed the e-mail printout aside with the hand that was there, and pulled the Artisan pad onto my lap. I flipped back the cover, shook all twelve of the pre-sharpened Venus pencils onto the table in front of me, and began to draw. I had an idea I meant to draw Ilse - who had I been thinking of, after all? - and thought I'd make a spectacularly bad job of it, because I hadn't attempted a single human figure since starting to draw again. But it wasn't Ilse, and it wasn't bad. Not great, maybe, not Rembrandt (not even Norman Rockwell), but not bad.

It was a young man in jeans and a Minnesota Twins tee-shirt. The number on the tee was 48, which meant nothing to me; in my old life I used to go to as many T-Wolves games as I could, but I've never been a baseball fan. The guy had blond hair which I knew wasn't quite right; I didn't have the colors to get the exact darkening-toward-brown shade. He was carrying a book in one hand. He was smiling. I knew who he was. He was Ilse's special news. That was what the shells were saying as the tide lifted them and turned them and dropped them again. Engaged, engaged. She had a ring, a diamond, he had bought it at -

I had been shading the young man's jeans with Venus Blue. Now I dropped it, picked up the black, and stroked the word

ZALES

at the bottom of the sheet. It was information; it was also the name of the picture. Naming lends power.

Then, without a pause, I dropped the black, picked up orange, and added workboots. The orange was too bright, it made the boots look new when they weren't, but the idea was right.

I scratched at my right arm, scratched through my right arm, and got my ribs instead. I muttered "Fuck" under my breath. Beneath me, the shells seemed to grate a name. Was it Connor? No. And something was wrong here. I didn't know where that sense of wrongness was coming from, but all at once the phantom itch in my right arm became a cold ache.

I tossed back the top sheet on the pad and sketched again, this time using just the red pencil. Red, red, it was RED! The pencil raced, spilling out a human figure like blood from a cut. It was back-to, dressed in a red robe with a kind of scalloped collar. I colored the hair red, too, because it looked like blood and this person felt like blood. Like danger. Not for me but -

"For Ilse," I muttered. "Danger for Ilse. Is it the guy? The special-news guy?"

There was something not right about the special-news guy, but I didn't think that was what was creeping me out. For one thing, the figure in the red robe didn't look like a guy. It was hard to tell for sure, but yes - I thought... female. So maybe not a robe at all. Maybe a dress? A long red dress?

I flipped back to the first figure and looked at the book the special-news guy was holding. I threw my red pencil on the floor and colored the book black. Then I looked at the guy again, and suddenly printed

in scripty-looking letters above him. Then I threw my black pencil on the floor. I raised my shaking hands and covered my face with them. I called out my daughter's name, the way you'd call out if you saw someone too close to a steep drop or busy street.

Maybe I was just crazy. Probably I was crazy.

Eventually I became aware that there was - of course - only one hand over my eyes. The phantom ache and itching had departed. The idea that I might be going crazy - hell, that I might have already gone - remained. One thing was beyond doubt: I was hungry. Ravenous.

ix

Ilse's plane arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule. She was radiant in faded jeans and a Brown University tee-shirt, and I didn't see how Jack could keep from falling in love with her right there in Terminal B. She threw herself into my arms, covered my face with kisses, then laughed and grabbed me when I started listing to port on my crutch. I introduced her to Jack and pretended not to see the small diamond (purchased at Zales, I had no doubt) flashing on the third finger of her left hand when they shook.

"You look wonderful, Daddy," she said as we stepped out into the balmy December evening. "You've got a tan. First time since you built that rec center in Lilydale Park. And you've put on weight. At least ten pounds. Don't you think so, Jack?"

"You'd be the best judge of that," Jack said, smiling. "I'll go get the car. You okay to stand, boss? This may take awhile."

"I'm good."

We waited on the curb with her two carry-ons and her computer. She was smiling into my eyes.

"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked. "Don't pretend you didn't."

"If you mean the ring, I saw. Unless you won it in one of those quarter drop-the-claw games, I'd say congratulations are in order. Does Lin know?"

"Yep."

"Your mother?"

"What do you think, Daddy? Best guess."

"My best guess is... not. Because she's so concerned about Grampy right now."

"Grampy wasn't the only reason I kept the ring in my purse the whole time I was in California - except to show Lin, that is. Mostly I just wanted to tell you first. Is that evil?"

"No, honey. I'm touched."

I was, too. But I was also afraid for her, and not just because she wouldn't be twenty for another three months.

"His name's Carson Jones, and he's a divinity student, of all things - do you believe it? I love him, Daddy, I just love him so much."

"That's great, honey," I said, but I could feel dread climbing my legs. Just don't love him too much, I was thinking. Not too much. Because -

She was looking at me closely, her smile fading. "What? What's wrong?"

I'd forgotten how quick she was, and how well she read me. Love conveys its own psychic powers, doesn't it?

"Nothing, hon. Well... my hip's hurting a little."

"Have you had your pain pills?"

"Actually... I'm stepping down on those a little more. Plan on getting off them entirely in January. That's my New Year's resolution."

"Daddy, that's wonderful!"

"Although New Year's resolutions are made to be broken."

"Not you. You do what you say you're going to do." Ilse frowned. "That's one of the things Mom never liked about you. I think it makes her jealous."

"Hon, the divorce is just something that happened. Don't go picking sides, okay?"

"Well, I'll tell you something else that's happening," Ilse said. Her lips had thinned down. "Since she's been out in Palm Desert, she's seeing an awful lot of this guy down the street. She says it's just coffee and sympathy - because Max lost his father last year, and Max really likes Grampy, and blah-blah-blah - but I see the way she looks at him and I... don't... care for it!" Now her lips were almost gone, and I thought she looked eerily like her mother. The thought that came with this was oddly comforting: I think she'll be all right. I think if this holy Jones boy jilts her, she'll still be okay.

I could see my rental car, but Jack would be awhile yet. The pickup traffic was stop-and-go. I leaned my crutch against my midsection and hugged my daughter, who had come all the way from California to see me. "Go easy on your mother, okay?"

"Don't you even care that-"

"What I mostly care about these days is that you and Melinda are happy."

There were circles under her eyes and I could see that, young or not, all the traveling had tired her out. I thought she'd sleep late tomorrow, and that was fine. If my feeling about her boyfriend was right - I hoped it wasn't but thought it was - she had some sleepless nights ahead of her in the year to come.

Jack had made it as far as the Air Florida terminal, which still gave us some time. "Do you have a picture of your guy? Enquiring Dads want to know."

Ilse brightened. "You bet." The picture she brought out of her red leather wallet was in one of those see-through plastic envelopes. She teased it out and handed it to me. I guess this time my reaction didn't show, because her fond (really sort of goofy) smile didn't change. And me? I felt as though I'd swallowed something that had no business going down a human throat. A piece of lead shot, maybe.

It wasn't that Carson Jones resembled the man I'd drawn on Christmas Eve. I was prepared for that, had been since I saw the little ring twinkling prettily on Ilse's finger. What shocked me was that the photo was almost exactly the same. It was as if, instead of clipping a photo of sophora, sea lavender, or inkberry to the side of my easel, I had clipped this very photograph. He was wearing the jeans and the scuffed yellow workboots that I hadn't been able to get quite right; his darkish blond hair spilled over his ears and his forehead; he was carrying a book I knew was a Bible in one hand. Most telling of all was the Minnesota Twins tee-shirt, with the number 48 on the left breast.

"Who's number 48, and how did you happen to meet a Twins fan at Brown? I thought that was Red Sox country."

"Number 48's Torii Hunter, " she said, looking at me as if I was the world's biggest dummox. "They have a huge TV in the main student lounge, and I went in there one day last July when the Sox and Twins were playing. The place was crammed even though it was summer session, but Carson and I were the only ones with our Twins on - him with his Torii tee-shirt, me with my cap. So of course we sat together, and..." She shrugged, to show the rest was history.

"What flavor is he, religiously speaking?"

"Baptist." She looked at me a little defiantly, as though she'd said Cannibal. But as a member in good standing of The First Church of Nothing in Particular, I had no grudge against the Baptists. The only religions I don't like are the ones that insist their God is bigger than your God. "We've been going to services together three times a week for the last four months."

Jack pulled up, and she bent to grab the handles of her various bags. "He's going to take spring semester off to travel with this really wonderful gospel group. It's an actual tour, with a booker and everything. The group is called The Hummingbirds. You should hear him - he sings like an angel."

"I'll bet," I said.

She kissed me again, softly, on the cheek. "I'm glad I came, Daddy. Are you glad?"

"More than you could ever know," I said, and found myself wishing she'd fall madly in love with Jack. That would have solved everything... or so it seemed to me then.

x

We had nothing so grand as Christmas dinner, but there was one of Jack's Astronaut Chickens, plus cranberry dressing, salad-in-a-bag, and rice pudding. Ilse ate two helpings of everything. After we exchanged presents and exclaimed over them - everything was just what we wanted! - I took Ilse upstairs to Little Pink and showed her most of my artistic output. The drawing I'd done of her boyfriend and the picture of the woman (if it was a woman) in red were tucked away on a high shelf in my bedroom closet, and there they would stay until my daughter was gone.

I had clipped about a dozen others - mostly sunsets - to squares of cardboard and leaned them against the walls of the room. She toured them once. Stopped, then toured them again. It was night by then, my big upstairs window full of darkness. The tide was all the way out; the only way you even knew the Gulf was there was by its soft continual sighing as the waves ran up the sand and died.

"You really did these?" she said at last. She turned and looked at me in a way that made me uncomfortable. It's the way one person looks at another when a serious re-evaluation is going on.

"I really did," I said. "What do you think?"

"They're good. Maybe better than good. This one-" She bent and very carefully picked up the one that showed the conch sitting on the horizon-line, with yellow-orange sunset light blazing all around it. "This is so fu... excuse me, so damn creepy."

"I think so, too," I said. "But really, it's nothing new. All it does is dress up the sunset with a little surrealism." Then, inanely, I exclaimed: "Hello, Dal !"

She put back Sunset with Conch, and picked up Sunset with Sophora.

"Who's seen these?"

"Just you and Jack. Oh, and Juanita. She calls them asustador. Something like that. Jack says it means scary."

"They're a little scary," she admitted. "But Daddy... this pencil you're using will smudge. And I think it'll fade if you don't do something to the pictures."

"What?"

"Dunno. But I think you ought to show these to someone who does know. Someone who can tell you how good they really are."

I felt flattered but also uncomfortable. Dismayed, almost. "I wouldn't know who or where to-"

"Ask Jack. Maybe he knows an art gallery that would look at them."