“What are you doing in here? You have no business coming in here. Go back to your room,” he said sternly as tears filled Bobby's eyes, and Johnny whispered to him that he'd go with him, and not to let Dad scare him. It was going to be all right. The problem was that Johnny's room had finally become like a shrine in Jim's mind, and he didn't want any of Johnny's things disturbed, or removed.

Bobby walked silently out of the room, and when he'd gone, Jim walked slowly into the room. It was clean, everything was in order. Alice dusted it thoroughly once a week, and Jim didn't come in often enough to notice that things had been moved recently. Johnny had been spending a lot of time in his room, and going through his belongings and papers. There were photographs of him and Becky, letters, diaries he had kept as a kid. It was all still there, just as it had been when he left. And after a few minutes, Jim sat down on the bed, as tears streamed down his cheeks, and he looked around. It was five months since he'd been gone, and it was so painful seeing it just as it had once been. Johnny's varsity jacket was hanging over a chair, where he'd left it after he'd worn it the day before. Jim sat there for a long time, and then finally got up and left, and gently closed the door, and as he did, he saw Alice coming up the stairs. She knew where he had been, but said nothing.

She walked right past him into Charlotte's room, to check on her. She had just woken up, and said she was hungry and felt better. She went downstairs to eat breakfast in an old pink bathrobe, and smiled when she saw her father. She was still basking in the glow of his excitement about her game. The concussion she got afterward was far less important to her.

“How're you feeling, Charlie?” he asked, sounding hoarse from the tears he had just shed.

“Better. How ‘bout you, Dad?” There was a new light in her eyes as she looked at him. She had shared her victory with him.

“I'm okay.” Except that Alice had barely spoken to him in two days. Bobby looked at him like a stranger. And his hands had been shaking for two days since his last drink.

They all kept to themselves for the rest of the day, and at four o'clock, Jim went out. He came back two hours later, and didn't say anything to Alice about where he'd been. And she worried that he'd gone off to see some woman, as she thought he had the day before. But she made no comment when he came back, in better spirits, and she watched to see if he'd grab a six-pack. But he didn't. And instead of collapsing in front of the TV, he went outside to clean up the backyard. At dinner that night, he made feeble attempts to talk to her. Charlotte came downstairs and joined them, and she was already talking about going back to basketball practice the following week.

“Not until the doctor says you can,” Alice scolded, and by the end of the meal, Jim was deep in conversation with his daughter about her style, and how good her game had been two days before.

“Thanks, Dad,” she said, looking pleased. She had been told that more than likely she was going to be named most valuable player on her team at the last game. “Will you come to my game next week?”

“I'll try,” he said with a cautious smile, first at his daughter, then his wife. But Bobby still seemed not to exist for him. His frustration at not being able to communicate with Bobby that morning had discouraged him.

Father and daughter went off to the living room after that, and Alice and the two boys stayed in the kitchen to clean up. The threesome were talking softly, but Charlotte could still hear her mother from the other room.

“She talks to herself all the time now,” Charlotte confided to Jim, looking worried. Like her mother, she had noticed that her father wasn't drinking again that night, but she didn't comment on it.

“I think she talks to Bobby,” he said with a sigh. “I don't know how she can. It's hard talking to someone who can't answer. I don't know what to say to him,” he confided to her, and she felt a pang of sympathy for him.

“Bobby lets you know what he's thinking, if you pay attention to him,” Charlotte said quietly. It was odd, but she felt as though she were making a connection with her father, for the first time in her life. She actually believed he liked and approved of her now that he'd watched her play

“Do you suppose he'll ever talk again?” It was odd asking her, but she seemed unusually wise to him now, for her fourteen years.

“Mom thinks he will one day. She says it takes time.” Five years. And how much more? Jim thought to himself. “Johnny used to talk to him a lot. You should shoot some baskets with him sometime, Dad.”

“Does he like that?” Jim looked surprised. He had no idea what his youngest son did and didn't like, and never tried to find out.

She nodded. “He's pretty good for a kid.”

“So are you,” he smiled, and then he put an arm around her as they sat on the couch. He turned the television on after a while, and they watched a football game. And a little later, Bobby came and sat next to them. Johnny was in a chair, sprawled out and enjoying the scene with his siblings, and from time to time Bobby smiled at him. It was as though having Johnny there encouraged him to try his wings.

And when Alice emerged from the kitchen, and looked at them, she smiled too. In spite of her anger at her husband, she had to admit that things seemed to have improved. Ever since his accident with Charlotte, Jim had stopped drinking. It hadn't gone unnoticed, and she was afraid to mention it to him. But she was well aware that he hadn't had a drink since. And the atmosphere of the whole house seemed to have changed. She was thinking about it that night when she went upstairs to their room, and again the next day when she dropped Bobby off at school.

She was singing to herself and doing some sewing when the phone rang, and she wondered if it was Jim. He was usually the only person who called her during the day. Everyone else she knew was working. But he hadn't called her in months. Ever since Johnny died, he had been shut off from everyone, and feeling isolated, even from her.

But when she answered the phone, it wasn't Jim, but Bobby's school. He had fallen off the swing at school, and broken his wrist. The teacher was at the emergency room with him, and she said she'd be bringing him home soon. Alice was upset they hadn't called her sooner, but the teacher said they hadn't had time before they went to the hospital, and it distressed Alice not to have been with him at the hospital. But he came home ten minutes later, with a slightly groggy look. They had given him medicine for the pain. And she put him on his bed, and left him with Johnny, while the teacher waited for her.

“The doctor at the emergency room said he'd be fine soon. He has to keep the cast on for four weeks.” She seemed to hesitate then, and looked as though she had something else to say. “I don't want to get your hopes up, and I could be wrong,” the teacher ventured slowly into unfamiliar waters with her, “but I thought I heard him say ‘ow’ when he fell.” Had Alice not known that he'd started talking, she would have been ecstatic, but now she just looked pensive, and told the teacher she might have misheard him. She said she had often imagined him speaking simply because she wished he would. She was not yet ready to share with the world the fact that he could speak. She wanted to protect him for as long as she could, until he was completely confident again.

“I could have imagined it.” The teacher nodded. “But I don't think I did.” Johnny had been insistent that Bobby go slow, and that they not tell anyone yet. And Alice wanted Jim to know before they told the world. “Maybe you should have him tested again,” the teacher suggested, and Alice thanked her, and offered the woman a cup of tea before she left.

Alice had both children at home now, Charlotte with her concussion and Bobby with his broken wrist, and when Jim came home that night, late as usual, he made a fuss over both of them. He still wasn't drinking, and finally, when the kids went upstairs, Alice looked at him.

“Where have you been going after work these days?” she asked with eyes filled with suspicion. He seemed healthier, in better spirits, and more sober than he had been in years. But he was coming home later than usual every night.

“Nowhere,” he said vaguely, and then he saw in her eyes everything she feared, and he felt sorry for her. “I've just been going to some meetings after work.”

“What kind of meetings?” she asked, looking for clues in his eyes, and he didn't answer her for a long time. But finally his eyes met hers more honestly than they had in a long time.

“Does it matter?”

“It does to me. A lot. Are you seeing someone else?” Her breath caught as she asked the question.

He reached out and touched her hand as he shook his head. “I wouldn't do that to you, Alice. I love you. I'm sorry everything has gotten so screwed up … with Johnny … and Bobby's accident… and now Charlotte getting hurt…. Things sure got messed up here. And no, I'm not seeing another woman. I've been going to AA meetings. I got it, after hitting that truck the other night. It was time to stop drinking.”

As she looked at him, Alice's eyes filled with tears, and he leaned over and kissed her. It was a dream come true.

“Thank you” was all she could say. And when they went to their room that night, they locked the door when they went to bed, so the children wouldn't disturb them. Johnny was nowhere in sight, and was asleep, curled up on the foot of Bobby's bed.





Chapter 10


December was a busy month for all of them. Jim's business was taking off. He had three new clients in addition to the two he'd gotten a few months before, and his workload seemed to have increased tenfold. Alice wasn't sure if his giving up drinking had anything to do with it, but he seemed to be working harder, and earning more. And he was more relaxed than he had been in years. He was even taking some afternoons off, or leaving work early at least, to go to some of Charlotte's games. He had become her chief adviser on what he was convinced was a promising athletic career. And now he bragged about her at least as much as, if not more than, he had about Johnny.