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Show •125 his fists; he rocked back and forth. "If I knew! If I knew!" he cried. When I got upstairs I was surprised to find that Jacob had slept through it all. I slipped quietly under the covers. Adam leaned down to kiss me on the forehead-he rarely kissed us. He knelt by the bed. I felt pummelled by the idea of existence, baffled and beaten. "Maybe you'll be the first one to find out what else," he whispered. "You might be the first Skinner to know. Why not?" But naturally I never did and now, as Jacob says, I'll have to settle. And die. I sat on the hard slick rail and fumbled in the cinders with the toe of one shoe. On both sides of me the parallel tracks curved gently away; it was time to go down to the house and tell everybody our father was dead. I got up and started to trot down the hill, trying to avoid the thorny creepers and the patches of poison oak; I began to run faster and faster. At the bottom I bounded over the ditch and let myself be carried at a dead run across the road and up the driveway. They were gathered in the kitchen. I looked past Jacob and saw Alice standing by the table; her face seemed carefully set and showed no emotion except a desire to be polite. "Hello Buck." "How are you, Alice." |
