Free Boy's Life by Robert McCammon Page A

flask poised to strike her face, she spoke: “I… said… that we both love you, and that… we want you to be happy. That’s all.” Tears welled up and trickled. “Just happy.”
     
         He didn’t speak. His eyes closed, and he opened them again with an effort.
     
         “Happy,” he whispered. Ben was sobbing now, his face pressed against his father’s thigh, his knuckles white at the twining of his fingers. Mr. Sears lowered his hand, and he let go of his wife’s gown. “Happy. See, I’m happy. Look at me smile.”
     
         His face didn’t change.
     
         He stood there, breathing roughly, his hand with the flask in it hanging at his side. He started to step one way and then another, but he couldn’t seem to decide which way to go.
     
         “Why don’t you sit down, Sim?” Mrs. Sears asked. She sniffled and wiped her dripping nose. “Want me to help you?”
     
         He nodded. “Yeah. Help.”
     
         Ben let him go, and Mrs. Sears guided her husband to his chair. He collapsed into it, like a large pile of dirty laundry. He stared at the opposite wall, his mouth hanging open. She drew up another chair close beside him. There was a feeling in the room as if a storm had passed. It might come again, some other night, but for now it was gone.
     
         “I don’t think—” He stopped, as if he’d lost what he was about to say. He blinked, searching for it. “I don’t think I’m doin’ so good,” he said.
     
         Mrs. Sears leaned his head gently on her shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaved, and he began to cry, and I walked out of the house into the cool night air in my pajamas because it didn’t seem right for me to be in there, a stranger at a private pain.
     
         I sat down on the porch steps. Tumper plodded over, sat beside me, and licked my hand. I felt an awful long way from home.
     
         Ben had known. What courage it must have taken for him to lie in that bed, pretending to sleep. He had known that when the screen door slammed, long after midnight, the invader who wore his father’s flesh would be in the house. The knowing and the waiting must’ve been a desperate torment.
     
         After a while, Ben came outside and sat on the steps, too. He asked me if I was all right, and I said I was. I asked him if he was all right. He said yeah. I believed him. He had learned to live with this, and though it was a horrible thing, he was grappling with it the best he could.
     
         “My daddy has spells,” Ben explained. “He says bad things sometimes, but he can’t help it.”
     
         I nodded.
     
         “He didn’t mean what he said about your daddy. You don’t hate him, do you?”
     
         “No,” I said. “I don’t.”
     
         “You don’t hate me , do you?”
     
         “No,” I told him. “I don’t hate anybody.”
     
         “You’re a real good buddy,” Ben said, and he put his arm around my shoulders.
     
         Mrs. Sears came out and brought us a blanket. It was red. We sat there as the stars slowly wheeled their course, and soon the birds of morning began to peep.
     
         At the breakfast table, we had bowls of hot oatmeal and blueberry muffins. Mrs. Sears told us that Mr. Sears was sleeping, that he would sleep most of the day, and that if I wanted to I could ask my mother to call her and they’d have a long talk. After I got dressed and packed all my belongings into the knapsack, I thanked Mrs. Sears for having me over, and Ben said he’d see me at school tomorrow. He walked me out to my bike, and we talked for a few minutes about our Little League baseball team that would soon start practicing. It was getting to be that time of year.
     
         Never again would we mention to each other the movie where Martians plotted to conquer the earth, town by town, father by mother by child. We had both seen the face of the