Free Tales from the Nightside by Charles L. Grant Page B

Damon’s face was in the rear window, nose flat, palms flat, hair pressed down over his forehead. He waved, and Frank answered.
    I love you, Dad.
    Frank wiped a hand under his nose and went back inside, searched the house for some liquor and, in failing, went straight to bed where he watched the moonshadows make monsters of the curtains.
    “Dad,” the boy said, “do I have to go with Mommy?”
    “I’m afraid so. The judge . . . well, he knows better, believe it or not, what’s best right now. Don’t worry, pal. I'll see you at Christmas. It won’t be forever.”
    “I don’t like it, Dad. I’ll run away.”
    “No! You’ll do what your mother tells you, you hear me? You behave yourself and go to school every day, and I’ll . . . call you whenever I can.”
    “The city doesn’t like me, Dad. I want to stay at the Station.”
    Frank said nothing.
    “It’s because of the lady, isn’t it?”
    He had stared, but Susan’s back was turned, bent over a suitcase that would not close once it had sprung open again by the front door.
    “What are you talking about?” he’d said harshly.
    “I told,” Damon said as though it were nothing. “You weren’t supposed to do that.”
    When Susan straightened, her smile was grotesque.
    And when they had driven away, Damon had said  I love you, Dad.
    Frank woke early, made himself breakfast and stood at the back door, looking out into the yard. There was a fog again, nothing unusual as the Connecticut weather fought to stabilize into winter. But as he sipped at his coffee, thinking how large the house had become, how large and how empty, he saw a movement beside the cherry tree in the middle of the yard. The fog swirled, but he was sure . . .
    He yanked open the door and shouted: “Damon!”
    The fog closed, and he shook his head. Easy, pal, he told himself; you’re not cracking up yet.
    Days.
    Nights.
    He called Susan regularly, twice a week at pre-appointed times. But as Christmas came and Christmas went, she became more terse, and his son more sullen.
    “He’s getting fine grades, Frank, I’m seeing to that.”
    “He sounds terrible.”
    “He’s losing a little weight, that’s all. Picks up colds easily. It takes a while, Frank, to get used to the city.”
    “He doesn’t like the city.”
    “It’s his home. He will.”
    In mid-January Susan did not answer the phone and finally, in desperation, he called the school, was told that Damon had been in the hospital for nearly a week. The nurse thought it was something like pneumonia.
    When he arrived that night, the waiting room was crowded with drab bundles of scarves and overcoats, whispers and moans and a few muffled sobs. Susan was standing by the window, looking out at the lights far colder than stars. She didn’t turn when she heard him, didn’t answer when he demanded to know why she had not contacted him. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around; her eyes were dull, her face pinched with red hints of cold.
    “All right,” she said. “All right, Frank, it’s because I didn’t want you to upset him.”
    “What in hell are you talking about?”
    “He would have seen you and he would have wanted to go back to Oxrun.” Her eyes narrowed. “This is his home, Frank! He’s got to learn to live with it.”
    “I’ll get a lawyer.”
    She smiled. “Do that. You do that, Frank.”
    He didn’t have to. He saw Damon a few minutes later and could not stay more than a moment. The boy was in dim light and almost invisible, too thin to be real beneath the clear plastic tent and the tubes and the monitors . . . too frail, the doctor said in professional conciliation, too frail for too long, and Frank remembered the day on the porch with the saucer of milk when he had thought the same thing and had thought nothing of it.
    He returned after the funeral, all anger gone. He had accused Susan of murder, knowing at the time how foolish it had been, but feeling better for it in his own absolution. He had