Free Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde Page A

thought was Spartacus whining to get out. But then I heard a sound that
definitely
was Spartacus whimpering, and that was coming from the kitchen, which, after all, was where we kept him at night. This other sound came from the porch.
    "Daddy?" I called softly.
    My father mumbled something in his sleep. But it didn't sound as though it was in answer to me, because his voice was garbled and agitated.
    "Daddy?" I repeated a little louder. But I didn't want to disturb my mother. Especially if my father was having another nightmare. She'd been so sympathetic that afternoon.
    "No!" Dad said sharply. But he was still asleep, because whatever he said next was mumbled. Then, more clearly, he shouted, "Keep away!"
    Much more of that, and the neighbors would be in on this. Mom would never forgive that. I got up and went to the doorway. "Daddy?" I called into the porch. The moon was down, and since our house was right at the farthest spot between two street lamps, the porch was pretty dark. I could make out the davenport, and the shape of Dad lying on it, tossing as though trying to wake himself up.
    I could have gone in and shaken him, but I couldn't bring myself to step into the darkness. I stayed in the doorway and called sharply, "Daddy!"
    My father sat up, but then he kind of shrank into one corner of the cushions, cringing, and he said, "Kevin."
    From the kitchen, Spartacus started barking.
    "Kevin isn't here, Daddy," I said, annoyed with him, annoyed with Spartacus, annoyed with Kevin, for that matter.
    "Can't you see him?" my father whispered.
    He sure sounded totally awake now. Goose bumps ran up my arms, like icy spiders.
    I followed the angle of my father's head. He seemed to be looking into the comer of the porch that was opposite the outside door. There was a shadow from the maple tree, which made it the darkest corner of the porch. It was too dark to really see anything, but I said, "No."
    "Get the light," Dad told me.
    Now, while I didn't believe Kevin was on the porch, I
didn't
feel like stepping out into the porch, which I would have had to do to get to the light switch. Surely Dad was talking enough to prove that he was awake. So if he was awake, why was he still seeing Kevin?
    Was
something in that corner?
    "Kevin wouldn't hurt you," Dad assured me.
    Then why was
he
afraid?
    My father was never afraid. He had fought in the war. He would go after bees that had gotten into the house. He had been the one to calm my mother when the doctor had said that the spot on his lung—which had turned out to be an X-ray technician's error—might be cancer.
    I saw an upstairs light go on at the Canettis', across the street, probably in reaction to Spartacus's barking, which had gotten louder and more insistent. I used that as an excuse. I stepped back into the living room. "SpartacusI Hush!" I hissed at the closed kitchen door. Spartacus paused for a moment, then resumed barking. I turned on the living room light, which overflowed into the porch.
    When I got back to the doorway that opened on to the porch, Dad had gotten up and turned on the porch light himself. There was nobody else on the porch. In the corner in which we'd been looking was an old porch chair on gliders, and thrown over the back was a sweater that I had left there a couple weeks ago, when the nights had been cooler. Maybe, in the shadows, that had looked like a person sitting there.
    "He was here," Dad said. "Sitting here, watching me."
    I thought for several long moments before I said, "He's not here now," the most reassuring thing I could come up with.
    "He was here," Dad repeated, a whisper barely louder than a sigh....
    A whisper that I could hear perfectly well in the silence, since Spartacus had suddenly stopped barking.
    "He was here and he's just waiting for me to fell asleep."
    And I couldn't think of anything reassuring at all to say to that.
    To him or to me.
    Dad stayed up the rest of the night, with all the lights on, die way a kid afraid of the dark