Free Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde Page B

might.
    Still, by the next night, Mom and Dad had made up—or pretended to for my sake—and they went to bed together.
    I was awakened about three o'clock by my father's yelling and my mother's crying. I got out of bed and went down the hall to their room.
    "How could you
not
have seen him?" Dad was demanding. "He was looming right over me in bed."
    I stood in the doorway, thinking that he hadn't had anything to drink all day. That was why Mom had let him back in the bedroom.
    "He was not there," Mom sobbed.
    "He came out of the shadow in that comer—" Dad started.
    "It was a
dream,
" my mother insisted.
    "It started as a dream, but then I woke up and he was still there."
    "Mommy, Daddy," I said, hoping that if they saw me, they would stop fighting. When I had been little, if I had a nightmare my father would say, "Dream or real, I'll protect you," and he would sit by my bed until I fell back to sleep. If I said that now, would Dad feel safe, or would he think I was mocking him? I would protect him if I could.
    "Sarah, please," Mom said, "can you get that dog of yours to stop barking before the neighbors complain?"
    My dog? All of a sudden, Spartacus was my dog?
    But I went down to the kitchen to see what I could do about calming him. I gave him a Milk-Bone, figuring he was the kind of dog who might get distracted by a treat the way—sometimes—I can be distracted by chocolate. I was right. He forgot whatever he'd heard or smelled in the night and scarfed down the Milk-Bone.
    On my way out of the kitchen, I met my father, coming downstairs with a pillow. He didn't meet my eyes as he settled down on the couch. "Good night," he told me.
    "Good night," I said, but he had a book with him. Pillow or no pillow, it was obvious he wasn't planning on going to sleep.
    "Leave the hall light on," he said as I went upstairs.
    I left the hall light on.

    The next morning I was still in bed, vaguely aware of my father showering, getting ready for work. This would be his first day back at the tool-and-die shop since we'd gotten the news about Kevin. I could smell the coffee my mother was brewing in the kitchen and could hear Spartacus scratching at the kitchen door to get out.
    Nice, normal sounds from a nice, normal household.
    I was just about to drift back to sleep when I heard my father scream. It was worse than when he'd yelled in his sleep, for this was a scream of pain.
    I fought with the sheet that had gotten tangled around my legs, and heard Mom running up the stairs. I almost collided with her in the hall outside the bathroom. She gave me a look that was too complicated for me to read, and tore the door open.
    Dad was backed up against the wall, wildly swinging his razor as though to keep someone away from him. Half his face was still lathered; on the other side there was a long cut that more or less followed his jawbone, and blood dripped onto his white T-shirt "He tried to grab my hand," Dad shouted. Now he sounded more angry than frightened or hurt. "He tried to make me cut my own throat"
    "He didn't!" Mom screamed at him. "Even if Kevin
did
come back from the dead, he would never do that! Where is he?
Where?
I don't see him. Sarah doesn't see him. You're imagining this!"
    "He wants me dead," Dad said. He held a towel to the cut to staunch the bleeding. But in the meanwhile he didn't put down the razor.
    "How can you say that?" Mom screamed at him. "How can you say that about Kevin?"
    "Should I call an ambulance?" I asked.
    "I am
not
hallucinating!" my father shouted at me.
    I had meant for the cut—though the bleeding was slowing down, not nearly as bad as I had feared when I'd first walked in. His words played in my head. So did others. Those amusing little comments from cartoons: sending for the men in the little white coats, calling the guys from the funny farm. Not for my father.
    Not for my father.
    Mom said, "You need to talk to someone about this, Tom. Dreaming is one thing—"
    "These have not been dreams," Dad