Free The Boy Who Could Draw Tomorrow by Quinn Sinclair Page A

where they sat until they rose from their chairs, gasping to breathe. But Sam stayed where he was, and when they turned back to see if he was coming, they saw his face clench and then collapse into tears.
    "Sam ! Baby !"
    It was Peggy who reached him first. She lifted him from his chair and held him to her, smoothing his hair as his wild sobs exploded against her chest.
    "Oh, honey," she crooned, eyeing Hal over Sam's head, "Mommy and Daddy are sorry, sweetheart. Please forgive us. It's just that we're not feeling so well. That's all, baby. Come on, old  scout, stop this now and everything will be all right. Okay?"
    But the boy only shook his head furiously and pulled all the harder to hold himself closer to Peggy's chest.
    "Now look," she said, pressing her palm against the back of his head, "the truth is Mom and Dad had an argument. But it's all over now, okay?"
    "No!" Sam wailed, and shook his head back and forth as if trying to make something fall out of his ears.
    "Oh, you silly," Peggy soothed. "Hal, honey, tell him."
    "Hey now, old man," Hal said, lifting Sam into his own arms, "don't make Mommy and Daddy feel bad. We're sorry, and it's all over now, so quit it, hear?"
    "It's not !" Sam cried out. "You don't understand !"
    "What don't we understand?"
    "She's trying to tell me what to draw!"
    " Who is trying to tell you what to draw?" Peggy said.
    "My teacher!"
    "Miss Putnam?"
    "Her!" Sam screamed, nodding his head as if they still hadn't understood.
    "Put him down, Hal. Put him down," Peggy  said, "and we'll all sit down at the table and talk this thing out."
    "No!" Sam shrieked. "I want to go to bed!"
    "Put him down," Peggy said.
    But he wouldn't do it. She looked at her husband as he held her son. For the first time in a long time she sought the depths in his eyes. Something new was there, something she had never seen before.
    "Hal," Peggy said, her voice very quiet now. "Did you hear me? I said put him down."
    But still he would not do it. Instead, he heaved Sam a little higher against his chest and carried the boy from the room, his lips to Sam's ear, whispering, saying things that Peggy could not hear.
    She stood there watching them go, her legs paralyzed, her heart suddenly crazily convinced that some secret had passed between them—and that if she knew what it was, it would make her afraid.
    ***
    She gave Sam some Benedryl to help him drift off to sleep. She puffed up his pillows, tidied the covers over his shoulders, then rubbed his back as he lay there restively tossing and gently, ever more gently, sobbing in the darkened room. At length she kissed him and went to get ready for bed, changing into her nightgown in the bathroom she  shared with Hal instead of in the bedroom where he could see her undress.
    It was when she went to brush her teeth that she finally noticed his soap-written message on the mirror of the medicine chest.
    Forgive? Forgive what? What was it that he really wished her forgiveness for?
    She wet a wad of toilet paper and washed the mirror clean. But when she dried it off with a towel, the word came back, hovering stubbornly beneath the surface of the glass like an eternal ghostly image. She tried it again, repeating the procedure, this time pressing harder with the wet toilet paper and the towel. The word was fainter now, but demonstrably there, a dogged reminder of what she now dreaded might be his secret and unforgivable guilt.
    She switched off the night light on her side of the bed, slipped herself gingerly between the covers and turned onto her side so that her back was to him.
    "How much did you pay for it?" she said.
    She heard him breathe out with annoyance.
    "For what?"
    "For the necklace."
    "Don't you like it? It looks nice on you."
    "I asked you how much you paid for it."
    "I'll answer you when you face me," he said.
    "Forget it." Peggy said. She pushed her knees free of the covers and got to her feet.
    ***
    She stood listening at Sam's doorway. When she was certain he was