Sleepwalk by John Saul Page B

within the confines of the truck’s cab. Jed, his face drawn, sat silently in the passengerseat next to his father, staring out into the night, oblivious to his father’s silent anger, still seeing Heather’s dead eyes staring at him. When Frank finally turned into the driveway of their small house on Sixth East and switched the engine off, Jed made no move to get out.
    “We’re here,” Frank said, opening the door on his side and jumping out of the cab. For a moment he wasn’t sure his son had even heard him, but just as he was about to speak again, the other door of the truck opened and Jed slid out.
    They walked down the driveway, entering the house through the back door, and Frank flipped on the kitchen light. Going to the refrigerator, he pulled out a beer. He thought a moment, then pulled out a second one and held it up toward Jed. “Want one? Or would you rather have a shot of brandy?”
    Jed looked at his father uncertainly, and Frank managed a wry grin. “I’m still pretty damned mad at you, but I’m not so mad I don’t have any idea what you’re feeling right now. If you’re old enough to pull a corpse out of a river, I guess you’re old enough to have a shot of brandy to take the edge off it.”
    Jed hesitated, but shook his head. “I think maybe I’ll just have a Coke,” he said.
    Frank waited until Jed had opened the soft drink and sat down at the table across from him before he spoke. After his son had taken his first long drink of the soda, Frank pulled at his beer, then set the bottle on the table. “You okay?” he asked.
    Jed started to nod, but then shook his head. “I don’t know. I just keep seeing her, looking at me. I—” His voice trembled, and he fell silent as his eyes welled with tears.
    “What the hell were you doing out there, Jed?”Frank said quietly, staring at the bottle in front of him. “Didn’t you think I meant it when I grounded you?”
    “I didn’t go out there to get in any trouble—” Jed began, but his father cut him off.
    “Bullshit! Kids like Randy Sparks and Jeff Hankins don’t go out and get drunk in the middle of the night without intending to get into trouble.”
    “They weren’t drunk,” Jed protested. “They’d had maybe one beer apiece when they came over here, and—”
    “And nothin’!” Frank exploded, his fist slamming down on the table with enough force to knock the beer bottle over. He snatched it up just as the beer itself began to foam onto the table, but ignored the puddle as he glared at his son. “What the hell’s going on with you, Jed? You’re twice as smart as those jerks, but you keep on letting them get you into trouble. Why the hell don’t you start listening to yourself for a change, instead of those two assholes?”
    “They’re not assholes,” Jed flared, his own anger rising in the face of his father’s wrath. “There’s nothing wrong with them, and they don’t make me do anything I don’t want to do. I didn’t have to go with them tonight! I could have sat home by myself, just like I did last night, and the night before, and the night before that. But why the hell should I? You’re either sleeping or at work or at some goddammed meeting or something. What am I supposed to do, sit around talking to the walls all the time? And when I do see you, all you ever do is yell at me!”
    Frank’s eyes narrowed angrily and a vein in his forehead stood out. But then, taking control of his anger, he bit back the furious words on his lips and found himself slowly counting to ten, just as Alice had always insistedhe do when his temper—almost as quick as his son’s—threatened to get the best of him.
    When he reached ten, he started over again.
    By the third time through, his rage was back under control, and he finally began to think about what Jed had just said. For the last four years, ever since Alice had died, he’d tended more and more to let Jed raise himself. Part of the problem was the simple fact of his