Hide and Seek

I was sedated, hospitalized, treated for the leg wound and assorted

cuts and bruises.

My parents came to visit, and they each had the good grace not to

mention how stupid it all had been. My mother thanked god a lot. She

seemed nervous all the time and astonished that I'd lived. My father

always seemed to carry a kind of hearty seriousness about him around

me, as though we were both somehow transported back to World War II and

I was his bunkmate, who'd had the bad fortune to get himself shot but

who would doubtlessly recover. Strangely, I appreciated that.

Rafferty came by.

It was awkward. About all he could do was tell me how sorry he was and

shake his head in wonderment. I think he felt a little responsible. As

though it all went back to that day we went through the garbage cans

together. I tried to reassure him. Thought maybe, in a way, it did.

I learned from Rafferty that all they'd ever found of Ben Crouch was a

set of footprints leading down the beach which stopped in the dark wet

sand at the tide line. Drowned? Everyone seemed to think so. I hoped

not. I sincerely hoped not.

And still do.

Kim was there constantly. "When you're up to it," she said, "I want to

know how it was. Not now, but sometime."

She never mentioned it after that. She'd just sit long hours holding

my hand and watching me stare off into space, into blue eyes and

sunlight, and she didn't disturb me and didn't need to talk. I

appreciated that most of all.

Once I was out I saw a lot of Kim. My mother once hinted that she

thought it might turn into something. It did, but not the way she was

thinking. It became a friendship, and a strong one- one I maintain to

this day with letters and phone calls. She's five hundred miles away

now. Her husband understands.

One afternoon toward the end of August, I made good on a promise to

tell her what went on in there. It was rough on both of us but worth

it. We sat in Harmon's for a long time afterward, sipping cokes,

saying nothing.