Darkfall

Dumpy.”
    “Dumphy.”
    “Yeah. Mrs. Dumpy was talking to Aunt Faye, see. Mrs. Dumpy’s husband wanted to retire to Florida, and he went down there by himself to scout around for a place to live, but he never came back ‘cause what he did was he ran off with a gold-digging bimbo. Mrs. Dumpy said only old coots and a lot of gold-digging bimbos live down there. And that’s another good reason not to live with Aunt Faye. Her friends. They’re all like Mrs. Dumpy. Always whining, you know? Jeez. And Uncle Keith smokes.”
    “A lot of people smoke.”
    “His clothes stink from the smoke.”
    “It’s not that bad.”
    “And his breath! Grody!”
    “Your breath isn’t always like flowers, you know.”
    “Who’d want breath like flowers?”
    “A bumblebee.”
    “I’m no bumblebee.”
    “You buzz a lot. You never shut up. Always buzz-buzz- buzz.”
    “I do not.”
    “Buzzzzzzzzzz.”
    “Better watch it. I might sting, too.”
    “Don’t you dare.”
    “I might sting real bad.”
    “Davey, don’t you dare.”
    “Anyway, Aunt Faye drives me nuts.”
    “She means well, Davey.”
    “She… twitters.”
    “Birds twitter, not people.”
    “She twitters like a bird.”
    It was true. But at the advanced age of almost-twelve, Penny had recently begun to feel the first stirrings of comradeship with adults. She wasn’t nearly as comfortable ridiculing them as she had been just a few months ago.
    Davey said, “And she always nags Dad about whether we’re being fed well.”
    “She just worries about us.”
    “Does she think Dad would starve us?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Then why’s she always going on and on about it?”
    “She’s just… Aunt Faye.”
    “Boy, you can say that again!”
    An especially fierce gust of wind swept the street, found its way into the recess in front of the green gate. Penny and Davey shivered.
    He said, “Dad’s got a good gun, doesn’t he? They give cops really good guns, don’t they? They wouldn’t let a cop go out on the street with a half-ass gun, would they?”
    “Don’t say ‘half-ass.’”
    “Would they?”
    “No. They give cops the best guns there are.”
    “And Dad’s a good shot, isn’t he?”
    “Yes.”
    “How good?”
    “Very good.”
    “He’s the best, isn’t he?”
    “Sure,” Penny said. “Nobody’s better with a gun than Daddy.”
    “Then the only way he’s going to get it is if somebody sneaks up on him and shoots him in the back.”
    “That isn’t going to happen,” she said firmly.
    “It could.”
    “You watch too much TV.”
    They were silent for a moment.
    Then he said, “If somebody kills Dad, I want to get cancer and die, too.”
    “Stop it, Davey.”
    “Cancer or a heart attack or something.”
    “You don’t mean that.”
    He nodded emphatically, vigorously: yes, yes, yes; he did mean it; he absolutely, positively did. “I asked God to make it happen that way if it has to happen.”
    “What do you mean?” she asked, frowning at him.
    “Each night. When I say my prayers. I always ask God not to let anything happen to Dad. And then I say, ‘Well, God, if you for some stupid reason just have to let him get shot, then please let me get cancer and die, too. Or let me get hit by a truck. Something.’”
    “That’s morbid.”
    He didn’t say anything more.
    He looked at the ground, at his gloved hands, at Mrs. Shepherd walking her patrol-everywhere but at Penny. She took hold of his chin, turned his face to her. Tears shimmered in his eyes. He was trying hard to hold them back, squinting, blinking.
    He was so small. Just seven years old and not big for his age. He looked fragile and helpless, and Penny wanted to grab hold of him and hug him, but she knew he wouldn’t want her to do that when they might be seen by some of the other boys in his class.
    She suddenly felt small and helpless herself. But that wasn’t good. Not good at all. She had to be strong for Davey’s sake.
    Letting go of his chin, she said, “Listen, Davey, we’ve got to sit down and talk. About Mom. About people dying, why it happens, you know, all that stuff, like what it means, how it’s not the end for them but maybe only the beginning, up there in Heaven, and how we’ve got to just go on, no matter what. ‘Cause we do. We’ve got to go on. Mom would be very disappointed in us if we didn’t just go on. And if anything happened to Dad-which nothing is going to happen to him-but if by some wild chance it did , then he’d want us