One Door From Heaven

flash at Curtis as she says, "I didn't recognize you, sweetie."
        She turns the newspaper so Curtis can see three photos under the headline SAVAGE COLORADO MURDERS TIED TO FUGITIVE DRUG LORDS IN UTAH.
        The photos are of the members of the Hammond family. Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, shown here, are surely the people who were asleep in their bed, in the quiet farmhouse, when the fugitive boy shamefully took twenty-four dollars from the wallet on the dresser.
        The third picture is of Curtis Hammond.
        "You're not dead," Cass says.
        "No," Curtis replies, which is true as far as it goes.
        "You escaped."
        "Not quite yet."
        "Who're you here with?"
        "Nobody but my dog. We've pretty much hitched across Utah."
        Polly asks, "Whatever happened at your family's farm in Colorado-is that all tied to this hullabaloo in Utah?"
        He nods. "Yeah."
        Castoria and Polluxia make eye contact, and their connection is as precise as that between a surgical laser and the calculated terminus of its beam, so that Curtis can almost see the scintillant trace of thought passing from one to the other. They share their next question in a duologue that does nothing to diminish his dazzlement:
        "It's not just -"
        "-a bunch of-"
        "-crazy drug lords-"
        "-behind all this-"
        "-like the government says-"
        "-is it, Curtis?"
        His attention bounces from one to the other as he answers the question twice, "No. No."
        When these twins exchange a meaningful look, which they now do again, they seem not to convey just a quick single thought, but whole paragraphs of complex data and opinion. In the womb, fed by the same susurrus river of blood, soothed by the two-note lullaby of the same mother's heart, gazing eye to eye in dreamy anticipation of the world to come, they had perfected the telemetric stare.
        "Over there in Utah-"
        "-is the government-"
        "-trying to cover up-"
        "-contact with-"
        "-extraterrestrials?"
        "Yes," Curtis says, because this is the answer they expect and the only one they will believe. If he lies and says that no aliens are involved, they will either know that he is dissembling or will think that he's merely stupid and that he's as bamboozled by the government spinmeisters as is everyone else. He's drawn to Cass and Polly; he likes them partly because Old Yeller likes them, partly because the genes of Curtis Hammond ensure that he likes them, but also because there is a tenderness about them, quite apart from their beauty, that he finds appealing. He doesn't want them to think that he is either stupid or disposed to lie. "Yes, aliens."
        Cass to Polly, Polly to Cass, blue lasers transmitting unspoken volumes. Then Polly says, "Where are your folks, really?"
        "They're really dead." His vision blurs with tears of guilt and remorse. Sooner or later, he'd have been forced to stop somewhere, if not at the Hammond farm, then at another, to find clothes and money and a suitable identity. But if he had realized just how close on his tail the hunters had been, he wouldn't have chosen the Hammond place. "Dead. The newspaper's right about that."
        To his tears the sisters fly as birds to a nest in a storm. In an instant he's being hugged and kissed and comforted by Polly, then by Cass, by Polly, by Cass, caught in a spin cycle of sympathy and motherly affection.
        In a swoon short of an outright faint, Curtis is conveyed, as if by spirit handlers, into the dining nook, and with what seems to him to be a miraculousness equal to the sun spinning off spangles in the sky over Fatima, a divine refreshment appears in front of him-a tall glass of cold root beer in which floats a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
        Not forgotten, Old Yeller is served a plate piled with the cubed white meat of chicken, and ice water in a bowl. After cleaning the chicken off the plate nearly as fast as it could have been sucked up by an industrial vacuum cleaner, the dog chews the ice with delight, grinning as she crunches it.
        As though image and reflection exist magically side by side, Cass and Polly sit across the table from Curtis in the nook. Four silver earrings dangle, four silver-and-turquoise necklaces shine, four silver bracelets gleam-and four flushed breasts, as smooth as cream, swell with sympathy and concern.
        Playing cards are