The Darkest Evening of the Year

the knife aside.
    He pushed his chair back from the table, got up, and went to the kitchen sink to splash cold water in his face.
    As he reached for the faucet handle, he realized that he had a pencil in his right hand.
    He glanced at the table. The pencil that he thought he had left beside the art tablet was not there.
    Before Amy had called him to assist on the rescue mission, he’d had only an hour’s sleep. Weariness explained his current state of mind, these small confusions.
    He put the pencil on the cutting board beside the sink and stared at it for a moment, as if expecting it to rise on point and doodle its way back to him.
    After repeatedly immersing his face in double handfuls of cold water, he dried off with paper towels, yawned, rubbed his beard stubble with one hand, and then stretched luxuriously.
    He needed caffeine. In the refrigerator were cans of Red Bull, which he kept on hand for those design deadlines that sometimes required him to pull an all-nighter.
    The pencil was not clutched in his right hand when he opened the refrigerator door. It was in his left.
    “Weariness, my ass.”
    He put the pencil on a glass shelf in the refrigerator, in front of a Tupperware container full of leftover pesto pasta.
    After popping the tab on a Red Bull and taking a long swallow, he closed the fridge without retrieving the pencil. He clearly saw it on the shelf in front of the pesto pasta as the door swung shut.
    When he returned to the table and put down the Red Bull, he realized that the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt contained a pencil.
    This had to be a different pencil from the one in the fridge. It must have been in the pocket since he’d risen from the table to wash his face.
    He counted the pencils on the table. Two should be missing: the one in his pocket, the one in the fridge. But he was short only one.
    Disbelieving, he returned to the refrigerator. The pencil that he had left on the shelf in front of the Tupperware container was no longer there.
    Now you see it. Now you don’t.
    Sitting at the table again, Brian took the pencil from his shirt pocket. With flourishes and a nimbleness akin to prestidigitation, his fingers manipulated the instrument into the proper drawing grip.
    He had not consciously intended to play with the pencil in that fashion. His fingers appeared to be expressing a memory of diligent practice from a previous life when he had been a magician.
    The point touched the paper, and graphite seemed to flow almost as swiftly as a liquid, pouring forth the enigmas of luminous flux and translucent veils in the dog’s far-seeing eye.
    He gave less thought to what he would draw, then less, then none at all. Independent of him, his inspired hand swiftly shaped shadows and suggested light.
    On the nape of his neck, the fine hairs rose, but he was neither frightened nor even apprehensive. A quiet amazement had overtaken him.
    As he had half suspected—and now knew beyond doubt—he could not claim to be the artist here. He was as much an instrument as was the pencil that he held. The artist remained unknown.

 
    Chapter
15
    A fter a few hours of sleep, Amy woke at 7:30, showered, dressed, served three bowls of kibble, and took the kids for a morning walk.
    Three big dogs could have been a test of Amy’s control and balance. Fortunately, Nickie seemed to have received good training. Each time Amy dropped the leashes to blue-bag the poop, Nickie respected a sit-and-stay command as reliably as did Fred and Ethel.
    The pleasantly warm morning was freshened by a breeze as light as a caress, and the feathery fronds of queen palms cast shadows that resembled the plumed tails of the goldens.
    Having overslept, Amy brushed all three dogs in just one hour. They lay as limp as citizens of leisure being pampered at a spa. She spent more time on Nickie than on the other two, but found no ticks.
    By 9:40, the four of them were aboard the Expedition, outbound from Laguna Beach on an adventure.
    They stopped first to see Dr. Sarkissian, one of a network of veterinarians who treated rescue dogs at a discount until they were placed in forever homes.
    After an examination, Harry Sarkissian gave Nickie a full array of inoculations. He put her on medication to control fleas, ticks, and heartworm. Results of a blood workup would come back in two days.
    “But there’s nothing wrong with this girl,” he predicted. “She’s a beauty.”
    With Nickie, Amy returned to the Expedition, where Fred and Ethel