Watchers

bear to meet her own gaze for more than a few seconds. Her eyes confirmed her low opinion of her appearance. But also . . . well, in her own eyes she saw a smoldering anger that disturbed her, that was not like her, an anger at what she had let
    herself become. Of course, that made no sense whatsoever because she was what nature had made her—a mouse—and she could do nothing about that.
    Turning from the mottled mirror, she felt a pang of disappointment that her self-inspection had not resulted in a single surprise or reevaluation. Immediately, however, she was shocked and appalled by that disappointment. She stood in the bathroom doorway, shaking her head, amazed by her own befuddled thought processes.
    Did she want to be appealing to Streck? Of course not. He was weird, sick, dangerous. The very last thing she wanted was to appeal to him. Maybe she wouldn’t mind if another man looked on her with favor, but not Streck. She should get on her knees and thank God for creating her as she was, because if she were at all attractive, Streck would make good on his threats. He’d come here, and he’d rape her . . . maybe murder her. Who knew about a man like that? Who knew what his limits were? She wasn’t being a nervous old maid when she worried about murder, not these days: the newspapers were full of it.
    She realized that she was defenseless, and she hurried back to the bedroom, where she had left the butcher’s knife.
     
     
5
    Most people believe psychoanalysis is a cure for unhappiness. They are sure they could overcome all their problems and achieve peace of mind if only they could understand their own psychology, understand the reasons for their negative moods and self-destructive behavior. But Travis had learned this was not the case. For years, he engaged in unsparing self-analysis, and long ago he figured out why he had become a loner who was unable to make friends. However, in spite of that understanding, he had not been able to change.
    Now, as midnight approached, he sat in the kitchen, drank another Coors, and told Einstein about his self-imposed emotional isolation. Einstein sat before him, unmoving, never yawning, as if intently interested in his tale.
    “I was a loner as a kid, right from the start, though I wasn’t entirely without friends. It was just that I always preferred my own company. I guess it’s my nature. I mean, when I was a kid, I hadn’t yet decided that my being friends with someone was a danger to him.”
    Travis’s mother had died giving birth to him, and he knew all about that from an early age. In time her death would seem like an omen of what was to come, and it would take on a terrible importance, but that was later. As a kid, he wasn’t yet burdened with guilt.
    Not until he was ten. That was when his brother Harry died. Harry was twelve, two years older than Travis. One Monday morning in June, Harry talked Travis into walking three blocks to the beach, although their father had expressly forbidden them to go swimming without him. It was a private
    cove without a public lifeguard, and they were the only two swimmers in sight.
    “Harry got caught in an undertow,” Travis told Einstein. “We were in the water together no more than ten feet apart, and the damn undertow got him, sucked him away, but it didn’t get me. I even went after him, tried to save him, so I should’ve swum straight into the same current, but I guess it changed course just after it snatched Harry away, ‘cause I came out of the water alive.” He stared at the top of the kitchen table for a long moment, seeing not the red Formica but the rolling, treacherous, blue-green sea. “I loved my big brother more than anyone in the world.”
    Einstein whined softly, as in commiseration.
    “Nobody blamed me for what happened to Harry. He was the older one. He was supposed to be the most responsible. But I felt . . . well, if the undertow took Harry, it should’ve taken me, too.”
    A night wind blew in from the west, rattled a loose windowpane.
    After taking a swallow of beer, Travis said, “The summer I was fourteen, I wanted very badly to go to tennis camp. Tennis was my big enthusiasm then. So my dad enrolled me in a place down near San Diego, a full month of intense instruction. He drove me there on a Sunday, but we never made it. Just north of Oceanside, a trucker fell asleep at the wheel, his rig jumped the median, and we were wiped. Dad was killed instantly. Broken neck, broken back, skull