Doctor Sleep

  Tony, her invisible friend. She hadn't mentioned him in a couple of years, and Lucy hoped this wasn't some sort of regression. Ten was a little old for invisible friends.

  "Tony's daddy might be able to stop it." Then Abra's face clouded. "I think it's too late, though."

  "Tony hasn't been around in awhile, has he?" Lucy got up and fluffed out the displaced sheet. Abra giggled when it floated against her face. The best sound in the world, as far as Lucy was concerned. A sane sound. And the room was brightening all the time. Soon the first birds would begin to sing.

  "Mommy, that tickles!"

  "Mommies like to tickle. It's part of their charm. Now, what about Tony?"

  "He said he'd come any time I needed him," Abra said, settling back under the sheet. She patted the bed beside her, and Lucy lay down, sharing the pillow. "That was a bad dream and I needed him. I think he came, but I can't really remember. His daddy works in a hot spice."

  This was new. "Is that like a chili factory?"

  "No, silly, it's for people who are going to die." Abra sounded indulgent, almost teacherly, but a shiver went up Lucy's back.

  "Tony says that when people get so sick they can't get well, they go to the hot spice and his daddy tries to make them feel better. Tony's daddy has a cat with a name like mine. I'm Abra and the cat is Azzie. Isn't that weird, but in a funny way?"

  "Yes. Weird but funny."

  John and David would both probably say, based on the similarity of the names, that the stuff about the cat was the confabulation of a very bright little ten-year-old girl. But they would only half believe it, and Lucy hardly believed it at all. How many ten-year-olds knew what a hospice was, even if they mispronounced it?

  "Tell me about the boy in your dream." Now that Abra was calmed down, this conversation seemed safer. "Tell me who was hurting him, Abba-Doo."

  "I don't remember, except he thought Barney was supposed to be his friend. Or maybe it was Barry. Momma, can I have Hoppy?"

  Her stuffed rabbit, now sitting in lop-eared exile on the highest shelf in her room. Abra hadn't slept with him in at least two years. Lucy got the Hopster and put him in her daughter's arms. Abra hugged the rabbit to her pink pajama top and was asleep almost at once. With luck, she'd be out for another hour, maybe even two. Lucy sat beside her, looking down.

  Let this stop for good in another few years, just like John said it would. Better yet, let it stop today, this very morning. No more, please. No more hunting through the local papers to see if some little boy was killed by his stepfather or beaten to death by bullies who were high on glue, or something. Let it end.

  "God," she said in a very low voice, "if you're there, would you do something for me? Would you break the radio in my little girl's head?"

  2

  When the True headed west again along I-80, rolling toward the town in the Colorado high country where they would spend the summer (always assuming the opportunity to collect some nearby big steam did not come up), Crow Daddy was riding in the shotgun seat of Rose's EarthCruiser. Jimmy Numbers, the True's whizbang accountant, was piloting Crow's Affinity Country Coach for the time being. Rose's satellite radio was tuned to Outlaw Country and currently playing Hank Jr.'s "Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound." It was a good tune, and Crow let it run its course before pushing the OFF button.

  "You said we'd talk later. This is later. What happened back there?"

  "We had a looker," Rose said.

  "Really?" Crow raised his eyebrows. He had taken as much of the Trevor kid's steam as any of them, but he looked no younger. He rarely did after eating. On the other hand, he rarely looked older between meals, unless the gap was very long. Rose thought it was a good trade-off. Probably something in his genes. Assuming they still had genes. Nut said they almost certainly did. "A steamhead, you mean."

  She nodded. Ahead of them, I-80 unrolled under a faded blue denim sky dotted with drifting cumulus clouds.

  "Big steam?"

  "Oh yeah. Huge."

  "How far away?"

  "East Coast. I think."

  "You're saying someone looked in from what, almost fifteen hundred miles away?"

  "Could have been even further. Could have been way the hell and gone up in Canada."

  "Boy or girl?"

  "Probably a girl, but it was only a flash. Three seconds at most. Does it matter?"

  It didn't. "How many canisters could you fill from a kid with that much steam in the boiler?"

  "Hard to say. Three, at least." This time it was Rose who was lowballing. She guessed the unknown looker might fill ten canisters, maybe even a dozen. The presence had been brief but muscular. The looker had seen what they were doing, and her horror (if it was a her) had been strong enough to freeze Rose's hands and make her feel a momentary loathing. It wasn't her own feeling, of course--gutting a rube was no more loathsome than gutting a deer--but a kind of psychic ricochet.

  "Maybe we ought to turn around," Crow said. "Get her while the getting's good."

  "No. I think this one's still getting stronger. We'll let her ripen a bit."

  "Is that something you know or just intuition?"

  Rose waggled her hand in the air.

  "An intuition strong enough to risk her getting killed by a hit-and-run driver or grabbed by some child-molesting perv?" Crow said this without irony. "Or what about leukemia, or some other cancer? You know they're susceptible to stuff like that."

  "If you asked Jimmy Numbers, he'd say the actuarial tables are on our side." Rose smiled and gave his thigh an affectionate pat. "You worry too much, Daddy. We'll go on to Sidewinder, as planned, then head down to Florida in a couple of months. Both Barry and Grampa Flick think this might be a big year for hurricanes."

  Crow made a face. "That's like scavenging out of Dumpsters."

  "Maybe, but the scraps in some of those Dumpsters are pretty tasty. And nourishing. I'm still kicking myself that we missed that tornado in Joplin. But of course we get less warning on sudden storms like that."

  "This kid. She saw us."

  "Yes."

  "And what we were doing."

  "Your point, Crow?"

  "Could she nail us?"

  "Honey, if she's more than eleven, I'll eat my hat." Rose tapped it for emphasis. "Her parents probably don't know what she is or what she can do. Even if they do, they're probably minimizing it like hell in their own minds so they don't have to think about it too much."

  "Or they'll send her to a psychiatrist who'll give her pills," Crow said. "Which will muffle her and make her harder to find."

  Rose smiled. "If I got it right, and I'm pretty sure I did, giving Paxil to this kid would be like throwing a piece of Saran Wrap over a searchlight. We'll find her when it's time. Don't worry."

  "If you say so. You're the boss."

  "That's right, honeybunch." This time instead of patting his thigh, she squeezed his basket. "Omaha tonight?"

  "It's a La Quinta Inn. I reserved the entire back end of the first floor."

  "Good. My intent is to ride you like a roller coaster."

  "We'll see who rides who," Crow said. He was feeling frisky from the Trevor kid. So was Rose. So were they all. He turned the radio on again. Got Cross Canadian Ragweed singing about the boys from Oklahoma who rolled their joints all wrong.

  The True rolled west.

  3

  There were easy AA sponsors, and hard AA sponsors, and then there were ones like Casey Kingsley, who took absolutely zero shit from their pigeons. At the beginning of their relationship, Casey ordered Dan to do ninety-in-ninety, and instructed him to telephone every morning at seven o'clock. When Dan completed his ninety consecutive meetings, he was allowed to drop the morning calls. Then they met three times a week for coffee at the Sunspot Cafe.

  Casey was sitting in a booth when Dan came in on a July afternoon in 2011, and although Casey hadn't made it to retirement just yet, to Dan his longtime AA sponsor (and first New Hampshire employer) looked very old. Most of his hair was gone, and he wa
lked with a pronounced limp. He needed a hip replacement, but kept putting it off.

  Dan said hi, sat down, folded his hands, and waited for what Casey called The Catechism.

  "You sober today, Danno?"

  "Yes."

  "How did that miracle of restraint happen?"

  He recited, "Thanks to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the God of my understanding. My sponsor may also have played a small part."

  "Lovely compliment, but don't blow smoke up my dress and I won't blow any up yours."

  Patty Noyes came over with the coffeepot and poured Dan a cup, unasked. "How are you, handsome?"

  Dan grinned at her. "I'm good."

  She ruffled his hair, then headed back to the counter, with a little extra swing in her stride. The men followed the sweet tick-tock of her hips, as men do, then Casey returned his gaze to Dan.

  "Made any progress with that God-of-my-understanding stuff ?"

  "Not much," Dan said. "I've got an idea it may be a lifetime work."

  "But you ask for help to stay away from a drink in the morning?"

  "Yes."

  "On your knees?"

  "Yes."

  "Say thank you at night?"

  "Yes, and on my knees."

  "Why?"

  "Because I need to remember the drink put me there," Dan said. It was the absolute truth.

  Casey nodded. "That's the first three steps. Give me the short form."

  " 'I can't, God can, I think I'll let Him.' " He added: "The God of my understanding."

  "Which you don't understand."

  "Right."

  "Now tell me why you drank."

  "Because I'm a drunk."

  "Not because Mommy didn't give you no love?"

  "No." Wendy had had failings, but her love for him--and his for her--had never wavered.

  "Because Daddy didn't give you no love?"

  "No." Although once he broke my arm, and at the end he almost killed me.

  "Because it's hereditary?"

  "No." Dan sipped his coffee. "But it is. You know that, right?"

  "Sure. I also know it doesn't matter. We drank because we're drunks. We never get better. We get a daily reprieve based on our spiritual condition, and that's it."

  "Yes, boss. Are we through with this part?"

  "Almost. Did you think about taking a drink today?"

  "No. Did you?"

  "No." Casey grinned. It filled his face with light and made him young again. "It's a miracle. Would you say it's a miracle, Danny?"

  "Yes. I would."

  Patty came back with a big dish of vanilla pudding--not just one cherry on top but two--and stuck it in front of Dan. "Eat that. On the house. You're too thin."

  "What about me, sweetheart?" Casey asked.

  Patty sniffed. "You're a horse. I'll bring you a pine tree float, if you want. That's a glass of water with a toothpick in it." Having gotten the last word, she sashayed off.

  "You still hitting that?" Casey asked as Dan began to eat his pudding.

  "Charming," Dan said. "Very sensitive and New Age."

  "Thanks. Are you still hitting it?"

  "We had a thing that lasted maybe four months, and that was three years ago, Case. Patty's engaged to a very nice boy from Grafton."

  "Grafton," Casey said dismissively. "Pretty views, shit town. She doesn't act so engaged when you're in the house."

  "Casey--"

  "No, don't get me wrong. I'd never advise a pidge of mine to stick his nose--or his dick--into an ongoing relationship. That's a terrific setup for a drink. But . . . are you seeing anybody?"

  "Is it your business?"

  "Happens it is."

  "Not currently. There was a nurse from Rivington House--I told you about her . . ."

  "Sarah something."

  "Olson. We talked a little about moving in together, then she got a great job down at Mass General. We email sometimes."

  "No relationships for the first year, that's the rule of thumb," Casey said. "Very few recovering alkies take it seriously. You did. But Danno . . . it's time you got regular with somebody."

  "Oh gee, my sponsor just turned into Dr. Phil," Dan said.

  "Is your life better? Better than it was when you showed up here fresh off the bus with your ass dragging and your eyes bleeding?"

  "You know it is. Better than I ever could have imagined."

  "Then think about sharing it with somebody. All I'm saying."

  "I'll make a note of it. Now can we discuss other things? The Red Sox, maybe?"

  "I need to ask you something else as your sponsor first. Then we can just be friends again, having a coffee."

  "Okay . . ." Dan looked at him warily.

  "We've never talked much about what you do at the hospice. How you help people."

  "No," Dan said, "and I'd just as soon keep it that way. You know what they say at the end of every meeting, right? 'What you saw here, what you heard here, when you leave here, let it stay here.' That's how I am about the other part of my life."

  "How many parts of your life were affected by your drinking?"

  Dan sighed. "You know the answer to that. All of them."

  "So?" And when Dan said nothing: "The Rivington staff calls you Doctor Sleep. Word gets around, Danno."

  Dan was silent. Some of the pudding was left, and Patty would rag him about it if he didn't eat it, but his appetite had flown. He supposed he'd known this conversation had been coming, and he also knew that, after ten years without a drink (and with a pigeon or two of his own to watch over these days), Casey would respect his boundaries, but he still didn't want to have it.

  "You help people to die. Not by putting pillows over their faces, or anything, nobody thinks that, but just by . . . I don't know. Nobody seems to know."

  "I sit with them, that's all. Talk to them a little. If it's what they want."

  "Do you work the Steps, Danno?"

  If Dan had believed this was a new conversational tack he would have welcomed it, but he knew it was not. "You know I do. You're my sponsor."

  "Yeah, you ask for help in the morning and say thanks at night. You do it on your knees. So that's the first three. Four is all that moral inventory shit. How about number five?"

  There were twelve in all. After hearing them read aloud at the beginning of every meeting he'd attended, Dan knew them by heart. " 'Admitted to God, ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.' "

  "Yuh." Casey lifted his coffee cup, sipped, and looked at Dan over the rim. "Have you done that one?"

  "Most of it." Dan found himself wishing he were somewhere else. Almost anywhere else. Also--for the first time in quite awhile--he found himself wishing for a drink.

  "Let me guess. You've told yourself all of your wrongs, and you've told the God of your not-understanding all of your wrongs, and you've told one other person--that would be me--most of your wrongs. Would that be a bingo?"

  Dan said nothing.

  "Here's what I think," Casey said, "and you're welcome to correct me if I'm wrong. Steps eight and nine are about cleaning up the wreckage we left behind when we were drunk on our asses pretty much twenty-four/seven. I think at least part of your work at the hospice, the important part, is about making those amends. And I think there's one wrong you can't quite get past because you're too fucking ashamed to talk about it. If that's the case, you wouldn't be the first, believe me."

  Dan thought: Mama.

  Dan thought: Canny.

  He saw the red wallet and the pathetic wad of food stamps. He also saw a little money. Seventy dollars, enough for a four-day drunk. Five if it was parceled out carefully and food was kept to a bare nutritional minimum. He saw the money first in his hand and then going into his pocket. He saw the kid in the Braves shirt and the sagging diaper.

  He thought: The kid's name was Tommy.

  He thought, not for the first time or the last: I will never speak of this.

  "Danno? Is there anything you want to tel
l me? I think there is. I don't know how long you've been dragging the motherfucker around, but you can leave it with me and walk out of here a hundred pounds lighter. That's how it works."

  He thought of how the kid had trotted to his mother

  (Deenie her name was Deenie)

  and how, even deep in her drunken slumber, she had put an arm around him and hugged him close. They had been face-to-face in the morning sun shafting through the bedroom's dirty window.

  "There's nothing," he said.

  "Let it go, Dan. I'm telling you that as your friend as well as your sponsor."

  Dan gazed at the other man steadily and said nothing.

  Casey sighed. "How many meetings have you been at where someone said you're only as sick as your secrets? A hundred? Probably a thousand. Of all the old AA chestnuts, that's just about the oldest."

  Dan said nothing.

  "We all have a bottom," Casey said. "Someday you're going to have to tell somebody about yours. If you don't, somewhere down the line you're going to find yourself in a bar with a drink in your hand."

  "Message received," Dan said. "Now can we talk about the Red Sox?"

  Casey looked at his watch. "Another time. I've got to get home."

  Right, Dan thought. To your dog and your goldfish.

  "Okay." He grabbed the check before Casey could. "Another time."

  4

  When Dan got back to his turret room, he looked at his blackboard for a long time before slowly erasing what was written there:

  They are killing the baseball boy!

  When the board was blank again, he asked, "What baseball boy would that be?"

  No answer.

  "Abra? Are you still here?"

  No. But she had been; if he'd come back from his uncomfortable coffee meeting with Casey ten minutes earlier, he might have seen her phantom shape. But had she come for him? Dan didn't think so. It was undeniably crazy, but he thought she might have come for Tony. Who had been his invisible friend, once upon a time. The one who sometimes brought visions. The one who sometimes warned. The one who had turned out to be a deeper and wiser version of himself.

  For the scared little boy trying to survive in the Overlook Hotel, Tony had been a protective older brother. The irony was that now, with the booze behind him, Daniel Anthony Torrance had become an authentic adult and Tony was still a kid. Maybe even the fabled inner child the New Age gurus were always going on about. Dan felt sure that inner-child stuff was brought into service to excuse a lot of selfish and destructive behavior (what Casey liked to call the Gotta-Have-It-Now Syndrome), but he also had no doubt that grown men and women held every stage of their development somewhere in their brains--not just the inner child, but the inner infant, the inner teenager, and the inner young adult. And if the mysterious Abra came to him, wasn't it natural that she'd hunt past his adult mind, looking for someone her own age?