Suddenly he got to his feet. “Well, old-kid-old-kid-old-sock,” he said, walking toward the door, “come on down to the cellar one of these days and we’ll holler dirty words up the clothes chute to Annabel.” He giggled and wheezed and leered at Clinton as he closed the door.

Clinton said, “G’night, Ralph. Thanks for comin’ up.” But he did not immediately take up his notebook. Instead, he looked for a long time at the closed door, as if it had written on it all the things he had not told his father.

Two weeks passed and Clinton remained in his pajamas.

Annabel continued to carry his meals to him, but now she took fewer pains to make them pleasant for him. At first she had placed early summer flowers on his tray, garnished his plate with parsley leaves and touched it up with colorful extras: spiced apples or red molds of Jell-o to sharpen his appetite. But as the days of his recuperation drew into weeks, and she began to suspect that Clinton might be malingering, the meals grew plainer. Annabel took her time about getting the newspapers to his room, and now and then she arranged to be just out of earshot when he called for ice water. She hoped that with this deterioration of service, the boy might find the sickroom less to his liking and declare himself recovered.

But soon it was July and still Clinton would not leave his bed. He would awaken at dawn and listen to all the morning sounds: the dry swoosh of Mrs. Cardoni’s broom on the back porch of the house next door, a variety of bird songs, the stopping and starting of the J. F. Smith milk truck on its rounds. Midmorning, he would close his eyes, trying to pretend to himself that he was asleep. But this kind of fake rest does no one any good, as it is full of wakeful dreams: ugly memories put you in a fog that is hard to throw off later. Annabel brought his first meal at noon, and the hours that followed were endless affairs to deal with. Much of the time he spent just lying there staring at various objects for long periods, or propped up on an extra pillow with the Sears, Roebuck catalogue or the dictionary opened on his lap. Or he would look out the window, not even seeing the roof of the garage or the trees in the yard across the alley. In general, Clinton was not having a good time.