“You’re not going to read it?” Susan asked, pulling out one of the pine kitchen chairs and sitting down with her cup of coffee. She never ate breakfast herself, although she wouldn’t let Neil or Toby out of the house without a good cooked meal inside them. She knew that Neil usually forgot to take his lunch break, and that Toby traded his peanut-butter sandwiches for plastic GIs or bubble gum.

Neil said no, and passed the paper across the table. Susan opened it and turned to the Homecraft section.

“Would you believe this?” she said. “It says that Cuisinart cookery is going out of style. And I don’t even have a Cuisinart yet.”

“In that case, we’ve saved ourselves some money,” said Neil, but he didn’t sound as if he was really interested. Susan looked up at him and frowned.

“Is anything wrong, Neil?” she asked.

He shook his head. But then he suddenly reached across the table and held Toby’s wrist, so that the boy’s next forkful of pancake was held poised over his plate. Toby said, “Sir?”

Neil looked at his son carefully and intensely. In a husky voice, he said, “Toby, do you know who Allen is?”

Toby looked at his father uncomprehendingly. “Allen, sir?”

“That’s right. You were saying his name last night, when you were having that nightmare. You were saying ‘I’m not Allen, I’m Toby.’”

Toby blinked. In the light of day, he didn’t remember the nightmare very clearly at all. He had a sense that it was something to do with the wardrobe door, but he couldn’t quite think what it was. He remembered a feeling of fright. He remembered his daddy putting him back to bed, and tucking him in tightly. But the name “Allen” didn’t mean anything.

Susan said, “Was that what he was saying? ‘I’m not Allen, I’m Toby’?”

Neil nodded.

“But kids say all kinds of silly things in their sleep,” she told him. “My younger sister used to sing nursery rhymes in her sleep.”

“This wasn’t the same,” said Neil.

Susan looked at Toby and then back to her husband. She said quietly, “I don’t know what you mean.”

Neil let go of his son’s wrist. He dropped his eyes toward the table, at his scraped-clean plate, and then said, “My brother’s name was Allen. Everybody used to call him Jim on account of his second name, James. But his first name was Allen.”

“But Toby doesn’t know that.”

Neil said, “I know.”

There was an awkward silence. Then Susan said, “What are you trying to say? That Toby’s having nightmares about your brother?”

“I don’t know what I’m trying to say. It just shocked me, that’s all. Toby’s room used to be Allen’s. Jim’s, I mean.”