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Back THE MAILMAN Save as PDF
Chapters (57)
  1. DEDICATION
  2. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  3. 1
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“What was it?” Tritia stood in the doorway, trembling, holding Billy’s shoulders.

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“Why do the Nelsons think we killed their dog? Why did Todd think I was persecuting him?” Doug looked at his son. “You don’t know who did this, do you?”

Billy shook his head, still frightened.

“I didn’t think so. Come on. Let’s go inside.” He herded Tritia and Billy through the door, then closed and locked it behind him. Tomorrow, he’d have to find someone to replace the window. He glanced around the front of the living room. In the candlelight broken shards and bits of glass glittered on the chair and part of the couch. They would have to rearrange the furniture in case something like this happened again. He didn’t want Tritia or Billy hit by a rock or cut by a stray piece of glass.

His muscles were still tight, knotted. Although he wanted to know who had thrown the rocks, who had been in the truck, he found himself strangely unangry with the men involved. He was beginning to see the people of Willis as either victims or puppets, manipulated by the controlling will of the mailman. It was the mailman he blamed for everything, from the deaths of dogs and people to racial attacks to utility failures, and that worried him a little. His attitude seemed too close to that of classic paranoia for him to feel entirely comfortable with it. But, farfetched as it sounded, he knew it was the truth. He was not ascribing an omnipotence to the mailman he did not possess; he was merely recognizing an existing situation. He would not be at all surprised to learn that the mailman had orchestrated everything to occur in such a manner that it would engender within him exactly the sort of doubts he was harboring now.

He shook his head. He really was getting paranoid.

Tritia was already clearing the dinner dishes. They had not finished, but no one felt like eating right now. Doug walked over to help her. Even Billy took his plate to the kitchen, though he normally would not be caught dead voluntarily doing any sort of labor connected with the family.

A car drove by on the road, stereo blasting, and all three of them tensed as they waited to hear whether it would turn into their drive. The car continued down the road, the sounds of the engine and stereo fading. They looked at one another silently, then continued to clear the dishes.

The curtain covering the broken window blew inward with the light night breeze.

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