“Yes,” Drew said. He felt numb. “He was, wasn’t he?” Except, of course, he had that damn rat to contend with. He’d said so himself.

“You need to sit down,” Lucy said. “You’re as pale as windowglass.”

But sitting down wasn’t what Drew needed, at least not first. He rushed to the kitchen sink and vomited up the champagne. As he hung there, still heaving, barely aware of Lucy rubbing his back, he thought, Ellie says the book will be published next February. Between now and then I’ll do whatever the editor tells me, and all the publicity they want once the book comes out. I’ll play the game. I’ll do it for Lucy and the kids. But there’s never going to be another one.

“Never,” he said.

“What, honey?” She was still rubbing his back.

“The pancreatic. I thought that would get him, it gets almost everybody. I never expected anything like this.” He rinsed his mouth from the faucet, spat. “Never.”

35

The funeral—which Drew couldn’t help thinking of as the FUNNERAL—was held four days after the accident. Al’s younger brother asked Drew if he would say a few words. Drew declined, saying he was still too shocked to be articulate. He was shocked, no doubt about it, but his real fear was that the words would turn treacherous as they had on Village and the two aborted books before it. He was afraid—really, actually afraid—that if he stood at the podium before a chapel filled with grieving relatives, friends, colleagues, and students, what might spill from his mouth was The rat! It was the fucking rat! And I turned it loose!

Lucy cried all through the service. Stacey cried with her, not because she knew the Stampers well but in sympathy with her mother. Drew sat silent, with his arm around Brandon. He looked not at the two coffins but at the choir loft. He was sure he would see a rat running a victory lap along the polished mahogany rail up there, but he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. There was no rat. As the service wound down, he realized he’d been stupid to think there might be. He knew where the rat was, and that place was miles from here.

36

In August (and a mighty hot August it was), Lucy decided to take the kids down to Little Compton, Rhode Island, to spend a couple of weeks at the shore with her parents and her sister’s family, leaving Drew a quiet house where he could work through the copyedited manuscript of Bitter River. He said he would break the work in half, taking a day in the middle to drive up to Pop’s cabin. He would spend the night, he said, and come back the following day to resume work on the manuscript. They had hired Jack Colson—Young Jackie—to truck away the remains of the smashed shed; Jackie in turn had hired his ma to clean the cabin. Drew said he wanted to see what kind of job they’d done. And to retrieve his watch.

“Sure you don’t want to start a new book there?” Lucy asked, smiling. “I wouldn’t mind. The last one turned out pretty well.”

Drew shook his head. “Nothing like that. I was thinking we ought to sell the place, hon. I’m really going up there to say goodbye.”

37

The signs on the gas pump at the Big 90 were the same: CASH ONLY and REGULAR ONLY and “DASH-AWAYS” WILL BE PERSECUTED and GOD BLESS AMERICA. The scrawny young woman behind the counter was also pretty much the same; the chrome stud was gone but the nose ring was still there. And she’d gone blond. Presumably because blonds had more fun.

“You again,” she said. “Only you changed your ride, seems like. Didn’t you have a ’Burban?”

Drew glanced out at the Chevy Equinox—purchased outright, still less than 7,000 miles on the clock—standing at the single rusting pump. “The Suburban was never really the same after my last trip up here,” he said. Actually, neither was I.

“Gonna be up there long?”

“No, not this time. I was sorry to hear about Roy.”

“Should have gone to the doctor. Let it be a lesson to you. Need anything else?”

Drew bought some bread, some lunchmeat, and a sixpack.

38

All the blowdown had been trucked away from the dooryard, and the equipment shed was gone as if it had never been. Young Jackie had sodded the ground and fresh grass was growing there. Also some cheery flowers. The warped porch steps had been repaired and there were a couple of new chairs, just cheap stuff from the Presque Isle Walmart, probably, but not bad looking.

Inside, the cabin was neat and freshened up. The woodstove’s isinglass window had been cleaned of soot and the stove itself gleamed. So did the windows, the dining table, and the pine-plank floor, which looked as if it had been oiled as well as washed. The refrigerator was once more unplugged and standing open, once more empty except for a box of Arm & Hammer. Probably a fresh one. It was clear that Old Bill’s widow had done a bang-up job.

Only on the counter by the sink were there signs of his occupancy the previous October: the Coleman lantern, the tin of lantern fuel, a bag of Halls cough drops, several packets of Goody’s Headache Powder, half a bottle of Dr. King’s Cough & Cold Remedy, and his wristwatch.

The fireplace was scrubbed clean of ash. It had been loaded with fresh chunks of oak, so Drew supposed Young Jackie had either had the chimney swept or done it himself. Very efficient, but there would be no need of a fire in this August heat. He went to the fireplace, knelt, and twisted his head to stare up into the black throat of the chimney.

“Are you up there?” he called… and with no self-consciousness at all. “If you’re up there, come down. I want to talk to you.”

Nothing, of course. He told himself again there was no rat, had never been a rat, except there was. The splinter wasn’t coming out. The rat was in his head. Only that wasn’t completely true, either. Was it?

There were still two crates flanking the spandy-clean fireplace, fresh kindling in one, toys in the other—the ones left here by his kids and those left by the children of whomever Lucy had let the cabin to in the few years they’d rented it. He grabbed the crate and dumped it. At first he didn’t think the stuffed rat was there, and he felt a stab of panic, irrational, but real. Then he saw it had tumbled under the hearth, nothing sticking out but its cloth-covered rump and stringy tail. What an ugly toy it was!

“Thought you’d hide, did you?” he asked it. “No good, Mister.”

He took it over to the sink and dropped it in. “Got anything to say? Any explanations? Maybe an apology? No? What about any last words? You were chatty enough before.”

The stuffed rat had nothing to say, so Drew doused it with lantern fluid and set it on fire. When there was nothing left but smoking, foul-smelling slag, he turned on the water and doused the remains. There were a few paper bags under the sink. Drew used a spatula to scrape what was left into one of these. He took the bag down to Godfrey Brook, tossed it in, and watched it float away. Then he sat down on the bank and looked at the day, which was windless and hot and gorgeous.

When the sun began to sink, he went inside and made a couple of bologna sandwiches. They were sort of dry—he should have remembered to get mustard or mayo—but he had the beer to wash them down. He drank three cans, sitting in one of the old armchairs and reading an Ed McBain paperback about the 87th Precinct.