Lengthening shadows indicate it is the time of Sunday when Dad naps, a time that can be dangerous, when you can think you are safe, but are not. He is willing to forego the nap, if he is restless. He might be anywhere out there, searching, hidden in the woods on the other side of the pond. Dad might see any movement. Nathan holds so still every joint is stiff. As before, every sound becomes suspicious. The wild, tangled calls of birds rise in eerie echoes high in the tree tops from the deep forest that surrounds the farm. Nathan takes the blankets and books and searches out a more secluded place, behind a tree and a large stone grave marker, tilted at a wild angle but broad enough to hide him. He risks the movement even if Dad should be watching, his fear is suddenly so great. In the new hiding place, he is completely concealed.
But better concealment has its own price, that he himself can see nothing except banks of willows and slices of pond. He sits in silence, listening. Every possible footfall resounds. He is relieved when the sun sinks below the treetops, he is grateful for the cloak of shadow that descends over the graves. He can be less wary in the dark. He stretches, throws off the quilts.
With dusk he returns to the houses. The kitchens are lit and interiors shine. He slips through shadows, passing the ghostly windows of the parked school bus. He crosses the empty farmyard and slides through the gap in the hedge, into the yard where his mother can see him coming.
She steps to the screen door. Nathan stops at the bottom of the steps.
"I was worried sick." They stand there. They sense each other. A cough echoes from inside the house. "Do you want something to eat?"
Nathan studies her shoes. Tattered boat shoes, grayed with mud and detergent.
"He's watching the television," she says.
Inside the kitchen, Nathan sits with his back to the door. The smell and curl of cigarette smoke locate Dad where Mom has promised. No liquor tonight. He is apt not to drink on Sunday night if he is going to church. The absence changes the smell. Nathan breathes and listens.
Mom serves his supper silently. Dishes whisper onto the table. Silverware glides across plates, meat and vegetables appear. She could be serving spies. Dad, for his part, seems locked in an agreement not to hear. His coughs are regular, dry, almost weak. Nathan eats his supper, sitting like quarry in the kitchen, and Mom watches, mild eyed and numb.
He eats, hands back the plate and stands.
"You can't go back outside."
Nathan runs water over his hands, dries them on a towel.
"It's going to be cold out there tonight."
He steps to the door. From the smoky horizon comes Dad's voice, "Who is that you're talking to?"
She freezes, also like the hunted. The recliner creaks when Dad rises, and the springs make a gasping sound when he stands. Nathan slips into darkness as the first of Dad's lumbering footsteps resounds.
By the time he reaches the shadows of Roy's side of the hedge, he can hear Dad's weight across the drying grass and fallen leaves. Acorns crack. Dad searches the yard abruptly, coughing his discomfort, never daring to call Nathan by name. The brute search halts as suddenly as it began. The screen door slams and Dad retreats.
Shivering. The night air has a biting edge. Nathan creeps further, to the border of the woods, not quite daring the graves as his shelter for the night. He retrieves his quilts but returns to the edge of the forest behind the houses, hiding himself in the underbrush. The houses remain clearly visible. The lights blaze from every window, Roy's included; only Nathan's own bedroom window is dark. He wraps himself in the quilts, as if in a cocoon.
The least sound rouses him to awareness; he is in a state between drowsing and wakefulness. He hears his parents drive to Sunday night service at church. Roy's parents do the same, and Roy is probably with them. The houses are dark, except for a dim blue bulb burning in Roy's kitchen, tracing the shoulder of the refrigerator in the frame of the window.
He is tempted to go inside, to sleep on a bed tonight, to take the chance. But he remembers the voice in the hallway, the crash of his father tripping across the twine trap and falling to the floor. He wraps the quilts tighter.
Both families return. Roy's church service ends the sooner, no surprise. Nathan's parents return late, when the waxing moon has risen. The house lights flicker on, ripple through rooms. They are flush from Christ's victory, they will read the Bible and pray in the living room. Mom will find no reason to change the routine tonight.
The night is cold again, and even two quilts are not enough to cut the wind. He takes shelter near a tree but it is as if the wind pours around it to soak him. He endures as long as he can. Later, maybe after midnight, when all the windows have gone dark in both houses, he sneaks into the school bus and curls up on a seat near the back.
