Chapter 19

October 2001

Things slowed down considerably for Dave over the next couple weeks as he began to get his feet under him and establish a routine. It was just fine with him; things in his life had been moving too quickly anyway.

The boys and their school established the pace for him. He soon got into the habit of waking them early enough so they could stumble around and fully wake up, and then he could send them off to school with a little better breakfast than just milk and cereal. It wasn't often big or elaborate, but it was something tasty and different every day. They left for school in plenty of time -- usually they walked, since it was just a few blocks, and as time went on Dave began to recognize some of the regular kids, as well as a few of the parents who walked their kids to school. At first he walked the kids right to the classroom, but after a few days went by, he didn't always do it, since he figured they knew where to go. Sometimes he'd stop and talk with Cindy or Roberta for a minute or two, mostly about the boys, who seemed to be adapting well and not causing any problems. There were a few rainy days when he drove the kids to school in the gray Chevy Malibu, but he liked the morning walks for exercise, if nothing more.

Almost every morning after he dropped the boys off at school, he'd continue his walk by going to the Spee-D-Mart. It was a good chance to touch base with Emily, of course. She had quickly become about his best friend in Bradford and one of the best he'd ever had, and it was always good to talk with her for a few minutes. Occasionally there would be some kind of a problem that local knowledge could solve, and Emily was almost always able to point him in the right direction.

On the mornings she didn't work at the Spee-D-Mart, he'd still swing by and talk with Janine, Emily's assistant. Janine was heavy set, not very pretty, and had a skin condition that didn't help, but she almost always had a bright, cheery remark or comment to lighten up the morning. When he left the Spee-D-Mart, he'd always take a large Styrofoam cup of coffee with him, and usually a doughnut or two if they had anything left that looked interesting.

As soon as he got home, he headed into the office and knuckled down to work. There were usually three or four e-mails that demanded attention, and sometimes a phone call or two. Usually they had to wait until nine, although he rarely had to wait on the clock. While there might be the odd phone call or e-mail during the day, it didn't happen very often, so not long after nine he was usually pretty well buried in his work. There hadn't been quite enough time to finish his edit of Dithyran's Probe before he left New York, but he pretty well wrapped it up in his first days back in Bradford. He sent a copy of the revised work off electronically to the Dunlap and Fyre office in New York, and another one to Meghan Solari, the author. She usually had some bones to pick with his editing -- any author did -- but had generally said in the past that his editing helped the story, so he couldn't fault her.

There would be more to do on Dithyran's Probe once Meghan had reviewed his edit, but for the moment it was out of the way, so he turned his attention to the next project, Swordsman of Atlantis. Although he'd had the project in his hands for several days, he had done little more than glance at it. Now, it demanded a fairly careful reading, just to make sure he knew where it was headed before he stuck his fingers into it. Like most manuscripts these days, Swordsman of Atlantis had been submitted electronically, and Dave had a copy on the hard drive of his laptop and another one on the desktop. Given a choice he preferred to work on the desktop normally, but for the first read he found it more comfortable to plop down in his living room chair and skim it there. He didn't do any real editing, but when he found something worthy of future attention he marked it and moved on. The book was long and involved enough that it took a couple days to do a first careful read, and some was done in the evening after the boys had gone to bed.

Usually, Dave worked right on through in the mornings, finishing the coffee and the doughnuts, if he had them. If he hadn't had the doughnuts, his stomach usually started feeling a little grumbly along about midday; when it did, he went to the kitchen and made a sandwich, usually joined with a glass of milk or a can of cola consumed as he sat at the computer screen.

Whatever was happening, fifteen minutes before school was out he knocked off what he was doing. At first he'd thought about setting an alarm clock to warn him when the time was drawing near, but before he managed to do it, he realized his time sense was good enough that it was unnecessary. Again, he'd walk to school to pick up the boys, sometimes talking with the teacher or principal for a moment or two, and sometimes not.

When he got home with the boys, it was time for a little snack and a glass of milk, and he usually joined in. Sometimes he'd play a game with the boys, or read to them -- or just work on their reading -- but sometimes he'd let them sit down and watch TV.

It turned out the local cable network didn't carry CTN, but then it didn't carry much else and not very many people were happy with it. When Dave raised the topic with Emily, he was told the town was stuck with the franchise for the next few years, but the council was working on an agreement with another company to bring high-speed internet service, which would include digital TV. The hangup the council was trying to work out was whether the digital network infringed on the cable TV franchise agreement. In the meantime, Emily told him to do what everyone else did: get a satellite dish.

Dave grumbled about it for a few days, but then when he saw just what crap was available on TV after school, he gave in. As in New York, Avalon was on in the after-school hours, and although they were getting a little old for it, the boys liked watching it because they could see their Aunt Shae. Dave often watched with them, amused he was watching it for the same reason.

But they didn't always watch TV. Kayla was in her first year on the middle school cross-country team, and Emily said she was showing signs of being a good runner, so she was conscientious about getting to practices and meets. But on the afternoons when she didn't have a practice or meet after school, she often walked home with Dave and the boys, and spent some time playing with them. When it happened, Dave usually went back to whatever project he'd been working on.

By the time that wound up, it was usually getting to be about time for dinner. In the first few weeks Dave and the boys could have eaten out virtually every night, but Dave soon put a halt to that, limiting it to one or two nights a week. There were many reasons for it, the most important being he felt that having dinner together helped to rebuild a sense of family, which in his mind had been badly shaken. Besides, he didn't want to wear out his welcome.

So, most dinners they had at home. They weren't fancy or elaborate, and mostly ran toward things the three of them liked, although Dave tried to push them away from the junk advertised on TV and toward more healthy food. Often when they ate at home, JoAnne would join them, occasionally bringing Hazel with her.

The evenings were also pretty much for the boys, too -- usually TV again, but not always, and then it was often a videotape rather than broadcast. Whatever it was, Dave tried to have it wrapped up by a quarter to eight. He'd tell the boys to go get their pajamas on and get ready for bed, because Aunt Shae would be calling soon.

Shae almost always called right at eight, never missing it by more than a minute or two; after the first call, Dave had moved the speakerphone to the living room so it would be more comfortable for the three of them, and they usually gathered on the couch. Shae always talked to the boys for a few minutes, asking about school, telling them their mother would be proud of them, sometimes telling a story from when she and Dave were kids going to the same school.

After a while she'd ask, "Are you ready for your bedtime story?" and the boys always were.

The first few nights the stories seemed adapted from Avalon, but in time, they morphed into a mini-series about two boys, both young wizards with some magical powers, being taken to a strange land with all sorts of wondrous creatures and odd happenings. Dave soon realized it was something of a metaphor for the boys themselves -- it was close enough to them they could identify with it, but enough different that they would have to use their imaginations. At first, Dave thought Shae was reading it, but one night, Shae happened to ask them what they thought ought to happen next, and they told her their idea. Sure enough, the next night it happened to the boys, but considerably buffed up -- the story line went on for the next several days. Shae was a magnificent storyteller and Dave came to enjoy the bedtime ritual about as much as the boys. It was a special time.

The boys were very good about going to bed once Shae hit the evening cliffhanger. On the few occasions that they were cranky about it, all it took to bring them around was a gentle comment that if they didn't get to bed and get to sleep there wouldn't be a story the next night. Getting to sleep sometimes took a while, but as soon as Dave was sure they were down for the night, he'd go back downstairs, pick up the phone in the office and call Shae back.

Sometimes those calls were only a few minutes, but often they would take an hour or more. He and Shae talked about a lot of things -- the boys, of course, her job, and some of the things she went through shooting Avalon. Especially in his early days back in Bradford, Dave had stories about his adventures, the things he'd found out, people he'd met, people they mutually knew. They never seemed to lack for anything to talk about, and the discussions were wide ranging. The late phone calls soon became Dave's favorite time of the day.

One of the things Dave was curious about was where Shae was getting the stories she was telling the boys. "Out of mid-air, mostly," she replied to his surprise. "I usually work out the general direction of where I'm going while I'm hanging around during the day, waiting on setups and doing nothing much. The actual story doesn't come out until I'm telling it."

"You ought to write some of those down," he told her. "There are some great kids' stories you've been telling. That's my professional opinion, by the way, not one of a friend."

"I've tried," she sighed. "It always seems to come out real flat. I'm not a writer, Dave. I'm a storyteller. There's a big difference. You tend to think of how words read. I have to operate on how they're said."

"Be that as it may," he replied, mentally conceding her point. "You do a great job of telling a story. I love watching you on Avalon, but you do a much better job of it when you're not playing a five year old. You really draw in your audience. Just write down enough to remind you of the general storyline so you can tell it again later. It seems to me there might be something you could do with this talent in the future."

"Yeah, but I haven't figured out what it is yet," she sighed.

The only thing that kept the phone calls going on even longer was the fact that both of them knew they were running up a lot of long distance charges. Sometimes when they hung up Dave was just about ready for bed himself, but usually he took an hour or so afterward just for himself -- often reading something, usually not fiction but something to make him think. In the first part of the month it was Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which was a real thought provoker indeed.

All in all, it made for a fairly steady routine, one he fell into easily. New York seemed far away, and was -- there was little in his life in Bradford that resembled his life of a month and more before. Though he'd had real mixed emotions about the move back to Bradford, so far it had diverted him from the pain of losing Julie, and realistically he could not have asked for more.