Bag of Bones   ::   Кинг Стивен

I could hardly bear to think of her long days and longer nights in those homes where the Department of Human Services storesaway children like knickknacks nobody wants. Ki didn’t live in those places but only existed in them, pale and listless, like a well-fed rabbit kept in a cage. Each time she saw my car turning in or pulling up she came alive, waving her arms and dancing like Snoopy on his doghouse. Our weekend in October had been wonderful (despite my obsessive need to check her every half hour or so after she was asleep), and the Christmas holiday had been even better. Her emphatic desire to be with me was helping in court more than anything else… yet the wheels still turned slowly. Maybe in the spring, Mike, John told me. He was a new John these days, pale and serious. The slightly arrogant eager beaver who had wanted nothing more than to go head to head with Mr. Maxwell “Big Bucks” Devore was no longer in evidence. John had learned something about mortality on the twenty-first of July, and something about the world’s idiot cruelty, as well. The man who had taught himself to shake with his left hand instead of his right was no longer interested in partying ’til he puked. He was seeing a girl in Philly, the daughter of one of his mother’s friends. I had no idea if it was serious or not, Ki’s “Unca John” is closemouthed about that part of his life, but when a young man is of his own accord seeing the daughter of one of his mother’s friends, it usually is. Maybe in the spring: it was his mantra that late fall and early winter. What am I doing wrong? I asked him once—this was just after Thanksgiving and another setback.

Nothing, he replied. Single-parent adoptions are always slow, and when the putative adopter is a man, it’s worse. At that point in the conversation John made an ugly little gesture, poking the index finger of his left hand in and out of his loosely cupped right fist. That’s blatant sex discrimination, John. I3ah, but usually it’s justified. Blame it on every twisted asshole who ever decided he had a right to take off some little kid’s pants, if you want,’ blame it on the bureaucracy, if you want,’ hell, blame it on cosmic rays if you want. It’s a slow process, but you’re going to win in the end. I3u’ve got a clean record, you’ve got Kyra saying “I want to be with Mike” to every judge and DHS worker she sees, you’ve got enough money to keep ajger them no matter how much they squirm and no matter how many Jrms they throw at you… and most of all, buddy, you’ve got me. I had something else, toowhat Ki had whispered in my ear as I paused to catch my breath on the steps. I’d never told John about that, and it was one of the few things I didn’t tell Frank, either.