On Paul's fourteenth birthday his father had given him a Red Devil condom in a foil envelope. “Put that in your wallet,” Roger Sheldon said, “and if you ever get excited while you're making out at the drive-in, take a second between excited enough to want to and too excited to care and slip that on. Too many bastards in the world already, and I don't want to see you going in the Army at sixteen.” Now Paul went on: “I guess he told me to keep my eye on my wallet so many times that it's stuck inside for good. If I offended you, I'm truly sorry.” She relaxed. Smiled. The crevasse closed. Summer flowers nodded cheerfully once again. He thought of pushing his hand through that smile and encountering nothing but flexible darkness. “No offense taken. It's in a safe place. Wait - I've got something for you.” She left and returned with a steaming bowl of soup. There were vegetables floating in it. He was not able to eat much but he ate more than he thought at first he could. She seemed pleased. It was while he ate the soup that she told him what had happened, and he remembered it all as she told him and he supposed it was good to know how you happened to end up with your legs shattered, but the manner by which he was coming to this knowledge was disquieting - it was as if he was a character in a story or a play, a character whose history is not recounted like history but created like fiction.

She had gone into Sidewinder in the four-wheel drive to get feed for the livestock and a few groceries… also to check out the paperbacks at Wilson's Drug Center - that had been the Wednesday that was almost two weeks ago now, and the new paperbacks always came in on Tuesday.

“I was actually thinking of you,” she said, spooning soup into his mouth and then professionally wiping away a dribble, from the comer with a napkin. “That's what makes it such a remarkable coincidence, don't you see? I was hoping Misery's Child would finally be out in paperback, but no such luck.” A storm had been on the way, she said, but until noon that day the weather forecasters had been confidently claiming it would veer south, toward New Mexico and the Sangre di Cristos.