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horticultural sick wardeverything either diseased or dying. Nature seemed out of whack. |
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And yet, the grass was a lush emerald mat. |
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Then it hit her: Calvin's chemicals. Of course. Since the day they moved in, he was determined to turn the yard into a showplace lawnthe obsession of a man who, raised in an urban tenement, had never known a lawn of his own. By himself he had torn up all the old grass, relandscaped the yard and planted some industrial-strength seed. His dream was a thick, weed-free carpet that connected him to the vast network of green middle-class America. And for his flawless turf he had layered the place with lime, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. God knew how many hundreds of pounds he had spread over the groundten years' worthneutralizing the ancient habits of nature for some Platonic ideal of yardgrass. Now they had an obscenely green lawn that spread around flowerless beds and a graveyard dogwood. |
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The sound of the telephone snapped her out of the moment. |
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"No, he's not here. Didn't you pick him up?" |
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"He wasn't at school, and Tojian said he never showed up. And none of the kids has laid eyes on him since school let out." |
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It was five-thirty and Matty had been out for three hours. He never skipped Little League practice. Calm down, she told herself. He's probably at a friend's. But he would have called by now. He always did. Maybe they got wrapped up in Nintendo and lost track of time. Sure. But for three hours? He hadn't done things with friends for weeks. |
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Suddenly her mind was a flood of hot thoughtsthe kind that lay just below every mother's consciousness. What if he'd gotten hit by a car and was unconscious or worse in some emergency room? Twelve-year-old boys didn't carry IDs, and his name wasn't in any of the books in his backpack. How would anybody know to contact her? Or, what if some pervert had coaxed him into his car on the way to the field? (For all their warnings about strangers, how much cunning would it take to fool a boy of twelve?) Or what if he was lying in some hole in the middle of Magog with a broken leg? |
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"Why didn't you call me earlier, Calvin?" |
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