The Bradbury Chronicles by Martin H. Greenberg

Author:Martin H. Greenberg [Greenberg, Martin H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0451561341
Publisher: Roc / New American Library
Published: 1991-12-30T21:00:00+00:00

Of all the petty fears I had felt on that last day with Tally, none came to pass. Instead, some things far worse took their place.

Tally was but the first and most immediate of that summer’s casualties. The others were slower and subtler, though no less insidious in their arrival, all spreading forth from that day like parts of the same black tide that had taken her away.

There followed a feast of accusation, a veritable banquet of blame. And there was enough to go around for everyone involved.

A few accusations were directed at me, though by virtue of my age I was absolved of any real share of the responsibility. Others were not so fortunate.

Some hapless lifeguard, a college kid, had his life ruined.

Tally’s mother one day simply walked away from her home of nearly ten years. A widow, Tally had been her only child, her whole world.

But it was my father upon whom most of the disdain fell, and for whom, ultimately, it was most damning. All through that summer, I remember the nights in my bedroom, hearing my mother from downstairs as she spoke to my father, her voice never raised in anger but filled with disgust and contempt and loathing. The next morning I would awaken to the sound of my father weeping. It was a strange and pitiful sound the first time I heard it, but it became familiar as the summer wore on. He stayed away at his work for weeks at a time instead of days, and when he returned home, he drank more than ever. Even his beloved Plymouth suffered; it grew dusty and disused, still displaying the white curlicue of wax on the front fender, looking like the crest of a small wave. By August, my parents’ marriage had dissolved into a poisonous silence. My last recollection of my father is the sight of him seated stiffly in the office of my mother’s attorney, staring hollow-eyed as he meekly signed the divorce papers put before him. The following day, my mother and I visited the lake that one last time, and the day after that, we were on a train bound for the West.

I left “Hal” behind. It had really only been Tally who’d called me that, anyway. To my father, I’d been “kid.” To my mother, I was always Harold. To my new friends in the West, Harry.

Harry became an attorney. Harry managed to forget the lake, or at least put it out of his mind for a time. Harry married a beautiful young woman named Margaret. Harry and Margaret took their honeymoon in the land of Hal.

And that was when the sadness began again.

After my ten years away, Tally came in from the lake to welcome me home. Her half of a sandcastle awaited me . . . with the small footprints going back out, into the dark water. After that, if not always, the lake held me in its grasp.

Margaret and Harry returned to the West. There I watched as Harry went about establishing his practice.

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