"Is it possible to catch a disease that causes everyone to try to ignore you?"

"Why?"

"Because if there is, I've got it," he said, and laughed.

There was a thick collection of mail, and Hall looked through it as he walked to the apartment. He shook his head unhappily as he walked through the door.

"Have I been especially bad lately?" he asked Elaine, who was seated on the couch watching television.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm beginning to feel like a victim."

"Of what?" she asked, tilting her head quizzically.

"Of a new crimea"you take an guy and ignore him, pretend he's not there, until he cracks up. I feel like Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life, only there's no guardian angel."

"What's making you feel that way?"

"Here here's the perfect example. There's ten pieces of junk mail here, all with your name. Two even have your maiden name."

"My lucky day,: she said, smiling and taking them from him. "When they're in your name, you throw them out before I can see them. What else, besides the mail?"

"No check for me this morning. I had to spend my whole lunch hour fighting with payroll, and I still don't have one.

I wasn't in the computer, that's how bad they screwed up, and they couldn't process a check by hand until Monday."

"That's enough to ruin your day," she agreed.

"I can't wait to get out of there. Say, I didn't get to see yesterday's mail. Was there anything from the state on my birth certificate?"

Elaine hesitated, but only briefly. "No. Nothing came."

"It figures. Where's tonight's newspaper?"

"I left it in the kitchen."

"Okay," When he had disappeared through the swinging saloon-style doors, Elaine moved quickly to the buffet and gathered up several folded sheets of paper that were lying there in a neat pile. She buried them in the back of the end table drawer nearest her chair, closing it just as Richard reappeared.

"What do you have there?"

"Oh, just some trash," Elaine said, fl.u.s.tered.

"Well, don't put it in there. Give it to me and I'll put it in the compactor."

"I don'ta""

"Come on, give it to me while I'm still standing up."

"It's not really trash, not yet."

"Are you trying to hide something from me?"

"Noa"Ia""

"You are! Get them out. I want to see them."

"No!" she said angrily. "They're private."

"Come on, Elaine, it took you too long to think of that.

What could they be that they're so terrible I can't see them?"

Slowly she retrieved the papers from the drawer and held them out. "I would have shown them to you. I just didn't want you to see them tonight, feeling the way you do. Some of the things you saida""

Hall took the papers gently, and reversed them so that he could read them. The first was from the university he had graduated from and which Elaine had attended for a year.

Elaine stood up and crossed the room, standing with her back to him as he read.

"Can't find my record to issue a transcript," he said.

"You're right. I could have done without seeing that tonight."

He unfolded the second sheet, which bore the seal of the State of Pennsylvaniaa"Bureau of Vital Statistics.

"Oh, no," was all he said, very quietly. He moved it to the bottom of the pile and looked at the final paper. It was smaller, of stiffer paper, and very official.

He looked up from it at his wife. "Why did you change the t.i.tle to the car?" he asked, and his voice had acquired a hard edge.

"I didn't," she said, shaking her head. "I don't know why it came that way."

"The car used to be in both our names," he said more loudly. "Now it's only in yours! You're the only one who could do that!"

"They must have made a mistake printing the registrationa"" she started.

But she did not get to finish the sentence.

"You! It's been you doing these things!" He stepped for ward, trembling from the force of will needed to restrain him self. "Why, Elaine? Why?"

She stepped back. "You're scaring me, Richard. Please don't come near me," she said in the calmest voice she could muster.

"I don't deserve this,: he said, tossing the papers on the floor behind him. He had lowered his voice, but that made it even more threatening.

"Please, Richard . . ."

He stepped toward her, and she turned to run to the bed room with its locking door. She was too slow; he caught her by the shoulder of her loose-fitting blouse and yanked her back, the thin fabric tearing to the seam as he did. "Why are you doing this?" he shouted, his breath hot on her face. "What did I do to you?"

"Richard, I didn'ta""

"You want me out? You don't have to make me think I'm crazy to get it." He was shaking her, holding her by the upper arms in a powerful and painful grip. In the face of his anger, her strength had fled; without his hands, she would have collapsed. "You've got it, if that's what you want! I won't stay and let you mess with my mind!" He flung her into a chair and, pausing only to scoop up his keys, stalked from the apartment.

Elaine Hall half stumbled, half crawled to the chair beside the phone. She could not control the trembling in her limbs, and misdialed twice before making the connection she wanted.

"Chris? This is Elaine." Her voice communicated more than her words.

"Are you all right?" Wood asked immediately.

"Ia"I think so. Yes, I am. I'm just a little shook up.

Can you come over, Chris? I need you to be herea"and Rick hea"" The tears came streaming from her eyes. "Rick's going to need both our help."

Rea.s.sured by the presence of a full fuel tank, Richard Hall turned up the radio to a level that precluded coherent thought and simply drove.

Presently he became aware of where he was: on the highway that would bring him nearest to Cross Creek.

Once he had realized that fact, he did not think about it further.

It was nearly eleven-thirty when he turned off the engine, parked in front of the wood frame house in which he had grown up. There were no lights on inside, but by the glow of the porch lamp he could see that the house's paint was departing in long, ragged strips. A cloud of insectsa"gnats, mosquitoes, and the occasional bulk of a motha"circled in the halo of yellow.

Hall climbed out of the car to find that the street was as quiet as it had ever been. Only his footsteps on the walk and the chirrup-chirrup of crickets broke the silence. The doorbell b.u.t.ton moved under his finger, but there was no sound inside the house, so Hall opened the screen door to knock.

After a dozen heavy blows with his fist, Hall stepped back to look at the front of the house. A light now showed at the window marking his parents' bedroom, and he followed his mother's progress to the front door by the other lights that came on, one by one.

Finally he heard a rustling on the other side of the door, and realized he had not thought of what he would say, how he would explain his presence. Before he could consider the question, though, the front door was yanked open to the limit of the security chain, and a woman's face, old and marked by suspicion, peered out through the gap.

"Moma"hi. How are you doing?" Hall said, smiling self consciously.

Anger crossed the woman's face. "You disgusting drunk!"

she screeched. "I'm not your mother. Go away now, and leave a woman to sleep. Go, or I'll call the police."

For punctuation, she slammed the door shut with surprising strength.

"Thank G.o.d I've found you," Chris Wood said, his voice showing his relief.

Hall stepped away from the motel door reluctantly and let his friend in.

"I wish you hadn't."

"That's very well for you," Wood said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "but I've used almost all my vacation time to do it. Elaine is very worried about you. I am, too, only I'm a little more confused than she is."

"She didn't need to worry," Hall said, closing the door.

"I'm all right."

"You might have called her and let her know."

Hall moved to the window and held the curtains apart with his hands so that he could look out. "I was afraid to."

"She's eager to have you back. She's not angry."

"You don't understand," Hall said, turning to face him.

"I was afraid she wouldn't be therea"or that she would be, and wouldn't know me."

"Why would you think that?"

"Do you know where I went the night I ran out?"

"No. If I'd known that, I'd have found you sooner."

"I drove to Cross Creek to see my mother. And she didn't know who I was."

"Come on, Rick. You're not making any sense."

"She denied that I was her son! She slammed the door on me, and after I got it open again, she slammed it a second time."

"Could she have been angry? You'd have gotten there late, wouldn't youa""

"No, no! She was righta"I'm not her son."

"She's getting on in year, isn't shea""

"You're not listening to me!" Hall shouted. "She'd never known me!"

"I wish you'd listen to yourself," Wood said gently.

"You're standing there screaming some very strange things at your old friend."

Hall sighed, and sat down in the nearest chair. "I thought all those things you're trying to say," he said softly.

"I thought them in about the first ten seconds, and then I couldn't. I got her to open the door again, Lord knows how.

There's been a photograph"a"Hall took a deep breatha""hanging above Mom's couch for almost ten years. A picture of the four of us, taken when Diane was graduating from high school."

"Diane's the oldest, right?"

Hall nodded deeply. "The picture is still hanging there, but I'm not in it anymore. There's no blank s.p.a.cea"nothing's been cut outa"Diane and Kris are just standing a little closer together.

"Now do you understand? Now do you know why I was afraid to call Elaine or go home? Can you imagine what it would feel like to go home to your wife and have her deny that you are what you think you are? That would be too much, Chris. I'd crack."

"She's there, and she isn't going to deny you. She wants you."

Hall did not seam to hear. "I've never believed in G.o.d, Chris. Maybea"maybe He's finally decided He resents that. No, I don't really believe that. I'm trying to be rational. But the things that have been happeninga"they just aren't."

"You mean the college recordsa"and the registration . . ."

"The restaurant, not being invited to the reunion, my moma"all of them.