The End of the Rainbow (Hudson 4)

night before. I didn't feel like putting anything more than water in it. but I had found some tea and thought I might make a cup. The small electric stove range worked.

"For the time being. I think I had better give my stomach a little rest. Harley. I'm feeling much better. and I don't want to take any chances, especially under the circumstances." I emphasized.

"I can't help it. I'm hungry. I guess the beef jerky can't be poisoned. It's in a wrapper. I'll go back and get that and see if they've come to their senses and opened the door yet." Harley said and went while I boiled some water.

He returned with the carton they had left. "Rolls aren't bad," he said, chewing on one. "They can't mean to poison us. You really need to put something in your stomach. Summer," he insisted. "You can't go all day on just some tea."

"Okay," I said. I nibbled on a piece and then sipped some tea.

"The door's still locked," he said. "I listened, but I didn't hear a thing. For all I know, he might have gone back to work and left us with her. I tried banging and calling, but no one responded."

I nodded and looked at the diary again.

"Would you like to hear some of this?" I asked.

"Might as well. There's not much else to do until I figure something else out," he said, and sat beside me on the sofa.

I glanced at him and saw he was relaxed and ready. Then I opened the notebook and began.

Ed is becoming increasingly angry at me, I know. He cannot understand why I want to avoid going out. He is constantly telling me about people asking after me, but I know he's making that up. None of the people he refers to now really ever cared to ask after me before I stopped going out.

I let him go on and on about it. He needs to pretend. He's always needed to pretend more than I have. For years he told people Fletcher was doing so well. He made up so many stories about him, I had trouble keeping tipwith them and sometimes would be dumbfounded by the questions and comments people had.

Once he told people that Fletcher was working on constructing telephone communications in. Saudi Arabia and that's why he was never here anymore. Then he told them he was working for the army and he was in Brazil. I think most of the stories came from Ed's own secret fantasies.

The truth was Fletcher wasn't doing anything as exciting and glamorous as anything Ed described. If Fletcher ever called, it was always from someplace on the road, just out of some Midwestern city or Eastern town where he had held dawn a lob for a few months and either had gotten bored or fired and was on his way to someplace else. His future was always just 'someplace else.'

I know Fletcher was the way he was because Ed had pumped him up so much he made him think he should always be the one in charge, made him think he k

new more than anyone. It was why he got into so much trouble in school and had to leave.

Ed's a good talker. He can spin words and weave them like silk. For years and years, he been doing that to me and to Fletcher. Fletcher left, but I remained behind, living in the cocoon of illusions Ed spun. For a long time, it didn't matter. No one bothered me and Ed seemed content, too.

But the dreams and the make-believe began to wear thin. I could feel it happening, feel the world around me begin to collapse and holes start to form, holes through which. the ugly, dark creatures I call Realies crawled.I'll never forget the first

time I saw one.

We had finished dinner. Ed was tired. He had been working a job fifty miles away and the work and the travel were wearing on him. He began to look tired gaunt, the circles around his eyes darkening. After dinner he -went into the living room to watch television as usual and quickly fell asleep. I cleaned up and came in to sit with him, but he had slumped down on the sofa and had his eyes closed, so I picked up my knitting needles and continued to work on the afghan.

The television droned on. I had gotten so I rarely looked at it or heard anything, but I didn't mind the constant music and talk. It kept me company, kept me from feeling as lonely as I was. Hundreds and hundreds of faces moved through the glow, one merging into another, and the same was true of the voices. They became my electronic family, I suppose. They had no names, just different shades of light and color and different sounding voices.

Sometimes, Ed would complain about the soft, silly smile on my face as I worked

"What's so funny?" he -ould ask. "It's the News you're watching and it's horrible.

"What? Oh. I wasn't watching or listening to that, "I told him.

"Then why are you smiling Francine?"

I put down my work and thought. Was I smiling?

'I don't know, Ed. I didn't realize I was smiling."

"Damn," he would say with disgust.

I know I was beginning to annoy him more and more. He -was very angry -when I made him go out for our groceries, but I couldn't do it anymore. The last time I went to the supermarket I froze in an aisle and forgot my whole list. I left with nothing.

"I work all day and then I have to go and do our shopping because you won't leave the damn house!" he yelled.