The same thing happened over the next three nights, Tuesday through Thursday.
Well, not the same thing, exactly, but for one reason or another all three of the boys found themselves, singly, in pairs, or as a triad-standing by Catherine’s bed in the middle of the night. Each night there was enough commotion to rouse Willard. Each night he handled the interruption of his sleep with less and less patience.
“What is this,” he bellowed at Will, Jr., when the boy was leaving for his own bed at 4:15 on Thursday night, “a damned tag-team performance?”
“Willard,” said Catherine, laying a hand on his arm.
He shrugged it off, perhaps more vigorously that she expected.
“Well,” he said, not modulating his voice at all out of deference to Suze, who was still asleep in the next room and hadn’t caused any problems all week. “It might as well be. It if isn’t one of them, it’s the other. If it’s not that one it’s the third. Or all three of them.”
To be fair, Catherine thought, he has a point. Not all of the nightly visits had been quiet, or easily resolved. More than once, Sams had been in tears. Burt came in on Tuesday night sobbing as if his best friend had died. Will, Jr., was generally quieter, but as Willard’s anger grew, he took to glaring at his father, as if trying to stare him down. Twice, it had been enough for Catherine to traipse down the hall with the wanderer-or wanderers-and go through what had become an established ritual. The other times, it took either Willard or both of them to persuade the boys to return.
“Can’t.”
“Won’t”
“Don’t want to.”
“Scared.”
“Birds.”
“Someone…something…in the closet.”
At breakfast on Wednesday, long after Willard had departed for work, just as Will, Jr., was stepping out the front door to walk to school, he turned to Catherine.
“Mom, there really was someone in the closet.”
“Okay, Will.” She was distracted, trying to watch Burt and Suze as they made their way down Oleander.
“Really. He was like Dad was the other night?”
“What” Again absently.
“You know. He wasn’t wearing anything/”
She turned to stare down at her eldest son. “He… Why on earth would you say something like that? We both know there was no one in the bedroom, there never has been anyone in the bedroom. The door are all locked at night, the windows are locked, we don’t even have a fireplace for Santa to come down on Christmas Eve. And we both know Santa wears a big red suit with white fur trim.” This last in an attempt to wrest a smile from Will.
It worked…a bit.
“But…okay. Bye, Mom. See you this afternoon.”
And so went the remainder of the week.
Until Friday night.