What Came After Read Online Free Page A

grew anymore. PharmAgra whose wheat-stalk logo meant reassurance.
    “If you’re offering to make us some breakfast,” Carmichael said, “we’ll be happy to accept.”
    The boy stiffened. He cast a look at Penny sitting up on the counter, Penny running her fingertips over the truck to know it better.
    One bite. God knows. That might be all it took.
    Carmichael leaned and took his son by the collar and got up close to him. “Go wash your hands now,” he said. And then, softly and rapidly enough that only the boy could hear, “It’s OK. We’ll get ourselves scanned in Boston first thing. Just in case.”
    They sat. All of them together around the table and all of them at the same level. Weller on one end and his daughter on the other. The boy held his breath to see such disrespect unfold, and he waited to follow his father’s lead, but his father didn’t complain because what would have been the point. Weller was a man who’d achieved something. Carmichael could understand that. Let this be a lesson.
    Weller saw to it that his wife and daughter got served first and then his guests and then himself. He blew across his coffee cup and said he’d only need a few minutes to put that sway bar back into the SUV now that he’d straightened it out and tempered it properly and reamed the holes at each end back into round. Said he’d had to remove a pair of bolts to get it clear in the first place and neither one of them had been in any hurry to come loose, but he’d soaked them in penetrating oil and cleaned them up good and now they’d go right back on no sweat. Everything would be good as new. Carmichael and his son could be on their way as if nothing had ever happened.
    Carmichael said he guessed Weller had earned the right to finish the job after all.
    Weller nodded. He hated to see a beautiful piece of machinery like that out of service for no reason.
    Carmichael said he owed him a debt. Said he’d never thought he’d say it, but there it was. He owed him a debt.
    Penny sat at her end of the table all by herself, not eating much, her occluded vision lending her wandering gaze a kind of grandeur. There was enchantment in her eyes, as if she were seeing a world that no one else could see and not seeing the regular one. Her mother indicated her and looked at Carmichael and said, “Just don’t get the idea that my husband never makes mistakes.”
    Carmichael wasn’t stupid. That abandoned greenhouse. Of course. Leave it to Weller to try restoring that technology too. No wonder it was painted over and boarded up and rusting to pieces. No wonder the girl’s father himself sat unmoving now at his own end of the table, a bite of toast cold in his mouth, looking and looking out the window through those inscrutable glasses. As if he’d lost something.
     
    *
     
    They went down the street and through a couple of empty lots and across a field toward the trees and the highway. Like it was an outing. Liz choosing a path through the high grass and the little girl on her father’s shoulders carrying her toy truck in both hands. Peter balancing the black iron bar over his shoulder with the authority of a duelist. Carmichael bringing up the rear and Weller waving his arms and gesticulating with every step he took, talking as if he meant to describe the operation of every last thing in the universe to anyone who would listen. Every last thing, from the stars on down.
    In the roadside swale he took tools from his pockets and asked Peter for the bar and dove under headfirst. Asking if anybody wanted to join him for a look around but nobody did. Nobody wanted a lesson in automobile repair. Nobody trusted that jack. He didn’t stay under for long. The work went fast. He kept talking most of the time, naming parts and criticizing their manufacture and calling out ideas for improvement that he could have seen with his eyes shut. He said it was a wonder the suspension had lasted this long. That antique Volkswagen of his would beat