Hearts In Atlantis (76 page)

Authors: Stephen King

“What does it mean? Do you know? You do, don't you?”

Carol shook her head. “It doesn't matter. It's special to me, that's all. Special to me the way the glove is special to you. For an old guy, he sure knows how to push the right buttons, doesn't he?”

“I guess so. Maybe that's what a Breaker does.”

She looked at him. She was still weeping but was not, Bobby thought, truly unhappy. “Bobby, why would he do this? And how did he know we'd come? Forty years is a long time. People grow up, they grow up and leave the kids they were behind.”

“Do they?”

She continued to look at him in the darkening day. Beyond them, the shadows of the grove deepened. In thereâin the trees where he had wept on one day and found her, hurt and alone, the nextâdark had almost come.

“Sometimes a little of the magic sticks around,” Bobby said. “That's what I think. We came because we still hear some of the right voices. Do you hear them? The voices?”

“Sometimes,” she said, almost reluctantly. “Sometimes I do.”

Bobby took the glove from her. “Will you excuse me for a second?”

“Sure.”

Bobby went to the grove of trees, dropped down on one knee to get beneath a low-hanging branch, and placed his old baseball glove on the grass with the pocket up to the darkening sky. Then he came back to the bench and sat down beside Carol again. “That's where it belongs,” he said.

“Some kid'll just come along tomorrow and pick it up, you know that, don't you?” She laughed and wiped her eyes.

“Maybe,” he agreed. “Or maybe it'll be gone. Back to wherever it came from.”

As the day's last pink faded to ash, Carol put her head on Bobby's shoulder and he put an arm around her. They sat that way without speaking, and from the radio at their feet, The Platters began to sing.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

There is a University of Maine in Orono, of course. I know because I went there from 1966 to 1970. The characters in this story are completely fictional, however, and a good deal of the campus geography I have described never existed. Harwich is similarly fictional, and although Bridgeport is real, my version of it is not. Although it is difficult to believe, the sixties are not fictional; they actually happened.

I've also taken chronological liberties, the most noticeable being my use of “The Prisoner” two years before it actually telecast in the United Statesâbut I have tried to remain true to the spirit of the age. Is that really possible? I don't know, but I have tried.

An earlier and very different version of “Blind Willie” appeared in the magazine
Antaeus
. It was published in 1994.

I want to thank Chuck Verrill, Susan Moldow, and Nan Graham for helping me find the courage to write this book. I also want to thank my wife. Without her, I never would have gotten over.

S.K.

December 22, 1998

Tabitha King

S
TEPHEN
K
ING
is the author of more than fifty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. Among his most recent are
Hearts in Atlantis, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Bag of Bones, the screenplay Storm of the Century
, and
The Green Mile
. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

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A version of “Blind Willie” appeared in the final issue of
Antaeus
, Autumn 1994.

“Black Slacks” words and music by Joe Bennett and Jimmy Denton. Copyright Â© 1957 by Duchess Music Corporation. Copyright renewed. All rights administered by MCA Music Publishing, a division of MCA Inc., 1755 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.

“Tallahassee Lassie” words and music by Frank C. Slay, Bob Crewe and Frederick Piscariello. Copyright Â© 1958, 1959 Conley Music Inc. Copyright renewed 1986, 1987 MPL Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

“Twilight Time” lyrics by Buck Ram; music by Morty Nevins and Al Nevins. TRO Copyright Â© 1944 (renewed) Devon Music, Inc., New York, NY 10011-4298. All rights for the United States of America are controlled by Devon Music, Inc. All rights for the world outside the United States of America are controlled by MCA Duchess Music Corporation.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.