Doctor Sleep

now he was most commonly called Doc. Since his parents had called him that, Dan found the nickname ironic . . . but in a good way. Life was a wheel, its only job was to turn, and it always came back to where it had started.

Was there ever a teenage girl who felt anything less than immortal?

Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.

“You really could do it all along, couldn’t you? I don’t understand why you didn’t just tell us, Abba-Doo.”

Dan, who had grown up with the shining, could have answered that question.

Sometimes parents needed to be protected.

On one wall was a small plaque reading A LIFE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE A TREE WITHOUT FRUIT. He looked at it for a few seconds, wondering if there was anything in the AA program to that effect. The only thing he could think of was If you can’t love anybody today, at least try not to hurt anybody. Didn’t really compare.

Dan stepped into aromas he knew well: air freshener, antiseptic, and mortal illness. The last was a high smell that sang in his head like a violin that knows only one note.

A harsh light gleamed momentarily in Abra’s eyes. Billy thought it was like seeing a peek of sun at the end of a cold, overcast day in February.

“This is fucked to the sky, buddy.”

“Yes,” Dan said. “It certainly is. Our job now is to unfuck it.”

There were billions of stars. Usually they awed her with their beauty and profusion, but tonight looking at them only made her feel scared. They were far away. They didn’t see Abra Stone.

Then—absurdly, given the circumstances—he thought of the kid in the Braves t-shirt reaching for the left-over coke piled on the shiny magazine cover. Canny, he’d said. This woman was nothing like that kid, nothing, but telling himself so did no good. His anger was suddenly gone, leaving him feeling sick and weak and empty.