'We were?' asked John. 'It was my distinct impression that we were thinking of hot 
steaks.'
   Lenny said. That's okay, I'm not too hungry.'
   'Well, you should eat something,' Jennifer admonished.
   'Maybe peanut butter and jelly.'
   'Peanut butter and jelly?' John demanded. 'Do you know what peanut butter and jelly 
does to your digestive system?'
   'Sure,' said Lenny, grinning, 'it fills it up.'
   'It's poison,' said John. He checked his watch. 'What time did Dr Hendriksen say he 
was coming?'
   'Right away. He should be here in five or ten minutes.'
   'In that case, I just have time to go across the street and get us some steak. And 
maybe a bottle of champagne, too.'
   'John, we have nothing to celebrate! Our whole bedroom was ripped to pieces!'
   John kissed her. 'Maybe I'd like to drink a toast to a new bedroom, and to a marriage 
that's going to be happy there, no matter who tries to spoil it!'
   John and Jennifer both gave Lenny a kiss, and left him propped up in bed, reading a 
Spiderman comic.
   Lenny sat there for two or three minutes, quietly turning the pages of his comic. 
After a while, he began to feel cold, and he reached down toward the end of the bed and 
drew up the quilted comforter.
   As he did so, he saw the seersucker curtains stirring, as if they were being blown by 
an unfelt breeze. He looked toward the window; his heart began to beat a little bit 
faster. All he could see were the tops of the trees, and the irregular rooftops of 
Society Hill, and -farther to the west - the cranes and the structural steel skeletons of 
Philadelphia's downtown rebuilding program, as well as the ornamental clock tower of City 
Hall, with its famous statue of William Penn standing on top. He thought the statue was 
sinister rather than inspiring: the dark, motionless shadow of a long-dead man, encased 
in bronze.
   He opened his comic again. Spidey had a bad case of the grippe, and was sneezing so 
much that he nearly let go of his web. But then the breeze that wasn't a breeze at all 
ruffled the page and turned it over, and then the next, and then the next, faster and 
faster.
   Lenny turned toward the window; and froze, speechless with terror. Right outside, her 
hands cupped above her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun, was his dead mother, 
peering in at him. When he turned, she smiled, and lifted one hand, and waved. It was 
her, there was no doubt about it at all. It was his mother, fair-haired, white-faced, and 
she was smiling at him.
   A scream rose from somewhere inside his chest, silent at first, but then higher and 
louder, until he was sitting in bed with his fists clenched and his mouth stretched open 
and his eyes wide, screaming and screaming and screaming and screaming.
   John reached the bedroom first. He burst in through the door and scooped Lenny up in 
his arms. 'Lenny! Lenny! It's okay! Everything's okay! It's Daddy!'
   Lenny was hysterical. He gasped for breath, thin whining gasps, and his arms and legs 
were rigid and trembling.
   Jennifer rushed into the room. 'My God! I heard him right down in the yard! Is he all 
right?'
   John laid Lenny carefully on the bed, and felt his forehead. He was sticky and 
chilled, but he didn't seem to be running a temperature. "There,' he murmured. 'Ssh, 
you're going to be fine. Ssh.'
   At last, still trembling, Lenny quieted down. John said to Jennifer. 'Would you mind 
calling Dr Hendriksen again, just to make sure that he's on his way?'
   'Sure,' said Jennifer.
   John knelt close to Lenny's bed and clasped his hand. 'Are you feeling better now?'
   Lenny whispered. 'Has she gone?'
   'She's just gone to call Dr Hendriksen, that's all. She'll be back in a minute.'
   'I don't mean Jennifer.' Lenny glanced quickly and with obvious fright toward the 
window. John didn't know what he expected to see there, but when he lifted his own eyes 
and peered toward it, he couldn't see anything except the usual view.
   There's nobody there, Lenny,' John said. He stood up and walked toward the window, 
opened it, and looked out, leaning his arms on the windowsill. 'Apart from the fact that 
it's nearly forty feet down to the yard, there's nobody in sight, anywhere.'
   'She was there,' whispered Lenny. 'Daddy, she was there, looking in.' 'Lenny, nobody 
could have looked in. It's impossible. It's a sheer drop, and there isn't even a box to 
stand on, let alone a forty-foot ladder, which is what they would have needed.'
   'It was Mommy and she was looking in.'
   John closed the window and returned to the bed. 'Come on, champ, you're not too well, 
are you? Why don't you close your eyes and try to get a little sleep before the doctor 
gets here?'
   'I don't want to stay in this room,' Lenny begged. 'I'm too scared. Can't I come 
downstairs?'
   Jennifer returned. 'The doctor just left. Only a few more minutes. How are you 
feeling, Lenny?'
   'Fine,' mumbled Lenny.
   'He wants to come downstairs and rest on the couch,' said John. 'He says it's too 
scary up here on his own.'
   'Well, that's fine,' said Jennifer. 'I'll carry the comforter, John, and you carry the 
patient.'
   John gave Jennifer a meaningful look, but she shook her head quickly in a gesture that 
meant not now. She must have overheard Lenny saying that he had seen his mother looking 
in at his bedroom window. That wasn't the kind of experience that was going to be easy 
for them to discuss. It was a little more complicated than deciding what they were going 
to have for lunch.
   They took Lenny downstairs, his long legs swinging under John's arms, hard curly head 
pressed close against the back of John's neck. They tucked him up on the couch, like a 
young Victorian invalid. "There you go,' John said, grinning. 'You can watch As The World 
Turns now. That'll do wonders for your education.'
   John went through to the kitchen, where Jennifer was preparing the pasta: cold 
conchiglie with bacon, peas, and ricotta. The kitchen door swung shut behind him, and he 
stood by the tiled counter for a moment in silence, watching Jennifer pour oil and lemon 
juice into the bowl of pasta.
   'He says he saw his mother.'
   Jennifer stopped tossing the pasta shells and slowly put down her fork and spoon. T 
thought so,' she said, in a tone implying that Lenny's terror might well have something 
to do with her having married his father.
   'She was looking in at the window,' said John. 'She was looking in at the goddamned 
window, that's what he said, and waving at him.'
   Jennifer slowly shook her head. 'Hallucinating. It happens sometimes, when they have a 
temperature. My niece Alice saw a roomful of cats once, when she had the mumps.'
   'He's not running a temperatur,' said John. 'At least, I don't think so. His