The Boy Who Drew Monsters: A Novel by Keith Donohue Read Free Book Online Page A

Weller.”
    With a bow of his head, he showed his contrition.
    “Honestly, Tim, I was out creeping around in the dark like some teenager in a slasher movie. Lord knows what’s waiting behind the corner—”
    “So what did you find?”
    “Nothing,” she said. “I have no idea what was making those noises.”
    Jack’s head popped out from beneath the blanket. “Trying to get in.”
    Tim snatched away the blanket. “Seriously, bud, let’s go. Say good night to your mother.”
    The boy stood, snapped to attention. “G’night.” He saluted and marched upstairs. Even after all these years, she was still disappointed that he did not kiss her before going to bed. She could not remember the last time he had kissed her good night.
    After Tim apologized once again, they did not discuss it any further. Without evidence was there a crime? She had Christmas cards to write, and he did penance by folding a load of laundry. In the background, Jack made his slow retreat to bed, stalling in the bathroom before the mirror, brushing his teeth with meticulous care, undressing in slow motion, and then quickly donning pajamas against the cold. His light went out at half-past nine, but his parents knew to give him another thirty minutes to fall asleep.
    The house grew still and quiet. Holly sneezed in the kitchen, and Tim said gesundheit from the bedroom upstairs. When she came to bed, she found him already beneath the covers, staring at the curtains drawn across the window on his side. She turned off the light and slipped in beside him. “Something on your mind?”
    He rolled over to face her and laid his hand upon her hip. “I’m truly sorry. You know, Jip could be right, could have been something trying to get in. Fred Weller was telling me that people have been spotting coyotes in the area. First thing tomorrow, I’ll do a thorough check around the premises—”
    “You’re forgiven,” she said. Silly man. They both knew he would forget by morning. In the pitch dark, she reached out to find his face, laid her palm against his cheek, and waited to feel his smile. He kissed her and fingered his way to the hem of her nightgown and slid the thin fabric to bare her skin. She raised no objections to his touch, but moments later, when he climbed upon her, she breathed out the softest of sighs.

 
    vi.
    From the darkness of his room, Nick listened to the dying of the evening, waiting for them to go to sleep. The plain white sheets and his thick comforter covered him, and he did not move while his parents were still up and about. Their muffled conversation slow and regular as the tides, the sound of a glass against a bottle, weary tread upon the stairs. Not too long, usually, when they were besotted, and then they would pass out, exhausted, and purr like kittens in their dreams. Drunken kittens. The telltale signs began: his father singing in falsetto as he stripped off his shoes, his mother stumbling and cursing the rug. After these weekend binges had become routine, Nick could time almost to the quarter hour when they would end. In the beginning, his parents used to show up plastered and sloppy and throw open his door to watch him sleep, but he stopped all that one evening when he screamed in their faces as they hovered over him. That night he had scared them away once and for all.
    When it was safe and quiet, he clicked on the lamp and tiptoed to his dresser, opened the bottom drawer, and reached beneath the sweaters stuffed inside. Curled into a tube, the paper seemed a pirate map entrusted to him for safekeeping, though he knew already that it revealed no treasure. At the Keenans’ house, as they were saying good-bye, Jack Peter had pressed the scroll upon him in the mudroom. “Don’t open it till you are in secret where no one can see,” he had said, but Nick could not resist. He had sneaked a look at it in the Jeep while waiting for Mr. Keenan to drive him home. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Nick unfurled it again and