The only time I remember being really frightened (and I must tell I don’t completely trust any of these memories, because for so long didn’t seem to exist at all) was when I awoke one night speaking clearly into the dark of my bedroom: “Something’s behind me, let it get me, something in the woods, please don’t let it get me.” wasn’t the words themselves that frightened me so much as the tone I which they were spoken. It was the voice of a man on the raw edge of and hardly seemed like my own voice at all.

Days before Christmas of 1997, I once more drove down to Fidelity where once more the bank manager escorted me to my safe-box in the fluorescent-lit catacombs. As we walked down the he assured me (for the dozenth time, at least) that his wife was a fan of my work, she’d read all my books, couldn’t get enough. For the dozenth time (at least) I replied that now I must get him in my home. He responded with his usual chuckle. I thought of this oft-exchange as Banker’s Communion… i Mr. Quinlan inserted his key in Slot A and turned it. Then, as discreetly as a pimp who has conveyed a customer to a whore’s crib, he left. I inserted my own key in Slot B, turned it, and opened the drawer. It very vast now. The one remaining manuscript box seemed to quail in the far corner, like an abandoned puppy who some-knows his sibs have been taken off and gassed. Promise was scrawled across the top in fat black letters I could barely remember what the story was about.

Snatched that time-traveller from the eighties and slammed the box shut Nothing left in there now but dust Give me that, i had hissed in my dream—it was the first time I’d thought of that one for years. Give me that, it’s my dust-catcher. Mr Quinlan, I’m finished,” I called. My voice sounded rough and was steady to my own ears, but Quinlan seemed to sense nothing wrong or perhaps he was just being discreet. I can’t have been the only cusafter all, who found his or her visits to this financial version of emotionally distressful. “I’m really going to read one of your books,” he said, dropping an involuntary little glance at the box I was holding (I suppose I could have brought a briefcase to put it in, but on those expeditions I never did). “In fact, I think I’ll put it on my list of New Year’s resolutions.”

“You do that,” I said. “You just do that, Mr. Quinlan.”

“Mark,” he said.

“Please.” He’d said this before, too.

I had composed two letters, which I slipped into the manuscript box before setting out for Federal Express. Both had been written on my computer, which my body would let me use as long as I chose the Note Pad function. It was only opening Word Six that caused the storms to start.

I never tried to compose a novel using the Note Pad function, understanding that if I did, I’d likely lose that option, too. . not to mention my ability to play Scrabble and do crosswords on the machine.

I had tried a couple of times to compose longhand, with spectacular lack of success. The problem wasn’t what I had once heard described as “screen shyness”; I had proved that to myself.

One of the notes was to Harold, the other to Debra Weinstock, and both said pretty much the same thing: here’s the new book, Helen’s Promise, hope you like it as much as I do, if it seems a little rough it’s because I had to work a lot of extra hours to finish it this soon, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Erin Go Bragh, trick or treat, hope someone gives you a fucking pony.

I stood for almost an hour in a line of shuffling, bitter-eyed late mailers (Christmas is such a carefree, low-pressure time—that’s one of the things I love about it), with Helen’s Promise under my left arm and a paperback copy of Nelson Demille’s The Charm School in my right hand.

I read almost fifty pages before entrusting my final unpublished novel to a harried-looking clerk. When I wished her a Merry Christmas she shuddered and said nothing.

He phone was ringing when I walked in my front door. It was asking me if I’d like to join him for Christmas. Join them, as matter of fact; all of his brothers and their families were coming.

I opened my mouth to say no—the last thing on earth I needed was a Irish Christmas with everybody drinking whiskey and waxing ntimental about Jo while perhaps two dozen snotcaked rugrats around the floor—and heard myself saying I’d come.

Frank sounded as surprised as I felt, but honestly delighted. “Fantastic”—he cried. “When can you get here?” was in the hall, my galoshes dripping on the tile, and from where I standing I could look through the arch and into the living room. was no Christmas tree; I hadn’t bothered with one since Jo died. Looked both ghastly and much too big to me… a roller rink in Early American.

“I’ve been out running errands,” I said. “How about I throw some in a bag, get back into the car, and come south while the still blowing warm air?”

“Tremendous,” Frank said without a moment’s hesitation. “We can have us a sane bachelor evening before the Sons and Daughters of East Malden start arriving. I’m pouring you a drink as soon as I get off the telephone.”

“Then I guess I better get rolling,” I said.

That was hands down the best holiday since Johanna died. The only good holiday, I guess. For four days I was an honorary Arlen. I drank too much, toasted Johanna’s memory too many times… and knew, somehow, that she’d be pleased to know I was doing it. Two babies spit up on me, one dog got into bed with me in the middle of the night, and Nicky Arlen’s sister-in-law made a bleary pass at me on the night after Christmas, when she caught me alone in the kitchen making a turkey sandwich. I kissed her because she clearly wanted to be kissed, and an adventurous (or perhaps “mischievous” is the word I want) hand groped me for a moment in a place where no one other than myself had groped in almost three and a half years. It was a shock, but not an entirely unpleasant one. It went no further—in a houseful of Arlens and with Susy Donahue not quite officially divorced yet (like me, she was an honorary Arlen that Christmas), it hardly could have done—but I decided it was time to leave… unless, that was, I wanted to go driving at high speed down a narrow street that most likely ended in a brick wall. I left on the twenty-seventh, very glad that I had come, and I gave Frank a fierce goodbye hug as we stood by my car. For four days I hadn’t thought at all about how there was now only dust in my safe-deposit box at Fidelity Union, and for four nights I had slept straight through until eight in the morning, sometimes waking up with a sour stomach and a hangover headache, but never once in the middle of the night with the thought Manderley, I have dreamt again of Manderley going through my mind. I got back to Derry feeling refreshed and renewed. The first day of 1998 dawned clear and cold and still and beautiful. I got up, showered, then stood at the bedroom window, drinking coffee. It suddenly occurred to me—with all the simple, powerful reality of ideas like up is over your head and down is under your feet—that I could write now. It was a new year, something had changed, and I could write now if I wanted to. The rock had rolled away.

I went into the study, sat down at the computer, and turned it on. My was beating normally, there was no sweat on my forehead or the of my neck, and my hands were warm. I pulled down the main the one you get when you click on the apple, and there was my Word Six. I clicked on it.

The pen-and-parchment logo came up, when it did I suddenly couldn’t breathe. It was as if iron bands had clamped around my chest. I pushed back from the desk, gagging and clawing at the round neck the sweatshirt I was wearing. The wheels of my office chair caught on little throw rug—one of Jo’s finds in the last year of her life and I tipped over backward. My head banged the floor and I saw a fountain of,arks go whizzing across my field of vision. I suppose I was lucky to black out, but I think my real luck on New Year’s Morning of 1998 that I tipped over the way I did. If I’d only pushed back from the desk that I was still looking at the logo—and at the hideous blank screen followed it—I think I might have choked to death.