Chapter 10

He stood at the window long after the bus had ground to a stop, had accepted its passengers, and then had driven off in a trembling, grumbling puff of exhaust. A frost had settled the previous night and everything as far as the eye could see looked like it had been painted with ice. Crystals sparkled off windshields and lampposts, bare trees and pine needles had been whitewashed, and the pumpkins he’d dragged home for Thanksgiving, sitting by the walkway in what he hoped was an artistic pile, wore glassy flushes. It gave the yard a Norman Rockwell feeling of nostalgia, and it was a nicefeeling. It felt like he was doing something normal for a change instead of just existing.