Page 190 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Marc Erdrich

lay there, staring at the computer. He didn’t like its smugness,
so he got up, hit the sleep button and went back to bed.

He lay on the bed for what seemed an eternity, until not
long after midnight he heard a car approaching. His body stiff-
ened, and he felt the familiar pounding of his heart as the car
came closer. As it slowed down in the turn, he listened for the
familiar, crackling sound of tires on stone that meant the car
had turned into the gravel driveway that led up to his house.
Instead, the driver accelerated out of the turn and with a roar
of the engine, passed on.

For nearly an hour, Eddie lay on the bed, alternately read-
ing and listening for the approach of the car that would bring
Cathy to him; but every time one came near, it only sped off
into the distance. At twelve forty-five he thought, I’ll give her
until one. If she’s not here by then, I’m turning out the light and
going to sleep.

One o’ clock came and went. At one fifteen he said to him-
self, Fifteen more minutes. That’s it. And so it went, every fifteen
minutes, until by two-thirty Eddie was floating in and out of
a disturbing dream world halfway between wakefulness and
sleep. His body ached, but his mind would not allow his body
to rest.
Shortly before three o’ clock, Eddie was awakened by the
sound of a car at the foot of the driveway. He sat up, ears tuned,
eyes darting here and there, his body taut with excitement. For
a moment, he thought the car was going to continue past, just
the way the others had; but then he heard the definite clank
of the car’s crankcase as the driver shifted into lower gear, and
then the sound of tires shaking up the gravel on the drive.

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