Presently it was dawn. A faint gray showed at the windows. The blemishes on the ceiling came into view and stalked grimly to their accustomed stand in his brain. The night was over. Stephen lay sleeping peacefully, the harmless, blackened bits of the burned curtain scattered about his bed.
“Father, father, where are you going?
Oh, do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to....”
It was not fast he would be walking. Or at all.
A robin chirped sleepily in the maple. It would soon be day. Lester got up, shuffled over to his wheel chair and sat down in it.
After a time he stooped down and unlaced his shoes. Then he wheeled himself over beside Stephen’s bed and waited for the day to come.