He’d been dreaming he was back in the past, making love to Mattie. They were having a fine old romp, until he looked across at a mirror and saw, grinning nakedly back at him, the reflection of his father. He instantly understood that the “parent” was in fact himself, but that made him remember his true age. And when he looked back at Mattie, she was not only still just eighteen, but looking at him in horrified disbelief. “Oh, God, Hal—where did you go? ” Mattie whispered, and vanished in the dazzle of waking morning. What a crock, Hal thought. If my subconscious was a script writer, it’d be doing soaps. Why must dreams be so damn corny? Clichéd or not, this one unsubtly hinted at things he didn’t want to think about. So he rose and dressed and ambled, yawning, through the big old house, finally ending up in the kitchen. Its sole occupant was Fitz, who was slumped over a mug of coffee. “Want some?”
