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It was also nice to have a grown man stand up for her, and it didn’t hurt that he was handsome, in a
scruffy kind of way that reminded her a little of Jax Teller on Sons of Anarchy, a show she and Emma
Deane secretly watched on Em’s computer.
She sent Uncle Dan’s email not just to her trash but to the permanent trash, which Emma called
“the nuclear boyfriend file.” (As if you had any, Em, Abra thought snidely.) Then she turned off her
computer and closed the lid. She didn’t email him back. She didn’t have to. She just had to close her
eyes.
Zip-zip.
Message sent, Abra headed for the shower.
When Dan came back with his morning coffee, there was a new communiqué on his blackboard.
6
You can tell Dr. John but NOT MY PARENTS.
No. Not her parents. At least not yet. But Dan had no doubt they’d find out something was going
on, and probably sooner rather than later. He would cross that bridge (or burn it) when he came to it.
Right now he had a lot of other things to do, beginning with a call.
A child answered, and when he asked for Rebecca, the phone was dropped with a clunk and there
was a distant, going-away cry of “Gramma! It’s for you!” A few seconds later, Rebecca Clausen was on
the line.
“Hi, Becka, it’s Dan Torrance.”
“If it’s about Mrs. Ouellette, I had an email this morning from—”
“That’s not it. I need to ask for some time off.”
“Doctor Sleep wants time off? I don’t believe it. I had to practically kick you out the door last
spring to take your vacation, and you were still in once or twice a day. Is it a family matter?”
Dan, with Abra’s theory of relativity in mind, said it was.