Ann turned in to their neighborhood. She felt a heavy curtain drawing around them, close and familiar and suffocating. The road swept along the brick and stucco and columned houses, wound past the blackened husk where the Guarnieris’ house once stood. She’d been to parties in some of these houses. She’d walked the girls past them on their way to the park. Now they all felt like strangers to her, soulless buildings instead of homes. It would be good to break free and head north.
“Barney’s back,” Kate said.
Sure enough, there he was, trotting around the back of the house. These past few days he kept disappearing, raising Ann’s hopes that he’d found another family to take him in, but then he’d reappear, nosing around the patio or scratching at the garage door.
Ann bumped the van into the garage and shut off the engine. “Maddie, go straight into the laundry room. Take everything off and put it into the sink. I’m sorry, honey, but I’ll have to scrub you down and wash your hair.”
“In cold water?”
“I’ll be quick, I promise.” She bent and looked at Kate through the open car door. Whatever it was might be clinging to them, too. “You wait here with Jacob. I’ll bring you something to change into when I’m done with Maddie.”
Kate nodded, looking distracted. “Why is Barney barking like that?”
“I don’t know.” The dog wasn’t a barker. The hollow sounds reverberated around the small cul-de-sac. If Peter hadn’t been awake before, he’d be awake now.
Ann prodded Maddie before her into the house. “Leave everything turned inside out. I’ll go get a towel and clean clothes.”
“Okay.” Maddie went into the laundry room and shut the door.
There was a steady splashing sound. Strange. Ann stepped into the kitchen and saw the faucet was running. She was sure she hadn’t left the water on. She hadn’t been anywhere near the sink. Well, she must have. There was no other explanation. She switched it off. A peculiar silence settled around her. It was nerves, the adrenaline of rushing Maddie to the hospital and being out of the house for the first time in almost two months. No wonder coming home felt strange.
Clothes first, then she’d check on Peter. He needed to drink something, and maybe he could keep down some ibuprofen. His appetite might be returning, too. She should try and get some nourishment in him before they left. Soup, maybe. The hot liquid would soothe his throat.
She couldn’t wait to go check on Peter and see for herself if his fever had finally broken. She went to the stairs and halted, hand on the railing. Something had caught her eye. Something was out of place. She turned her head. Not something but someone lying in the front hall. She glimpsed green pajamas, long, narrow feet. Whoever it was wasn’t moving.
Peter.
Then she was beside him. She dropped to her knees and grasped his shoulders. She could feel the sinew of his arms through the flannel. He was so thin. “Honey, you shouldn’t have gotten up.”
He sagged against her. “Come on, sweetheart. Let me help you.”
His head lolled to one side. He looked at her through half-open eyes.
She went cold. Something pushed itself into her throat. She laid her hand to his bare cheek. His skin was waxy. It had an unusual yellow color to it. His eyes had gone opaque and sightless.
“Peter?” she whispered, but she knew he wouldn’t respond. Wherever Peter was, he wasn’t here in this body. He was gone.
The world plummeted away from her. She began to shake.
No.
She pressed both hands against his cheeks. “Come back.” His mouth sagged open. “Peter! Don’t you dare leave me! Peter!” She patted his chest, slapped his cheeks, shook him so that his head fell back.
“Peter!”
Sobbing, she wrapped her arms around him and held him as close as she could, willing her heart to beat for both of them. “Please, please.” It had been like this before. It had been too late, then, for William, too.
Outside, Barney let out a howl.
FORTY-NINE
WHY WAS HE DOWNSTAIRS?” MADDIE STOOD BESIDE
Kate at the top of the stairs. Peter lay at the bottom. This was as close as she’d let them go. Ann had covered him with the blanket she’d pulled from the bed. He’d looked so cold and miserable. So alone. She couldn’t bear it. From the bedroom behind them, Jacob wailed in feeble protest.
“Maybe he was looking for us,” Kate said. “Mom, we left him all by himself.”
“I know.”
He’d been all alone. Had he suffered? Had he been frightened? The girls pressed against her.
At last, she ushered her daughters back from the stairs and into the bedroom. They wouldn’t sleep in the family room anymore. Too many memories crowded that confined space. Jacob had fallen asleep on his makeshift pallet on the floor. Ann checked him, then went to the bed and lifted up the covers. The girls slid in, one on either side of her, and lay close. Maddie was weeping. Ann held their cold hands in hers, their fingertips grazing her palms. Shadows collected along the ceiling.
Kate said, “I’m never going to love anybody ever again.”
“Oh, honey.” Ann rubbed her thumb against her daughter’s palm.
“How could he leave us?”
“He didn’t mean to.”
“How come you didn’t get sick?” Maddie said. “How come we didn’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going to die?” Maddie’s breath was soft against Ann’s cheek.
“No.” The truth? She already felt dead.
Maddie said in a small voice, “What about us, Mommy? Are we going to die, too?”
“Everyone dies.” Kate tugged her hand free and rolled over onto her side, away from them.
Yes. Ann looked at the ceiling. Everyone dies. She lay there in the dark, listening to her children breathe. She filled her heart with it.
THE MOON RODE LOW AMONG THIN CLOUDS.
Ann knelt, studied the ground in the gray light, looking for tree roots. Too close to the birch and the sun would be obscured. Too far and the effect of sun through the branches would be lost. She had to frame the sunset just right. She ran a mittened hand across the surface, checking for rocky outcroppings, then stood. Wedging the tip of the blade into the hard earth, she stepped up to balance on its end the way she’d seen Peter do it. She let her body sag and bear down with all its puny weight. The shovel skidded sideways.
She wriggled the blade to get a better purchase on the soil. Still, the shovel tilted as she stepped on it. Peter had made it look so easy, one foot pushing, both hands lifting. She grasped the handle, lifted up the shovel, and drove it down. A ping as the metal struck something. Rock, perhaps. She retrieved the flashlight from where she’d set it on the ground and shone the beam across the dirt. She saw the tiny chip she’d made. It was a start.
She fell into a rhythm. Lift the shovel and let it drop. Scrape away the bits of earth. Lift, drop, scrape. After a while, she’d carved a narrow trough. It didn’t have to be wide, just deep.
Peter, looking at her over the tops of his reading glasses. Reaching over to fill her coffee cup. Sitting down beside her on the couch and stretching his legs out beside hers.
The moon rose as she worked, releasing a feeble wash of light. After a while, she found she no longer needed the help of the flashlight, so she switched it off to save the batteries. Every so often, she stopped and looked around. No one was there. The street was empty, the houses dark.
Those men with the truck would return. They’d been polite the first time, but they wouldn’t be so tolerant the second time. They’d hear the quality of her voice and would know she was lying to them. She couldn’t leave anything for them to find. She drove the shovel down, again and again.
It’s always been like this for us, she’d said to him on the patio that night. She’d felt so alone, all her mistakes crowded around her. He’d answered, No, it hasn’t. Don’t you remember?
Yes, she remembered.
Peter, loping behind
the girls as they wheeled unsteadily on their bikes. Setting up the sprinkler on the first day of warm weather. Pointing out the flight pattern of a particular bird, parting the grass to reveal a burrow. Sitting between them on the porch and watching thunderclouds roil in the distance. All those lessons couldn’t go unlearned. Somewhere in Kate and Maddie, Peter lived on.
Ann crouched on the hard earth and reached down; the hole went all the way to her elbow. Twelve inches, maybe more. Nowhere near deep enough. She climbed into the hole and went from there.
The shovel rang against something. The handle vibrated, the motion thrumming up the bones of her arms. She knelt and felt around. Through the wool of her mittens, she felt a sharp edge. She dug around with both hands and levered up a heavy chunk of limestone. This old farmland was full of it. She heaved it aside.
The digging became easier, the compacted soil giving way to softer clay. It clung in thick clumps to the shovel blade. She was up to mid-thigh now. Here was another slice of rock. She spaded away a shovelful of dirt and tried to pry the limestone free. The muscles between her shoulder blades and all along her rib cage felt tight and sore. Her fingertips throbbed and blisters were forming all around the web between thumb and forefinger. Was it her imagination or could she see her hands more clearly now?
She looked up. The sun was coming. She had to go faster. She had to be done before the girls got up. She had to erase all activity before the truck showed up. She’d left Peter alone in the end, but she wouldn’t abandon him now.
CROUCHING IN THE FOYER, ANN DREW THE MATERIAL UP AND over, wrapping Peter and the top sheet together in a cocoon of cotton. Kate’s owl went, too. She brought the corners up and tied them, the material bunching in her grasp. Up and down the length of the sheet, she moved, tying knots until he lay contained in a weave of cloth.
She shook open the comforter and spread it on the floor, lifted his legs, and put them on one end. She put her hands against his shoulders and pushed hard. This was the man she loved. She blinked away hot tears.
His body rocked, then settled. She picked up the corner of the comforter and dragged him across the threshold. Peter’s voice as they tried to maneuver Maddie’s old dresser down the stairs. Grab it by the end, Ann. His laughter when he realized she was pinned to the wall.
A rock snagged the fabric. She leaned and pulled, stopped to rest. Her cheeks were wet. She swiped at them with her sleeve. A jangling noise made her whirl around to see Barney slinking toward her in the half-light.
“Go away.”
The dog halted.
“I mean it, damn it! Get out of here!”
Barney whirled and disappeared down the street.
————
BY THAT AFTERNOON, A FRIGID WIND HAD TAKEN OVER. A cold front was moving in. The three of them stood shivering beneath the empty branches of the birch. It gave no cover. Maddie huddled on one side, Kate on the other, the baby in her arms. The sun sank behind the rooftops. Ann had waited for it and the clouds had obliged, thinning themselves into frothy strands that amplified the red and orange rays of the setting sun.
She opened the Bible and thumbed through the pages, looking for the right passages. There were several options. Everything was clearly marked and italicized, when to stand, what to say. Her eyes burned. The tiny black type swam before her. A hard, painful knot was lodged in her throat. The words refused to crawl past her lips. She shut the Bible and stood there, looking at the mounded yellow earth, feeling utterly helpless to guide her husband and children through this narrow tunnel.
Maddie’s cold hand crept into hers.
Wind buffeted them.
So much lost.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,” Ann said.
Maddie sniffed, then lifted her voice. “I pray the Lord my soul to keep. May God’s love be with me through the night …”
Kate came in at the last line, her voice tremulous and low. “And wake me with the morning light.”
FIFTY
ANN STOOD BY THE BEDROOM WINDOW AND LOOKED OUT over the backyard. The moon hadn’t yet risen. Everything out there was shifting black and gray, ground and house and sky. The night took on a different quality when there was no artificial light and noise to compete with it. It was longer and fuller and much more present. Getting through it required effort. She remembered this from before. She’d stood on the edge of a canyon and, for a long time, looked deep into the abyss. She’d finally stepped back. She didn’t think that she could do it again.
A gust of wind rattled the panes and plucked at the eaves. What was it bringing this time? The wind could be fierce here. Once it had lifted the table from the patio and sent it spinning into Libby’s backyard. Smith had come out to help her carry it back, and they’d laughed at how ferocious the wind could be.
The wind howled louder. It roared across the yard straight at the house.
Peter lay beneath it all, alone.
A shadow moved across the grass and disappeared beneath the spiky branches of the birch tree. She strained, trying to see, but the shape didn’t reemerge on the other side.
She had to lean on the front door to open it. The wind wrenched it from her grasp and slammed it against the house. The blanket around her shoulders sailed up. She grabbed at its ends and knotted them around her neck. She had to work to get down the stairs, curling her body protectively around the things she carried. Objects rattled down the street. Trash cans, probably, and whatever else had been left lying around.
Now the wind was at her back, propelling her around the corner of the house. She stumbled across the uneven pitch of the ground. She stopped by the birch and stood looking a long time into the darkness. What was he doing there? The clouds parted and nascent moonlight picked out the small shape huddled at the base of the tree.
“Barney.”
His eyes gleamed. He was staring at her.
“Here, boy.”
She took a few steps, then stooped to set down the bowl. She didn’t see him move, but there he was, hunched and lapping voraciously at the food. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the stiff stick of beef. It was their last stick of jerky. She peeled back the wrapper and broke off a piece. The dog came close and took it from her fingers with surprising tenderness. She gave him another bit. Another polite nibble and she fed him the final third.
He sniffed her fingers. He wasn’t limping anymore. Peter had done a good job of treating his injury.
She unscrewed the jar of water and poured its contents into the bowl. He drank, pushing the bowl around on the ground, sneezed. He looked up at her, then padded back to the tree. She untied the blanket from around her shoulders and lowered it to the ground. He pawed it, nosed up a corner, turned in a circle. He collapsed with a sigh and closed his eyes.
She sat down beside him and leaned her head back against the trunk.
“Peter planted this tree.”
The moon glided into view, huge and yellow and full. “It was in memory of our son, William.”
The name felt full in her mouth. The dog moved closer and rested his head on her lap. She put her hand on the scruff of his neck, the fur cold and springy beneath her fingers. She felt grateful for his simple devotion.
Peter wasn’t alone anymore.
FIFTY-ONE
ANN PRESSED A CLEAN WASHCLOTH ALONG THE PORCELAIN interior of the bathtub, brought it up, and squeezed out a few drops over the measuring cup. She lifted the cup and eyed the level. She’d collected a whopping nine ounces. So now they were down to bottled water. She’d lined the plastic bottles on the kitchen counter. There were fifty-three of them. Fifty-three bottles wouldn’t go far among four people, even if one of them was a baby and two of them were children. Plus, there was now Barney to think about.
She stood, swayed. Dizzy, putting a hand against the wall, she waited for the bright spots before her eyes to dance away.
She carried the cup down the stairs. A brown haze hung in the room. All the fires had been smoking recently. Maybe the chimney was blo
cked. “Kate, open a window, please, honey.”
Kate pushed herself up from where she’d been lying on the sofa. She’d been doing a lot of lying around lately. So had Maddie. It wasn’t just grief, Ann thought, feeling a pinch of fear. Their bodies were conserving.
Maddie said, “Would you rather have a hot fudge sundae or pizza?”
Kate unlatched the window. “Pizza.”
“What if it was a Graeter’s Shamrock Surprise Sundae?”
“Doesn’t matter.” Kate sprawled back on the sofa. “I never want to eat anything cold again.”
A persistent mist rolled against the windowpanes. Ann had waited, hopeful, all day, but it hadn’t turned to rain. Still, the bowls she’d left out on the patio might hold some moisture. It was time to rotate them out, anyway.
Kate said, “Would you rather have electricity or the phone?”
It was as though they were living in some undeveloped country. Stay here and wait for help or chance the risk of exposure and go out looking? No. She wouldn’t leave Peter. She pulled down the plastic bowls from the cabinet.
“If I say electricity, would that mean TV, too?” Maddie asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“What about the radio?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Okay. The electricity.”
Ann filled the sink with water and poured in the last of the bleach. The sharp smell of it made her eyes tear.
“You sure?” Kate asked. “If you had the phone, you could call Grandma.”
Sooner or later, she would have to risk it. Leave the children alone and go look for food. How many trips would she have to make before she found an open store? Peter had said there were no police around. He’d said there’d been a scuffle in line that no one had stepped in to break up. That had been weeks ago. Tempers would be even more dangerous now. She set the containers on a dishtowel to drip-dry and glanced at the girls. Jacob scooted along the floor toward her. He was growing so fast, he was practically crawling. And Libby would miss it all.
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