The Things That Keep Us Here (26 page)

FORTY

W
HAT ABOUT THIS ONE?” MADDIE PULLED A PHOTOGRAPH
from the shoebox and held it up. “How old was I here?”

Ann leaned over to take a look and smiled at little Maddie posing there in her pink push car, her chubby hand on the molded plastic door. “Two.”

Jacob batted at the picture.

“No, no, Jacob. Not for you.” Kate pulled back his hand and settled him more firmly in her lap. “I remember that car. I loved that stupid thing. I used to think it was real.”

“Remember your hobbyhorse? You used to pretend that was real, too.” Ann slid the picture into the sleeve of the photo album. Kate would spend hours in the backyard, pretending to teach her horse how to jump, her small face screwed up with fierce determination.

“Oh, yeah. Michele had one, too.”

Kate’s voice was matter-of-fact saying the name. Was that a good sign or a bad one?

Maddie rummaged around in the shoebox and withdrew another find. She stared down at it. “When did Daddy have a mustache?”

Ann took the photograph and studied a younger Peter standing in front of that long-ago Christmas tree. “That’s when he had whooping cough. He was too sick to shave. You were just a baby, honey.”

The pounds had just dropped off him then, too. Peter had lost so much weight these past few weeks. His cheeks were so lean. His two-day growth of beard only emphasized their gauntness. He said he felt fine. She’d listened hard to what lay behind the words and had discerned nothing to cause alarm. He
was
fine. Just a few more hours.

Ann realized the girls had fallen silent. She looked up at them, sitting cross-legged beside her, photo albums spread all around them. Jacob had gotten hold of an envelope and was sucking its corner. She gently removed it from his grasp. “Hey,” she said. “Daddy got better, you know. He’s strong.”

Kate turned her head. “I hear something.”

The windowpanes shivered in their frames. A truck was heading up their street. A big one, by the sound of it.

They scrambled to their feet and went to the dining room to look out. Ann heard the garage door shuddering along its tracks and knew Peter was watching, too. Across the street, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell stood in the shadows of their porch. So they were alive. They leaned against each other, wrapped in blankets.

A large white truck eased to a stop in front of their house. It had the look of a moving truck, but the logo on its side had been spray-painted out. There were people sitting inside the cab. The driver turned his head and looked at Ann. She drew back. What did they want?

Two men came around the front of the truck, pulling on gloves.

“Do we know them, Mommy?” Maddie said.

One man was tall and lanky with a navy blue baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. The other was short and burly, with a fringe of gray hair. Strangers. They wore white protective masks and coveralls. They turned to face her house. They stepped onto the grass and headed directly for her front door.

“Girls, get back.” Ann glanced at the dead bolt. Locked.

Boots clopped onto the porch. Through the narrow strips of glass on either side of the door, she glimpsed shoulders. There was a loud knock.

“Who is it?”

“City Services. You got anybody for us?” A man’s voice, uneducated and rough.

It took her a moment to puzzle through his words, muffled by the mask. “Who are you trying to find?”

“Ma’am, you got anybody for us?”

Maybe he couldn’t hear her properly, either. She put her mouth to the glass. “You have the wrong address.”

“Ma’am.” The second man stooped to peer at her through the peppled glass. “You have any body you need us to take?”

He paused between “any” and “body,” and his meaning became clear. He was talking about a body in the literal sense.

She backed away, horrified. “No.”

“There’s no charge, ma’am.”

“You’ve got the wrong house. Go away.”

He turned and conferred with his partner. They both looked back at Ann, then stomped down the stairs. They climbed back into the truck and the engine rumbled to life.

“What did they want, Mom?” Kate said.

“Nothing, honey.”

The truck moved down the street, but not far. She could still hear the engine throbbing nearby. She went into the den and looked out the window there. The truck now sat in front of Libby’s house. The two men were walking up the front path. She heard their raised voices and the loud pounding of the doorknocker.

“They can’t just go in there like that.” Maddie sounded indignant.

The two men had disappeared from view. Something was about to happen, something Kate and Maddie shouldn’t see. “Girls, take Jacob and go play a game. Stay away from the windows.”

“But what are they
doing?”
Kate insisted.

“Now, Kate. Maddie. Please.”

The two girls reluctantly turned and shuffled away.

Ann heard a shout from outside followed by a high-pitched pinging as the truck went into reverse. It bumped past Libby’s SUV, still sitting askew by the mailbox, and made a wide circle onto the grass. The driver’s door opened and a third man appeared, midsized, wearing a mask and coveralls, too. He went around to the back of the truck and swung open the doors. Now she saw activity by the front door, a man backing out with something propped on his shoulder. A few more steps and the second man appeared. They were both wearing respirators, and now she saw they carried something between them, something long and rolled in a blanket. The same crimson wool blanket Smith took to Libby’s field hockey games. The one Libby left draped over her sofa. The men stopped, adjusted their grip, and then came around slowly and heavily to the back of the truck. They flexed to lift the bundle to their shoulders, higher than Ann would have expected. She looked away. She couldn’t bear this.

Now the driver came over. He held a clipboard. The two men paused. All three talked. The driver nodded and jotted something on the clipboard. He turned and looked at the house number, made another notation.

The Nguyens had come out to stand on the sidewalk at the corner. Mr. Nguyen had his arms around his wife and mother-in-law. The younger woman was weeping. The older woman pressed a bright yellow scarf to her nose.

The two men went back into the house and reappeared a short while later. This time, it was a blue-and-gray comforter rolled up between them. A smaller burden. They moved more easily down the path. Another mighty heave, and then the driver reached up and pulled down the door. He went to the house and did something there. From this angle, Ann couldn’t see what, just the swoop of his arm rising and falling. He climbed into the truck and slammed the door.

The Nguyens on the corner, the Mitchells on their porch, other neighbors standing unseen behind their windows—this was all the memorial service Libby and Smith would have.

The truck backed down to the street and turned, drove on to the next house.

Trembling, Ann put her forehead to the glass, and sent up a prayer. Was anyone listening? How many more bodies would they collect from this small neighborhood? Was there anywhere in the world this wasn’t happening?

The neighbors drifted away, went back inside their houses, disappeared from behind windowpanes. Ann heard her daughters’ voices from the other room teaching Jacob peekaboo, squabbling a little about how best to do it. Kate laughed and Maddie gave a whoop of triumph.

A rush of cold air struck her as she stepped outside. She came down to the bottom of the porch stairs and craned to see what the man had been doing to Libby’s door before the truck had pulled away.

It was red paint, sloppily applied. She made out a circle with a number two in the middle, a line crossed through it. The paint was still dripping, glistening like blood.

KATE COUGHED
.

The sound froze Ann as she rinsed the plates in the sink. She set down the dish and switched off the water. Her heart thudding, she walked over to where the girls lay sleeping by the hearth, the baby curled up nearby. She crouched. Firelight flickered over their faces. Kate had her chin resting on her stuffed owl. She cleared her throat and turned her head. She sighed. A few moments ticked by. All was silent.

False alarm.

Ann rose and turned toward the kitchen.

The back door opened and Peter stepped inside.

She halted by the table, her heart hammering. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Like I dodged a bullet.”

They all had. The pure relief of seeing him whole and healthy, scruffy beard and all, made her dizzy. “I saved you some macaroni and cheese. The girls were so excited to have it for dinner. You’d have thought it was filet mignon. Remember how Kate used to call it macadaw cheese?” She was babbling. She put a fork on the waiting plate and turned to him.

He smiled. “Yeah. And Maddie would only eat her peas and corn in pairs.”

“I was so sure it was a sign of serious mental illness.”

“Just stubbornness. Your side of the family.”

He was standing so close, staring so intently. What did he see? She lifted a hand to her hair, long and loose, no hope of any style remaining. His eyes were dark, their color difficult to make out in the shifting candlelight. Blue, she guessed. Navy blue. Tomorrow, they might be green, or gray. Kate had inherited her changeable eyes from him.

He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her toward him.

She went willingly, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. She spread her fingers and pushed the cloth of his shirt aside, laid her palm on his warm skin.

He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her throat, then her mouth. The softness of his lips, the taste of his skin, her hand at the nape of his neck, the curls of his hair sliding between her fingers. They bumped against the cabinet and a dish rattled.

“Wait,” she said.

He stopped, breathing hard. “Sorry.”

“The girls.” She took his hand, pulled him into the laundry room, and shut the door behind them. The room was small and dark. She stumbled back against the clothes mounded in baskets, pulling at his shirt and yanking at the buttons. He pulled her sweater over her head. The cold surface of the wall scraped against her shoulder blades, then the room tilted and now the cold tiles lay beneath her. Moonlight filtered in through the narrow window, painting his skin in stripes of blue and white. She ran her hands along his upper arms, rubbed the small ridged scar nestled by his collarbone, pressed her palms against the firm smoothness of his shoulders. He looked down at her. Tasting tears in her throat, she reached up and brought his mouth down, opening hers so that all the unspoken words swam from one to the other, all the questions finally answered.

FORTY-ONE

P
ETER SHOOK OPEN THE MAP AND SPREAD IT ACROSS
the kitchen table. Columbus sat in the center of the state, highways crisscrossing it like fishing net. Lots of options, but none of them any good. If the quarantine was still in effect, and he had no reason to think it wouldn’t be, they’d be stopped along any of the major roads and made to turn around. But here, snaking north, was a quiet two-lane thoroughfare that might work. The state’s resources would be stretched thin. They couldn’t cover every route. They’d have to be selective. They’d concentrate on 75 and 70, 80/90. They’d have to overlook a poky little road like 6.

Ann came into the room. “Jacob’s finally asleep.”

The road meandered past Bowling Green. From there, they had myriad options. Not a straight shot—it’d add seventy-five miles or so, but they’d pass through plenty of small towns that offered alternative routes should they need them.

“I told the girls they could use my old paints.” He glanced up at her with pleased surprise, then looked over to where the girls knelt by the table in the living room. “Nice to see them getting along.”

“Maddie’s making you a Welcome Back sign.” Ann came closer. “What are you doing?”

“I need to talk to you about something.” He saw her tense and he smiled to ease her mind. Things were still new between them. He patted the chair beside him. “Come on, sit down.”

She pulled out the chair and sat. “What’s with the map?”

Her hair waved softly around her face. He remembered the feel of it, silky between his fingers. She caught him looking and blushed.

“Peter.”

He took her hand and said with great seriousness, “It’s not safe here anymore.”

A small line appeared between her eyebrows. “You mean our house?”

“We’re taking too many chances staying in such a big metropolitan area. It’s a lucky fluke I didn’t get sick. We can’t count on that happening twice.”

“But things are getting better. Those men said they were from City Services. That must mean things are returning to normal.”

“Those men were freelancers. If anything, that’s a sign that the system has failed.”

“Freelancers?” She tilted her head. “How do you know that?”

He couldn’t tell her they’d carted Smith and Libby’s bodies to the ice rink. He couldn’t bear the look in her eyes if she knew. Instead, he said, “Listen, honey. We still don’t have power. 911’s out. The phones don’t work. There haven’t been any food drops, no planes at all. No mail, no newspaper, no garbage pickup.”

“But we’re managing. We have food. We have water. Besides, where would we go?”

“My dad’s old hunting cabin.”

She bit her lower lip. She was processing this. “In Michigan?”

“It’s only about four hundred miles away. We could do it in a day. Mike keeps the cabin stocked. That, plus the supplies we have here—”

She shook her head. “What if we have to go the long way? What if we run out of gas?”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“It’s too risky. I don’t want us to be stranded by the side of the road.”

“The cabin’s isolated. There’s no one around for miles. We can boil water from the lake. We’ll be surrounded by firewood. I can teach the girls to fish. We can stay there as long as we need to.”

She looked around the kitchen. “What if we board up the windows? Not all of them, just the ones down here. And the sliding glass door. That’s always bothered me, how open that is. Anyone could just walk right in.”

She wasn’t listening. She hated change. The unknown always made her apprehensive. The only time she’d taken any kind of chance had been when they’d decided to move here, and then she’d been running away from, not running toward, something. He took her other hand and held both firmly. She looked back to him.

“Ann, you need to understand. Things have changed out there. The other night, I didn’t see a single police car. The Guarnieris burned alive in their home. Libby and Smith died alone in their house. So did Finn. What if that happened to us? Who would take in Kate and Maddie and Jacob?” He tightened his grasp. “Sweetheart, there’s no one out there to help us. No one at all.”

A look of comprehension crossed her face, chased closely by fear. “What about my parents? What if they and Beth drive out here and find us gone?”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “We’ll leave them a note.” Her hair kissed his cheek. “They’ll know where to find us.”

“Four hundred miles … We could get carjacked. We could crash. We could be exposed.”

He tightened his grip. “We don’t have a choice.”

“When do you want to leave?”

“First thing in the morning.”

“SO, HOW BIG IS GRANDDAD’S PLACE?” KATE STOOD AT THE
kitchen table, shaking out towels and folding them into a laundry basket. She had her stuffed owl tucked into the waistband of her jeans. Two months before, those jeans had been so tight she couldn’t have fit a washcloth in there.

“It’s pretty rustic, but it’s got all the comforts of home.” Peter knelt by the bin of camping gear and lifted out the tent. He’d have to leave it. It was too bulky to take, even with the cartop carrier he’d strapped to the roof of the minivan. Nothing was going but the absolute essentials. Even so, they’d be loaded down. “There’s a stove, a fireplace, a kitchen table, bunk beds.”

Kate narrowed her eyes. “What about the bathroom?”

He grinned at her. “It’s got one, but you’ll have to take a little hike to get to it.”

“Well, that’s just super. We’ll be living like cavemen.”

“What about a shower?” Maddie said. “Because she sure needs one.”

“Oh, like you smell so great?”

“I wouldn’t know. My nose is completely dead from smelling
you.”

“Just shut up.”

“And your breath stinks, too.”

Kate curled her hands into fists, and Ann swiftly stepped between the two girls. They’d run out of toothpaste a few days before, and Ann had been mixing up pastes with baking soda. Peter had to admit the concoctions hadn’t been doing the trick. “It’s all right, Katydid. I don’t smell anything.” He winked at her. Maddie reached into the pantry for another can of food and put it in the paper sack. “Jacob’s coming, right?” she asked Peter.

“That’s right.”

“But what if Libby comes looking for him?”

Ann and Peter exchanged a glance. “We’ll leave her a note,” Ann said. “She’ll be happy to know Jacob’s being taken care of.”

They’d have to locate Jacob’s family. Libby’s parents lived in Arizona, he remembered, and there was a sister somewhere. When things settled, they’d look for them.

“What about Barney?” Maddie said. “We have to take him, too.”

Peter smiled at her. “Of course we do.”

Ann looked up from the first-aid bin.

Peter winked at her. He was feeling much better now that he knew they were leaving. An enormous weight had been lifted. Really, he should have thought of heading to the cabin weeks ago. “He can forage for food in the woods. He might even catch us a squirrel or two.”

“That is so unnecessary, Dad,” Kate said.

“Yuck,” Maddie agreed.

Here was his fishing box. He snapped it open, checked the lures, closed it again, and set it beside the fishing rods. “We’d better take sunscreen and bug juice,” he told Ann, and she nodded.

Maddie squealed. “Bugs?”

“Maybe a few.” Peter rolled up mosquito netting. Come July, it’d be good to be able to escape the pent-up heat of the cabin and sleep mosquito-free on the front porch. “Don’t worry. You guys are going to love it there. Your granddad used to take me and your uncle Mike camping there all the time.”

“So, how come we’ve never been to this place?” Kate said.

Ann paused in the laundry room doorway and looked back at him.

“Well,” Peter said, “I haven’t been there in a while. Not since before you girls were born.”

“Why not?” Maddie said.

Strange. It was a simple question, but Peter found he had a hard time framing a response.

Ann set the bottle of insect repellent on the table. “Well, your dad never liked hunting, so there was no reason for us to go there.”

Kate looked from her to Peter, frowning. “Isn’t that where Granddad had his accident?”

Ann said quietly, “That’s right.”

That was what the authorities had ruled it. That’s what Peter wanted to believe. His brother had insisted otherwise. Their father was too experienced not to wear blaze orange that time of year, Mike had said. He thought it was too much of a coincidence that their mother had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
The old guy gave up, Peter. He took the easy way out. He always did
.

Ann put a hand on Maddie’s shoulder. “Looks like you’re done with the pantry, honey. Why don’t you girls help me pick out your clothes? One suitcase each.”

“What about Jacob’s car seat?” Kate said. “Hey.” Ann draped an arm around Kate’s shoulders and squeezed. “Good thinking.”

Kate blushed.

Peter smiled at the sight of them standing so naturally together. Finally, after so many years, this was the way they should be with one another. This was a gift, an acknowledgment that he’d made the right call in moving his family. This was a harbinger of all the good things to come.

HE LAY AWAKE LONG AFTER EVERYONE HAD FALLEN ASLEEP
, watching moonlight paint shadows on the ceiling. He listened to the even rise and fall of Ann’s breathing, Kate’s soft snoring, Jacob’s occasional squirming. Maddie lay utterly silent, the way she always slept. Maybe it was that again—listening for her breathing—that was keeping him awake, as it had all those years before. Nah. Maddie was far too old for him to be thinking about that now. There were other things to worry about. That boy Kate liked, for instance. What had she said his name was? Something weird, like Beaver. No, not an animal—an object. Scooter. That was it. Scooter.

How would Kate emerge on the other side of this? She’d been growing into a typical teenager, giggling, gossiping with her friends, worrying about her hair, and having her little crushes. But she’d been jolted out of that. Ann had told him Kate’s best friend hadn’t been online the other day. There was only one conclusion to draw from that. How many other friends of Kate’s were gone, too? Kate would find out eventually. She probably already knew, though she hadn’t said anything. Kate was like her mother that way. She kept her feelings locked inside. How much had these past few months derailed her from becoming the woman she was intended to be? They’d never know.

Of course Maddie would be affected, too, though probably in less tangible ways. She was only eight. She might ride this out, as the young sometimes did, not even straining to make the adjustment back to whatever new normal awaited them. Or she might grow up with certain phobias or behaviors that she’d never trace back to this period in her life. She might never be able to form friendships. She might shy away from making any sort of emotional commitment at all. A horrible thought. Maddie was his passionate child, always the one needing extra hugs and kisses, always the one to dash up to the car window as he pulled in for a visit.

The air in the room pressed down on him. He’d piled on too many covers. He kicked them off. Better. He flipped over onto his side.

Now he could see the front door floating there in the darkness across the expanse of hallway. It was a pretty door, with narrow rectangles of peppled glass along both sides, a broad band of glass above. One of the things he and Ann had first loved about this house was the way it seemed to be filled with light. Now all those windows represented danger. It was a good thing they were leaving. No one would bother them at the cabin. They’d have to know it was there, first. If anyone did approach, Barney would sound the alarm.

But Ann was right. Four hundred miles was a long distance. A lot could happen between here and there. For the first time since his dad died, Peter wished he still had his shotgun.

It had gotten stuffy in here. No doubt it was the residual warmth from the fireplace and too many people crowded into one small space. He pushed himself up. Maybe he’d go outside and get a breath of fresh air. He could do a perimeter check at the same time. He took a step toward the front door and saw that it was hanging wide open before him. How could this be? He’d checked the lock himself numerous times that night. He blinked. Now the door was firmly shut again. It must’ve been a trick of the darkness. He was probably sleepier than he’d realized.

He unlocked the door and stepped out onto the porch. The chill felt good. His days and nights were all turned around. He’d sit out here for a little while and watch the street. That truck and the three men carting off the dead had troubled him all evening. He knew they’d been hired for the job, but he wondered if they were also scouting houses for easy trespass. Work for the city by day. Work for yourself at night.

He settled himself onto the bench and leaned back against the wooden slats.

He didn’t realize he’d fallen asleep until he felt something wet and cold press into his palm. He opened his eyes and saw Barney sitting there with his head in Peter’s lap. The sun was up. It washed across his legs in a tide of yellow.

“How did you get out here?” Peter rubbed his eyes and stood.

Ann smiled at him from the kitchen sink. “Hey, sleepyhead. Why did you go outside last night?” She dried her hands on a dishtowel. The flip-flopping of the towel made his head squeeze painfully.

Kate looked up from where she sat at the table. “Mom says I can’t take my laptop.”

“There isn’t any electricity,” Ann said.

“Is that true?” Kate looked accusingly at Peter.

He couldn’t remember. He tried to piece it together. Were there lights? An outlet to plug in a fan?

Maddie was talking now. He turned his head to her and saw that she was spooning something into Jacob’s waiting mouth. Another wave of pain bounced against his temples.

“We’ll have Daddy’s computer,” she said. “Don’t be such a baby, Kate.”

“Oh my God. Do you have any idea how stupid you are?” Kate sneered at her sister. “Dad’s computer won’t work, either.”

“You think you know everything.”