what he had to say, the way his voice changed when he was on that phone with a customer.
Mouse’s father was a handsome man. He had hair that was a dark chestnut brown. His eyes were big, round, always watching. He was quiet most of the time, except for when he walked, because he was a big man and his footsteps were heavy. Mouse could hear him coming from a mile away.
He was a good father. He took Mouse outside and played catch with her. He taught her things about bird nests and how the rabbits hid their babies in holes in the ground. Mouse’s father always knew where they were, and he’d go to the holes, lift up the clumps of grass and fur on top, and let Mouse take a peek.
One day, when he’d had enough of that squeaky stair, Mouse’s father gathered his toolbox from the garage and climbed the steps. With a hammer, he drove nails into the tread, clamping it down to the wood on the other side. Then he grabbed a handful of finishing nails. He tapped them into the tread, reattaching it to the riser beneath.
He stood back proudly to examine his handiwork.
But Mouse’s father had never been much of a handyman.
He should have known that no matter what he did, he would never be able to fix the step. Because even after all his hard work, the stair continued to make noise.
In time, Mouse came to depend on that sound. She would lie in bed, staring up at the light that hung from her ceiling, heart beating hard, unable to sleep.
There she would listen for that last step to bellow out a warning for her, letting her know someone was coming up the stairs for her room, giving her a head start to hide.
SADIE
I watch from bed as Will changes out of his clothes and into a pair of pajama pants, dropping his clothes into the hamper on the floor. He stands for a second at the window, looking out onto the street beneath.
“What is it?” I ask, sitting upright in bed. Something has caught Will’s eye and drawn him there, to the window. He stands, contemplatively.
The boys are both asleep, the house remarkably quiet.
“There’s a light on,” Will tells me, and I ask, “Where?”
He says, “Morgan’s house.”
This doesn’t surprise me. As far as I know, the house is still a crime scene. I’d have to imagine it takes days for forensics to process things before some bioremediation service gets called in to scrub blood and other bodily fluids from inside the home. Soon Will and I will watch on as people in yellow splash suits with some sort of breathing apparatus affixed to their heads move in and out, taking bloodstained items away.
I wonder again about the violence that happened there that night, about the bloodshed.
How many bloodstained items will they have to take away?
“There’s a car in the drive,” Will tells me. But before I have a chance to reply, he says, “Jeffrey’s car. He must be home from Tokyo.”
He stands motionless before the window for another minute or two. I rise from bed, leaving the warmth of the blankets. The house is cold tonight. I go to the window and stand beside Will, our elbows touching. I look out, see the same thing he sees. A shadowy SUV parked in the driveway beside a police cruiser, both of them illuminated by a porch light.
As we watch on, the front door of the home opens. An officer steps out first, then ushers Jeffrey through the door. Jeffrey must be a foot taller than the policeman. He pauses in the open doorway for a last look inside. In his hands, he carries luggage. He steps from the home, passing the officer by. The officer closes the door and locks it behind them. The officer has met him here, I think, and kept an eye on the crime scene while Mr. Baines packed up a few personal things.
Under his breath Will murmurs, “This is all so surreal.”
I lay a hand on his arm, the closest I come to consoling him. “It’s awful,” I say because it is. No one, but especially not a young woman, should have to die like this.
“You heard about the memorial service?” Will asks me, though his eyes don’t stray from the window.
“What memorial service?” I ask, because I didn’t hear about a memorial service.
“There’s a memorial service,” Will tells me. “Tomorrow. For Morgan. At the Methodist church.”