saw her black sandals in the hallway, as if she had stepped out of them midstride. It always relieved him to see the tracks of her around the house.
“Amy?”
There was silence for a few seconds, then: “In here.”
He hurried to the kitchen where she was standing at the sink, opening a can. He wrapped his arms around her and she twisted her head so that their cheeks rubbed against each other. He loved the smooth feel of her skin, unlike any other sensation he could think of. It was pure Amy.
She checked her watch. “You’re home early.”
“That’s because I’m taking you out on the town tonight.”
“Which town?”
“Red Paint, of course. The carnival is back.”
She shifted around inside his arms to face him. “You get like a little kid this time every summer.”
“If you can’t get excited when you go to a carnival, you must be dead.”
She pulled back slightly. “Davey stays with us this year, no running off on his own.”
“He is eleven, Amy.”
“Eleven going on eight.”
Simon leaned in for a kiss and tasted something different—new lipstick? New toothpaste? “We don’t kiss much anymore,” he said when they broke apart. “Why is that?”
“I haven’t been keeping score,” she said and then kissed him again, “but you can add one more to our total.” She turned away, toward the refrigerator. “When you go upstairs, tell Davey to wash for dinner. I’m throwing together a vegetable soup. It’s all I have the energy to make.”
Simon headed down the hallway, grabbing his briefcase as he went, and turned up the stairs. At the top he stopped outside his son’s room, listening for a moment. Not spying really, more information gathering, as he’d do in the bank or supermarket, trying to pick up on what people were talking about. He heard an unfamiliar voice on the other side of the door, lower-pitched and slower-paced than Davey’s usual rapid-fire delivery. He tried to distinguish words but could only make out “Yeah” and “Nah.” He knocked. Nothing. He waited a few seconds and knocked again, harder. Still nothing. Simon nudged open the door and peeked around it. “Davey?”
The boy sat cross-legged on his bed, propped up by pillows, the phone at one ear, his earbud in the other. “I got to get off now,” he said with exaggerated loudness, “on account of my father has invaded my room.” He hung up the receiver.
“It’s time for dinner, and afterward we’re all going to the carnival together.”
The boy’s face contorted into a mixture of disbelief and resignation. “You mean I have to go with you guys?”
“Mom’s orders. Go with us or not at all.”
Small white lights stretched between the trees down both sides of the Common, illuminating the green as if it were a large rectangular stage suspended in the black of space. The air burst with sounds of a banjo band and kids yelling and one strong-lunged baby crying. They walked down the crowded midway, bumped and brushed at every step. Simon reached ahead to tap Amy’s shoulder. “This is the most crowded I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “You can barely move.”
She licked her chocolate cone. “Where’s Davey?”
He looked back into the swirling lights of the Merry-Go-Round, trying to pick out the slight form of their son. “By that booth with the water guns,” Simon said, vaguely pointing. “Around there.”
“You see him?”
“Not this second, but—”
“You said you were watching him.”
Simon rose up on his toes, looking for the telltale blue cap. “Okay, I see him. But this is ridiculous. We can’t keep our eyes on him every second just because we spooked ourselves one time.”
She moved in closer so he could hear her. “I didn’t spook myself. The person Davey saw at the front door spooked me.”
“It could have just been somebody coming around selling something.”
“At eight o’clock on a Thursday night? And why didn’t he ring the bell?” They’d gone over this before. He didn’t have all the answers. “A carnival is exactly where predators hang out and snatch kids,” she said.
“If he’s not safe in the center of Red Paint, we might as well move to Canada.”
Amy gestured with her cone toward the tent. “What’s he doing now?”
A quizzical expression flashed across Simon’s face before he could stop it. “He’s just talking to someone.”
“Who?”
“I can’t tell from here, some man maybe.”
“A man?” Amy pushed her way against the tide of people. “Davey!” she yelled with an urgency in her voice that made everyone stop and look. Twenty yards away, the boy waved and waded