a breath, they heard it Someone was tapping at their door. They stared at each other, stricken. The children.
But it was Mrs. Goodrich’s voice out in the hall. “Are you all right?” she was saying. “Land sakes, you’re waking up the whole house.”
There was a silence; then Rose spoke. “It’s all right, Mrs. Goodrich,” she called softly. “I’m sorry we disturbed you. We were just—just talking about something.”
“Some people like to sleep at night,” Mrs. Goodrich said. They heard her retreating back toward the staircase, her footsteps heavy as she plodded down.
“I suppose the children heard it all, too,” Rose complained.
“Don’t try to blame it on me,” Jack said. “You might try listening to me once in a while, instead of accusing me.”
“You’re never responsible, are you?” Rose said, making an effort to keep her voice down. “You’ll never take the responsibility for anything, will you?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “I will. But not for everything, Rose. Not for everything.” He began dressing.
“Where are you going?” Rose demanded.
“You don’t need to know,” Jack said. Then he smiled cruelly. “I’ll take the responsibility for where I’m going. And I’ll take the responsibility for what I’m going to do.”
He left her standing next to the bed in her torn nightgown, and she hadn’t moved when she heard his car roar off down the driveway two minutes later. Only when the noise of the car had faded did she sink back down to the bed. Shakily she reached for a cigarette and lit it. The smoke, sucked deeply into her lungs, seemed to calm her.
She finished her cigarette and lay down on the bed, turning off the light. She lay still for a long time, keeping her breathing even and forcing her tense muscles to relax. She tried to sort out her thoughts, and when that failed decided to drift with them and see where they led.
Thirty minutes later, she was still trying to relax her muscles, and her mind was as chaotic as it had been when she lay down. She decided to get something to eat.
She padded into the kitchen and turned the light on. She listened for a minute and heard the rhythmic snoring of Mrs. Goodrich in the next room. She crept to the refrigerator and opened it.
She thought she heard the click of a door opening as she poked among the leftovers neatly packaged on the shelves of the refrigerator, but it wasn’t until she felt a draft on her legs that she turned around. The back door stood open.
A stab of fear ran through her, and she instinctively moved toward the drawer where the knives were kept. Then she saw who had opened the back door.
Sarah, her flannel nightgown soaking wet and covered with mud, her dark hair glistening with the rain, stood by the knife drawer, as if trying to decide whether to open it or not.
“Sarah?” Rose breathed, her heart pounding and a terrible fear rising in her. “Sarah,” she said again.
She approached the child and knelt down. She reached out to touch Sarah, very gently, for fear that her daughter was sleepwalking and not wanting to wake her if she was. But at the touch Sarah turned around and stared at her mother. She blinked a couple of times, and Rose was sure she was awake.
“Sarah,” she said quietly. “What is it? What were you doing outside?”
Sarah peered blankly at her mother, and Rose didn’t know whether she had been heard or not. Then a large tear formed in one of Sarah’s eyes and slowly ran down her face, streaking the mud in its path. It collected on her chin, than, when it was too heavy to hang on any longer, fell to the floor. Rose gathered the girl into her arms. Sarah did not resist.
“Come on,” Rose said. “I’ll take you upstairs and put you to bed.”
She picked the little girl up and closed both the back door of the house and the refrigerator door. Snapping off the kitchen light and crooning to the child who shivered in her arms, she made her way upstairs to the bathroom. She set Sarah down and began running a tub of hot water. Then she went to get towels.
When she returned, Sarah still sat where Rose had left her, unmoving, as though she were thinking about something. But her eyes, the huge, beautiful brown eyes, still seemed vacant, staring at the tub of water. Rose undressed her and placed her in the tub.