and the goldfish, Timothy’s parents took him to Huguenot Street to tour rustic Locust Lawn and the nearby spacious Ellis House, with its spooky Queen Anne interior. All the while, folks dressed up in colonial drapery mingled to and fro. Many of them were students at the local university looking to earn a few extra bucks. Even at that young age, Timothy found the whole affair to be delightfully weird. He longed to live in the Ellis House, and often wondered how difficult it would be to break in, and steal a nap on that small, square, starched bed.
Timothy apparently had a thing for other people’s beds.
His own bed lay in a two-story American foursquare on a street lined with two-story American foursquares. All were squat, with faces made of brick and stucco. Most had cookie-cutter porticos bookending their front doors, which were various shades of white. Timothy only recognized his by rote. He offered the cabdriver a modest tip and hopped out onto the well-trimmed front lawn. Old, knee-high bushes bracketed the two short steps that led from lawn to landing. Timothy had several pets buried in the soil behind those bushes. He thought of them with fondness every time he opened his front door.
“There he is!” he heard his mother say, and this kept him from bounding up the stairs to his bedroom. Instead, he made his way into the den. Mother sat in her chair, predictably engrossed in her needlepoint. Today’s project was embroidering the smiley face of Christ Jesus onto a mauve cushion. She donated all of her needlepoint to the local Salvation Army, where she volunteered every Saturday from ten to two.
He stood in the middle of the den. She didn’t look up from her needlepoint. “Your father and I weren’t sure if you were going to come home. And on your birthday, no less.”
Timothy noted that she didn’t ask him where he’d been or what he’d been doing. Both she and his father stopped asking him that a long time ago.
The Ace bandages swathing his left wrist were becoming caked with blood. “I got bit by a dog,” he said.
At this she raised her eyes from her work. “Oh, Timothy, come here.” There was no concern in her voice, only disappointment.
He approached. Carefully, Timothy’s mother unwrapped his bandages and examined the wound.
“Did you disinfect it?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She sniffed the iodine and nodded. “Good boy. Nevertheless, you’re going to need stitches.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She peered at his face, trying to read it. What could she see? What did she know? It didn’t really matter, because at that moment the garage door roared open. Father was home.
Quickly, she brought Timothy to the first-floor bathroom, rinsed his wrist under the faucet and reached down for her emergency supplies below the sink. She had an ample stock: antiseptics, gauze, a suture kit, etc. She got a discount through her veterinary practice. Timothy had a habit of getting cut up.
“Hello!” bellowed Father. “I’m home!”
“One minute!” she replied. Although much of the skin on her son’s thin forearm had darkened a nasty purple, the broken vein itself had already clotted nicely. The sutures could wait until after dinner. She rewrapped his wrist in gauze, sealed the bandages with a metal clip and brought Timothy back out to the den.
Father was holding a large box.
“Happy birthday!” he declared.
“Thank you, sir.”
While the box was placed on the dining room table, Mother sifted into the sideboard for candles, and then quickly went upstairs for the matches. She kept them hidden.
“Did you have a good day, sport?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, good.”
Their gazes never met. If Timothy’s father had noticed the bandages, he hadn’t reacted. Timothy didn’t expect him to.
As Mother returned with the matches, the rectangular cake was removed from its box. German chocolate cake with genuine coconut pecan frosting. His favorite. Mother haphazardly arranged the pinky-size birthday candles across the cake’s surface, lit one and used it to light the others.
“Make a wish, sport.”
Timothy closed his eyes. He thought about Lynette. He thought about what went wrong. He thought about her blue eyes. He thought about Cain42. He couldn’t wait to send him the pictures.
He thought about his next pet.
There were so many possibilities.
With a deep breath, Timothy blew out his candles in one gust, all fourteen of them. Happy birthday to him.
2
“And that’s my point, Esme,” said Rafe Stuart. “That’s what I’ve been getting at all this time. You’re knowingly and willfully killing our family.”
Before Esme could respond, Dr. Rosen—a teensy, wrinkly pink woman in