BY 7PM.
3. COME OUT TO CAR WHEN E ARRIVES.
4. IF YOU DO NOT COME YOU WILL REGRET IT FOREVER.
5. POLICE WILL THINK YOU ARE CRAZY.
So he knew their names. Item five notwithstanding, she would call 911, of course. But in her head her of course sounded as childish and misplaced as Viv’s.
She ran to her bag and pulled out her phone, which had only 10 percent charge. There was a nonsensical text from Erika: Yeah no prob c u 7. Molly tapped in her passcode so she could read back over their texts. From Molly’s phone, at 6:16 p.m.: So sorry something came up is there any way you can come back and cover a couple more hours tonight? And then, at 6:17 p.m., from Erika: Sure thing, just postponed my drinks, actually works better anyway. From Molly, at 6:18 p.m.: Sweet thanks for swift response see you soon. Can you be here by 7? I’ll get both kids to sleep so you can just chill.
“No, Ben!” Viv cried out. “You’re gonna rip it!”
Calling 911 no longer seemed like a possibility.
A text exchange of which she had written not a word, a text exchange that had taken place while she was crouched in front of the mirror in the dark in the other room—but how would she convince the police (POLICE WILL THINK YOU ARE CRAZY) that she was not the author of these texts, which were indistinguishable in tone from every other text in her correspondence with Erika?
20
Her commute was short, the Phillips 66 less than two miles from home. She turned right just past the neon sign of the Excellent Laundromat. Even after more than eight years living here it still caused a physical response in her whenever she rolled off the weary, blaring thoroughfare onto these quiet blocks of tiny timeworn bungalows, the neighborhood soft gray at this darkening hour, an old woman limping beneath old trees, a dog mourning somewhere, a mild melancholy that resonated with her, the imperfect sidewalks and overgrown rhubarb and ill-tended crab-apple trees.
“Thanks for raking,” David had said that morning, staring out at their small yard while downing coffee, his suitcase and instruments beside the door.
She had no idea what he meant; there had been no raking whatsoever in her life of late. But there wasn’t time to probe, for Viv was pulling her toward the hall closet, distressed to the point of tears at not being able to locate her left rain boot. And Ben, who was eating his oatmeal in fistfuls with both hands, had just begun to experiment with tossing globs of it toward the ceiling.
Now, ending her commute, pulling up to the curb, pleased that no parallel park was demanded of her, she noticed how the base of the house no longer possessed its trademark ring of dead leaves. Someone or something (some wind?) had cleared away the debris of the dark months, making newly passable the dirt pathway around the house.
She forgot to wonder about it, though, when she opened the front door to a blueberry-stained Ben, to Viv parading through the living room chanting “Birth-Day! Birth-Day!” with an uncapped purple marker held aloft in her right hand like the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
21
Her hands were shaky on the knife that spread the peanut butter, shaky on the bread beneath, shaky scooping applesauce, shaky slicing banana. Yet the children were tranquil and happy as they ate their makeshift dinner, laughing together at something that escaped her. She needed to be in a room, by herself, in silence, where she could think about what to do next, but there was no time for that.
As she shepherded them into their bedroom after dinner, she was alarmed at her obsequiousness. GIVE V & B DINNER AND PUT THEM TO BED. It seemed that she ought to disobey. That she should be crafting some plan, calling someone, getting help. Yet the instructions were sound, no matter what was to follow. Make sure the children are fed; make sure they get their rest. She locked the bedroom door and locked the window and pulled the curtains. She turned on the lamp.
This final half hour of the day, when she was toggling back and forth between the needs of two tired children, often felt insurmountable if David was gone. But tonight it felt sacred to hold the bin while the children cleaned up the blocks, Viv delighting in slamming each piece into the bin while announcing its color, Ben crawling over with