and they could see him continue to stare through the tinted windows. They watched the SUV dip and disappear out of sight. Then they exchanged a look that conveyed their shared exhaustion. Triple A? Could they really be at it again? The futility of communicating their predicament to the Millers had turned their kind gesture of help into something onerous and unwanted. To approach the world with evasion and thanklessness—that was no way to live. Jane walked around to the driver’s side and she and Tim got in and closed their doors at the same time.
They drove home. Soon after Jane killed the engine, the car began to crackle in the silent garage. “I have to go in,” he said.
She was surprised. He had shown such resolve the night before: no gerbil wheel. She wondered whom he intended to see. Bagdasarian? Copter at Mayo? Did he mean Switzerland again?
Then she realized her mistake. He meant in to work.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.
“Janey, I’m all rested up. I have to go in.”
The night before, she had pushed aside how they would deal with the long-term things like his work, in order to make him safe for that one night. Now she had to deal with the reality of the light of day, and she should not have been surprised that he would want to go in.
“You should take the day off,” she said.
“No, that would just be…”
“We need to—”
“… capitulation.”
“—to deal with this, Tim. Capitulation? It’s called reality.”
“But the case,” he said.
“Oh, fuck the case!” she said. “It’s back, Tim! You said it yourself last night. It’s back.”
The car was losing heat. He sat unmoving in his fleecy chrysalis of Patagonia and down, staring straight through the windshield at the spare gas tank and paint cans and the coils of extension cords and rubber hoses on the garage shelves. A row of old Vermont license plates had been nailed into the wall. Jane turned away from him in the still car and they sat in silence. Within the minute their breath became visible. She waited for him to say something, preparing the counterargument. After waking he always felt this false rejuvenation, but that strength was fleeting and within hours he could be walking again. And then what would he do, out in the cold with his frostbite and dressed in nothing but suit and tie, walking around Manhattan and ending up God knows where? She was about to remind him of this when he started pounding the glove box with his gloved fist. He rained blow after blow down on the glove box and she let out an involuntary cry and jerked back against the cold window. He stopped hitting the glove box and began to kick it until the latch snapped and the door fell. He continued to kick as if to drive his foot clear through to the engine block. One of the door’s lower hinges snapped, and thereafter the glove box had the cockeyed lean of a tired sun visor. It would never be fixed.
When it was over, he withdrew his foot and out spilled a handful of napkins. His heel had compacted the owner’s manual and ripped the maintenance records and insurance papers. He returned his feet to the mat and things were calm again, but he would not look at her.
“I have to go in,” he said finally.
Her gaze had a fire’s intensity.
“Okay,” she said. “You should go in.”
“I’m trying to tell you that I feel good.”
“I will pack your backpack,” she said, “with your winter gear, in case you need it, and you can take the pack in with you.”
“I have to go in,” he repeated.
“I understand.”
Then he turned to her. “Do you?”
“Yes,” she said.
5
Becka was up for school, showered and sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal. At seventeen, she wore a silver loop in her left nostril and never properly washed her hair. She was surprised when the door to the garage opened. She had figured her parents were upstairs. They came into the kitchen brooding and silent. Her father was overburdened with winter clothes and her mother looked pale and terrified.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Nobody said anything. She just knew.
She stood up and hugged her dad, a rare hug. She approached him sideways, resting her head on his shoulder. He took hold of her forearm and squeezed.