“Look, Suz,” Winnie said, smiling. “I made the rest of the world go away.”
I’m so fucking proud of Winnie. Of all of us.
I’m so in love with each and every one of these people. I don’t want any of this to ever end.
Tess closes the journal, places it back in the toolbox and shuts the lid. Then she hurries past the great hulking monster of a canoe, out of Henry’s barn, and into the garden.
She never told Henry about the condoms. About Winnie. It felt pointless. It would have clouded the real issue, which was that she was pregnant, and they needed to hurry up and make some decisions.
Tess’s heart is pounding as she crosses the yard, making the motion-detecting floodlights click on. Taking the photos has given her a little thrill, reminded her of what their Dismantling missions had been like. Things were always tinged with danger, acrid as the smell of gunpowder when Winnie fired the rifle. The fear they might be caught was a living, breathing, palpable thing. It filled their bellies, left them feeling buzzed and satisfied, but always wanting more.
The moon is just a thin sliver in the sky. The stars, millions of tiny pinpricks.
Which makes her think of the condoms again.
Winnie’s casual act of treachery had brought Emma into the world and changed the course of Tess’s life, given it color and shape. For a moment Tess tries to imagine an alternative reality, one in which Winnie thought better of sabotaging the condoms, and therefore one in which Emma—her beautiful, bright, and quirky girl—had never come to be. Tess is sure she would feel the ache of her missing child, like a phantom limb.
Chapter 39
HENRY TAKES A STEP toward her, staggers a little. He’s been drinking again. Winnie imagines him getting through the sad repetition of his days—running the painting company, paying the bills, shuttling his daughter around—by getting good and smashed every evening. We all need something to look forward to. Something to take the edge off. Winnie rubs her fingers over the scars on her arms.
“I’m glad you came,” she says to him. She’s standing on the steps, still in Tess’s clothes.
“I brought your things,” he says, handing over a plastic grocery bag. She peers inside. Her Suz outfit is there, dry now. Mud brown tunic, black leggings.
But something’s missing.
“Where’s the wig?”
Henry shrugs. “I figured you must have grabbed it. It wasn’t with the clothes in the bathroom.”
Winnie feels a moment of panic. It doesn’t make sense. She left it to dry with the clothes in the bathroom. How can the wig be gone?
“Francis!” a little voice calls in the darkness beyond Henry. Winnie squints and sees the girl leaping out of the Blazer. Emma—the girl she pulled squirming and choking from the pool this afternoon.
But who the hell is Francis?
Emma runs to Suz’s moose, which Winnie is close to finishing. She throws her arms around the creature’s neck. “Francis! Nine, nine, nine!”
Henry turns, stares at the girl, blinking. “Emma?”
Winnie watches as his whole demeanor changes. He goes into a slouch. His voice becomes tender.
“Look, Daddy—kitties!”
Henry stares at his daughter, who is down on her knees in a growing sea of cats.
“How did you get here?” he asks.
“I stole away. In the backseat.”
“Stowed away? Jesus, Em. Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”
Emma’s face, beaming with amazement just seconds ago, darkens. Her chin starts to quiver.
Winnie puts her hand on Henry’s arm. He flinches a little, but doesn’t pull away. “I’m sure she won’t do it again, right, Emma?” she says.
Emma nods.
“The cats are hungry,” Winnie says. “Would you like to feed them, Emma?”
Emma’s face cracks into an excited grin as her head bobs. Winnie goes inside, gets three cans of tuna and some bowls.
“How can the cats still be here?” Henry asks Winnie when she comes back out.
“I guess they didn’t have anywhere else to go,” she says.
“But how could they have survived all this time?”
“Instinct,” she tells him, passing a bowl of tuna to Emma.
“Can we take one home, Dad? Please?” Emma pleads as she places the bowl down in the sea of hungry, screaming cats.
“They’re strays, honey. They probably have fleas. They might bite.”
A little orange cat is purring while she strokes its ears.
“Let her have a cat, Henry. Hell, take two. One for Danner.”
He gives her a furious glance and she laughs. Poor Henry. He still takes everything so seriously. He needs to lighten up. Learn to play a little.
“Emma?” Winnie calls. “Do you know the moose has a secret?”
Emma shakes her head.
Henry’s shaking his, too. NO, he mouths the word to Winnie, but she pretends not to see.
“He’s hollow inside. There’s a little door on his chest. You can climb in if you want.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Henry says.
Winnie stands and opens the door on the side of the moose. The new hinges she picked up at the hardware store work perfectly.
“Please, Dad,” Emma says.
Defeated, Henry boosts Emma up so she can climb in.
“Why on earth did you rebuild this thing?” Henry asks.
“I can’t say exactly,” Winnie says. “I guess I just wanted to see if I could.”
She’s proud of the job she’s done, glad someone can finally appreciate it. Someone who knew the moose in another life, who knew the work that went into it. She couldn’t find all the original pieces and had to make some new ones out of branches. She’s not done gluing the canvas over him yet, but it’s getting there.
“I’m standing where his heart would go!” Emma cries with delight, her voice muffled.
“When I began the moose, Henry, things got weird.” Winnie has lowered her voice so that Emma won’t hear.
“What things?”
“If I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Try me,” he says. “I know a thing or two about crazy.”
Winnie smiles.
I just bet you do.
“Okay,” she begins. “When I got here, I took all of Suz’s clothes, sealed them up in a big trash bag and sank it out in the middle of the lake. Getting rid of evidence, you know?”
Henry nods.
“The morning after I started working on the moose, I woke up and found one of the outfits I’d sunk laid out beside me. Silk tunic, leggings, boots. Like Suz had been there in the night, and evaporated, leaving just her clothes.”
“Jesus!” Henry yelps.
“Dad,” Emma calls from inside the moose, “I can see through his eyes.”
Winnie continues, whispering hurriedly. “I was pretty freaked. I balled the clothes up and put them at the bottom of the trash barrel outside. Then, the next morning, I woke up and there they were again, right beside me. This time there was a blond wig on top.”
Henry shivers.
“So I go downstairs with the stuff, thinking maybe I’ll burn it this time, then I see my journal laying open on the table. There’s writing in it that I didn’t do. Handwriting I recognize. Suz’s writing.”
Henry shakes his head in a this-can’t-be-happening kind of way. “What did it say?”
“It said: Put the clothes on, Winnie.”
“And you did?”
Winnie nods. “I was terrified at first. But then, I slipped on the wig and looked in the mirror. Something happened. I felt her presence, Henry. It was as if she was right there with me, filling me with confidence, whispering in my ear. It was as if I actually became her.”
Henry is quiet, looking away from her now. She’s gone too far. She shouldn’t have confessed so much, not all at once like this.
Take it slow, babycakes.
“It’s been so hard,” Winnie
says. “Even after all these years, I think of her every day. I miss her so much. She was the one person who got me. The one who told me I could be anyone, anything I wanted. But all I ever wanted was to be with her, to be what she wanted me to be. So yeah, I put the clothes on. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe—” She doesn’t let herself finish. Henry reaches out, puts a hand on her arm and gives it a gentle squeeze.
“I can hear what the moose thinks!” shouts Emma.
“She’s an amazing kid, Henry,” Winnie whispers. “You’re a lucky man.”
“I know,” he tells her, but she can tell he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel lucky at all. She smiles. This is the Henry she thought she might find, dismantled as the moose. He fumbles in his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes.
“Still smoking, huh?” she asks.
“I gave it up. Quit the day we left the cabin that summer. But I picked up a pack last week.”
“Mind if I have one?” He shakes a cigarette out and lights it for her. They stand smoking a minute, listening to Emma commune with Francis the moose.
Winnie thinks about how Suz was right—everything is a prop, really: the cigarette, the lost wig, the reconstructed moose. All just little pieces to set the scene, to help us move from one act to the next. Things to hide behind, to give us courage, propel us along.
“So you don’t have any plans for it?” Henry asks.
“For what?”
“The moose.”
She laughs. “Like am I going to use it to kidnap some poor lovesick boy or some other crazy Suz scheme? No way. I was thinking of putting it in the lake.”
“The lake?”
“You know? Have a sort of Viking funeral for it. A final tribute. I’d like to float him out there and set him on fire. I thought it would be…cathartic or something.”
She looks straight at Henry, sure she sees him start to smile, then stop himself.
From inside the moose, a small voice yells, “I can see what Francis sees! I know what he knows!”
And Henry shares a panicked sort of look with Winnie, a look that says, I sure as hell hope not. They’re coconspirators now—bound.
“Come on out of there, sweetie,” Henry calls.
“Now I just have to figure out how to get him out on the lake. I’ll have to build a raft or something,” Winnie says, dropping the cigarette butt and grinding it out with her boot.
Henry smiles as he helps Emma out of the moose. “I have a canoe,” he tells her.
Winnie laughs out loud. She can’t help herself. It’s all too perfect for words.
Chapter 40
“I WAS ABOUT TO call the police,” Tess says as they enter the kitchen. “I went into Emma’s room and she wasn’t there. I tried to get you on your cell, but you didn’t answer.” He can see Tess has been crying. Henry wants to go to her, put his arms around her, but instead, he gently guides Emma over to her. Emma hesitates, looking down at the floor, scared she’s in trouble.
“Baby! I was so worried,” Tess says, crossing the kitchen, brushing the hair out of Emma’s eyes, kissing her forehead.
“She’s fine,” Henry says in a soft voice. “She’s right here. I’m so sorry.”
“I stowed away,” Emma says. She’s stroking the little orange kitten clamped firmly to her chest.
“What?” Tess asks. “Who is this?” she asks, petting the kitten on the head.
“I went out to the old cabin,” Henry explains. “Just to see the work Winnie had done. I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone—you know how shitty the service is way out there. I was standing talking to Winnie when Em came rolling out of the car. She and Danner had hidden themselves in the backseat.”
Tess takes her hand away from the cat. Looks sternly at Emma. “Don’t you ever do that again. Do you know how dangerous that is?”
Emma nods, looks down at the kitten.
“She knows,” Henry says. “She’s promised never to do it again.”
Henry bites the inside of his cheek, wonders if he should tell Tess about the truck he saw parked along the road, near the driveway to the cabin when they finally left. There was a figure inside, hunched over the wheel. The truck followed them nearly the whole way home.
Henry’s sure it was Bill Lunde. Which means he knows about the cabin.
“I saw Francis, Mom!” Emma squeals. “The real Francis. I crawled inside him.”
Tess turns to Henry, her face twisted in confusion. “Winnie rebuilt the moose?”
Henry nods.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Tess asks.
Henry shrugs. No worse than building the grotto. “I’m not the one putting it back together. What I think doesn’t matter so much.”
The understatement of the year.
Tess used to care what he thought. She’d ask his opinion, include him in on every decision, from what they’d have for supper to whether or not they could afford the new Volvo. Now everything he thought seemed to be a joke to her.
How do these things happen? Was it a gradual change he hadn’t noticed, or did she just wake up one day and decide all his ideas and opinions were complete and utter shit?
“Why wouldn’t rebuilding Francis be a good idea, Mom?”
Tess’s face softens as she turns back to Emma and the kitten. “Let’s get you and your little friend to bed,” she says. “In the morning, we’ll go out and get him some bowls, food, collar, and litter box.”
“And he’ll need to go see the vet,” Henry says. “He’s probably got fleas. And worms.”
Emma shivers, hugs the cat tighter. “Disgusting,” she says.
“Cats are full of parasites,” Henry says. “Especially a stray like that.”
“Don’t listen to your father,” Tess says. “He doesn’t know a thing about cats. Never did.” Tess gives him an icy glare. Keep your cat-hating thoughts to yourself, mister.
“Mom, there were so many of them!” Emma says, voice bubbly and bright. “There’s this really old one, named Carrot. Winnie says he’s been around since forever.”
Tess glances at Henry, eyes huge. “Carrot? Some of those same cats are still around?”
Henry nods, though he couldn’t say for sure. He could never keep track. The naming of the cats was always Winnie’s job. But Tess loved them just as much, got all caught up in their little idiosyncrasies.
Since forever.
Henry’s eyes begin to itch and water. He’ll have to start taking allergy medicine again. Fucking cats.
Tess reaches out and puts a hand on his arm. He’s surprised at first, then realizes she must think he’s crying. Like the cats got to him on some emotional level. He doesn’t correct her. He puts his hand on top of hers. Maybe it’s not too late for them after all.
He watches his wife, Emma, and the stray kitten go up the stairs to bed and thinks that maybe, just maybe, everything will be all right. There’s still a chance that he’ll be invited back into the house, into normal life. Maybe what he needs to do is bring back more cats, a whole fucking herd of them, little mangy offerings. Carrot definitely, if he can just figure out which one it is.
He rubs his burning eyes, glances out the window toward the barn just in time to see a shadow move across the yard.
A dog? A coyote maybe?
No.
What he sees is clearly a person running, clothes flowing behind, blond hair glowing under the security lights, which have just clicked on. Henry races out the door, yells, “Stop!” but the figure is gone.
Heart pounding, Henry crosses the yard at a sprint, stands at the edge of the woods, looking, listening.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
He doubles back to the house, grabs the phone in the kitchen, and punches in Winnie’s number. She picks up on the second ring.
“You’re at the cabin?” he asks.
“It’s nearly three in the morning, Henry,” she says sleepily. “Where else would I be?”
“I just saw…”
“What?”
[ PART FOUR ]
DISMANTLEMENT IS AN ACT OF COMPASSION AS WELL AS AN ACT OF REVOLUTION
Chapter 41
SUZ IS KISSING HER.
Kissing. Sucking. Biting. Chewing her lips. Scratching her skin with ragged fingernails.
Winnie, Winnie, Winnie.
We’re going to stay here forever. Can’t you feel it?
Then Suz clamps down, her teeth ripping through the flesh of Winnie’s lips, biting them off, like the bright red wax-candy lips kids chew on Halloween. Winnie screams, her mouth a fleshy, bleeding hole, while Suz goes back in for the tongue.
Winnie opens her eyes, touches her lips, dry and chapped, but whole, and the dream is gone.
“Fuck!” she yelps, rolling over.
We’re going to stay here forever. Can’t you feel it?
“Suz?” Winnie calls. She sits up, listening. Holding her breath. “Are you there?”
But there’s nothing. Just a few early morning birds. Mice rustling in the walls. The drum of a far-off woodpecker hunting for breakfast.
Winnie licks her lips, so dry and cracked they’ve begun to bleed.
She gets up, throws a sweater on to ward off the early morning chill, and heads down the ladder to make herself coffee. The cabin is neat and tidy. The faded old Indian tapestries with their concentric, mandalalike designs that once formed the walls around the bed she shared with Suz are gone. Taken to the dump with a dozen other trash bags full of relics: old sneakers, rusted cans of pork and beans, the honey-bear bong, the aquarium.
She thinks of the tiny frog skeletons, the stench of rot and ruin.
Metamorphosis, babycakes. It’s a beautiful thing.
Yeah. Fucking lovely.
Winnie shivers. Walks past the table with four chairs spaced carefully around it, set up as if they’re just waiting to be filled, for another meeting of the Compassionate Dismantlers to take place. Break out the tequila! We’ve got a new mission to plan!
On the table are some wildflowers she picked and put in a canning jar. A candle in an old wine bottle. Four gallon jugs of water. And the notebook she uses as her journal, pen left on top. To the left of the notebook, a paper grocery bag, the top folded closed. She walks toward it, then changes her mind, steps back.
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