As Night Falls

by Jenny Milchman

  “Nothing,” Barbara said quickly. “Nicholas just has a friend over—”

  “A friend?” Gordon repeated. “I heard screams.”

  He pushed past her, shoe coming down in a sodden patch on the runner of carpet. The soda, sinking in.

  Her husband yanked Nicholas up by one arm, nearly hurling him across the room, and Barbara let out a little scream of her own. “Gordon! What are you doing to him?”

  “To him?” Gordon roared. “What am I doing to him?”

  He bent down and snatched up a fistful of fabric. The girl’s skirt, small enough to fit in one hand; underwear; socks. Gordon tossed the clothes onto the bed, turning his head aside.

  “Get dressed,” he said to the girl.

  “Get your own girl, Dad,” Nicholas said from across the room. “This one’s mine.”

  “I am not!” the girl shrieked.

  Her face was a red, mottled mess. How ugly she looked now, Barbara thought. The girl tried to tug on her clothes, but bent over before she could do up the clasp on her skirt, sobbing.

  Gordon kept his head averted. At last he said, “Can I call someone for you?”

  But the girl only shook her head, then—clutching her shoes, the flaps of her skirt flying open—ran as fast as she could from the room.

  —

  Gordon left the bedroom first, his head bent.

  Nicholas walked after him, his slow, plodding steps like a bell tolling out the hours.

  Barbara stayed behind, using the bathroom sponge to wipe up the soda on the rug. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the two of them huddled at the top of the stairs.

  “This has to stop, son,” Gordon said. “With the girls. One of these days, you’re going to get yourself arrested.”

  Nicholas’ face turned match-quick in Barbara’s direction, and she felt her lips curl in a reflexive smile.

  “Oh, Gordon,” she said. “If the police start interfering with kids and their kissing games, we may as well move to Russia.”

  Gordon frowned, while Nicholas turned slowly, arduously away. How tired her boy must be, defending himself from that girl’s incessant questioning, and now having to deal with his father’s brand of stubborn humorlessness.

  “If Chief Weathers ever does get in touch with Nicholas,” Barbara went on in a light trill, “it will probably be to give him a medal, or the keys to the city.”

  “For what?” Gordon said. “Flunking high school?”

  Barbara ignored him.

  “Mama?” Nicholas said. There was something dark and unsettling in his eyes.

  “Yes, Nicky?” Barbara said, a baby name from long ago. Her own eyes began to fill.

  “You don’t think there’s anything the police could do to me?”

  Barbara gazed up at her son, and saw how scared he looked, raw and vulnerable in a way that he never had, even as a baby.

  “Oh, Nicky,” she said. “Of course not.”

  “Really?” he asked. “No matter what I did?”

  Gordon, lingering by the stairway, turned his head.

  “Of course not,” Barbara said again. “What do you mean? Whatever would you do?”

  “I don’t know,” Nicholas said. “Anything.”

  “No, I don’t,” Barbara said, firmly to counteract the tremble in her son’s tone. “You don’t have to worry, Nicky.”

  There was a long silence. “Okay, then,” Nicholas said at last. “Okay.”

  He turned and followed his father downstairs.

  Barbara sat there, her attempts to reassure her son circling over and over in her head, along with the rasp of the now dry sponge on the carpet. And she wondered why the voice that filled her ears was her mother’s, saying what had always been truest about Barbara. That, despite her best efforts and hardest work, she couldn’t ever hope for anything except to fail.

  Barbara stopped cleaning and placed both hands over her ears, but even that didn’t fully block out the sound of the voices drifting upstairs like smoke.

  “Where did you get that?” Gordon asked. “We haven’t gone hunting since—”

  Nicholas broke in. “I kept everything you gave me, Dad.”

  Barbara let herself take just the slightest sip of relieved air. There was the Nicholas she knew. Loving. True. Then she heard the echo of the tense he had used. Kept. Not keep.

  She looked down at the carpet. The stain was gone, the patch she had cleaned bright against the shoe-trodden area around it.

  “I love this knife!” Nicholas said, his voice carrying much too far. That was a rebel yell, an Indian cry, not a declaration of feeling. “And I love you!”

  The front door banged, and Barbara got up, trancelike, unblinking as she walked.

  From the stairway, she heard Cassandra shriek. “Daddy! No! Nick! Stop it! Stop!”

  Barbara descended the last step, and saw the reason for the screams.

  Gordon and Nicholas stood close enough to embrace, both peering down at the bone-smooth handle of a knife, which protruded from Gordon’s chest. Blood seethed from a slit in his shirt.

  Gordon opened his mouth to speak, a wondering expression on his face, but only air came out, and a little spool of blood. Gordon’s knees sagged, and he went down.

  “Daddy!” Cassandra screamed again. She ran to her father, her arms extended. Nicholas pulled the knife free, and Cassandra got in the way of the blade. The tip flicked against her wrist. “Daddy, no!”

  Cassandra shoved Nicholas hard enough that he let out a yell. The knife whipped about as he stumbled, right into his perfect, carved calf.

  Barbara walked on stilt legs to the wall phone. She picked up the receiver.

  “Chief Weathers,” she said into it. “This is Barbara Burgess up in Cold Kettle. Can you send an ambulance? My husband has had an accident.”

  Nicholas and Cassandra were tangled together on the floor like a pair of puppies. Nicholas withdrew the knife from his leg, not even noticing the spout of blood that accompanied his action. Her son had always been strong, and good with pain. Once a terrible boy had bullied Nicholas, assaulted him, really, claiming that Nicky had done something to the boy’s sister. When Nicholas had taken out a knife to try and defend himself, the boy had punched him right in the head. Nicholas had walked three miles all the way home, eyes goggled, a grapefruit-sized swelling on his scalp, and it turned out that he’d been given a concussion.

  Her son had always been tough.

  Now he raised the knife again. Barbara’s vision was muddy; she couldn’t tell exactly who or what that blade was poised to hit. But Gordon threw himself forward, falling over on his side as he tried frantically to reach for the knife.

  “Nicky,” Barbara said weakly. “Don’t.”

  The blue of Gordon’s eyes rolled back, and stayed that way, just as his son’s hand finally stilled.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The snow finally stopped for good as they all left the Nelsons’ cabin. Sandy looked up at the sky, which stared back blankly, and she shivered. Would Nick and Harlan leave now, execute Nick’s stated design from the start? A murky reality began pulling at Sandy from behind: one that said that even if this could’ve ended easily once, the time for that was gone.

  Although Nick was walking confidently now, leading their tired clump at a good clip. There seemed an urgency to his step as he mounted the road back to the house. Nick held the gun in his gloved hand, keeping it handy.

  The moon finally showed itself in the opaque sky, and Harlan cast a shambling shadow across the roadbed. Sandy was less afraid of the gun Nick palmed than she was of Harlan. Bullets could miss, or be dodged, or survived. Whereas Harlan, shuffling along next to Ivy, was unavoidable.

  How could Sandy set Harlan against Nick, help him to start making his own decisions? If she could do that, it would be an explosive weapon on its own. She needed another pill or two inside Nick, so the effects of the drug would obscure her machinations.

  She trotted forward, snow entering the cuffs of her jeans
. Sandy nudged Ivy, and the two of them quickened their pace. Conversation between Nick and Harlan drifted over on a cold current of air.

  “We’ll take it slow,” Nick said. “We can make it in three days. Or four.”

  Sandy let Ivy drift ahead, camouflaging her daughter’s departure with her own body.

  “I don’t know if I can make it at all!” Snow on the ground flew in response to Harlan’s exhalation, and he snuffled in miserably. “All that country out there. We’re gonna get lost. Or die.”

  All Harlan would’ve had to do was reach down, encircle Nick’s neck with one of his hands. He could have broken it with a single squeeze, changed this whole situation with the twitch of one limb. But Harlan had no idea. His was a mental prison, keeping him from acting.

  “We’re not going to die,” Nick said. “I won’t let that happen.”

  Harlan plodded along uphill. “That’s what my daddy said. Before I got caught that last time. We both knew I was facing life. ‘I won’t let you get caught,’ he said. And look what happened.”

  “Out here I can make sure he never tells you what to do again,” Nick said, his tone a brutal razor. “But not if we go back. What if your daddy got locked up too? Likelihood seems pretty high without you to help him out on jobs. You might even have to share a cell.”

  Sandy tried to minimize the fluffs of snow she kicked up, the white puffs of air she emitted. She leveled out her breathing and her tread. Ivy had almost gained the steps of the front porch, and Sandy was just behind.

  Harlan’s head bowed, his tears striking the snow in patches large enough to blotch. Nick patted his back, losing his hand amongst the folds of cloth.

  Sandy took off. Snow cascaded up in waves, blowing into her mouth, her nose, her eyes as she ran. The porch was before her now; she would take the stairs at a leap, push Ivy ahead of her into the house. They could barricade themselves inside, lock Nick and Harlan out—

  “Ivy!” she bellowed. “Get inside—”

  A bullet clapped the air, and Sandy stumbled, almost went down in the snow. When she righted herself, the first thing she saw was Ivy, ducking behind one of the stone pillars beside the porch steps, a cornice of white concealing her.

  Sandy turned around, hunting the source of the shot.

  Nick stood a few yards away, gun aimed at the sky.

  “That one was a warning,” he said. “The next shot will hit the princess in the spine. You’ll be feeding her through a tube for the rest of her life. Or yours.”

  Barnacles of snow had crusted Sandy’s wrists when she went down. They were beginning to melt, bitter, burning pustules.

  “Now move along,” Nick said. “It’s almost time for us to set out.”

  —

  Back in the house, Sandy gathered her daughter into her arms, rubbing her up and down, trying to erase the shivers. Ivy squeezed back, clinging to her.

  Nick took off his shoes and tossed them aside, brushing a layer of snow off the lower legs of his pants. He looked around, then pulled on the pair of Hi-Tecs he hadn’t been able to get on before. But his air of satisfaction vanished when he began to examine Harlan. Nick let out a horse snort of frustration. He had clearly kept their departure in mind while outside, but Harlan had wallowed in the snow during the burial of the Nelsons, sat down and rolled around in his distress. Now he was soaked head to toe.

  “Dry, not wet, Harlan.” Nick’s voice began to climb. “We have to be dry, not wet, remember?”

  Harlan shook his head, then stopped and began to nod.

  Nick released the wet expanse of Harlan’s shirt bunched up in his grip. Freed, Harlan took a step back, nearly bumping into Ivy, who pirouetted.

  “You’re going to go upstairs with Harlan, give him a quilt or something to wrap around himself,” Nick informed Ivy. “Then throw down his clothes.”

  Sandy made sure not to let her gaze rest on Nick as Harlan and Ivy departed. She didn’t want him to see in her eyes the chance he had just given her. Instead, she reached into her pocket and took out Hark’s medicine bottle.

  “What’s that?” Nick said.

  Sandy could provoke ire in Nick in any one of a dozen ways if she said the wrong thing. “Pain medicine. I thought it might help with your foot—”

  A spark of suspicion on Nick’s face. Whether from the effects of the one Oxycontin sprinkled in his coffee, or due to excitement over their imminent departure, Nick’s foot was clearly behaving now, and Sandy couldn’t let her brother think that she was trying to dose him.

  She changed direction. “—or, you know, if something unexpected happens out there. Just add it to the first aid kit Ivy gave you in case of emergencies.”

  Nick’s face cleared. “Thanks,” he said, his tone perhaps the most authentic she had ever heard from him. Pocketing the pills, he said, “That was good thinking.”

  “Mom!” Ivy shouted. “Here are the clothes!”

  The garments fell to the floor in a small mountain. Sandy scooped up the mound, then headed for the basement stairs. Nick strode after her, grabbing her by the collar with one hand.

  Sandy broke free. In the basement was Ben, and Sandy couldn’t let him lie there for one more second, broken and discarded like her father had been after his last breath expired, and her mother had rocked Nick in her arms, comforting him while they waited for the police.

  “You wanted me to dry the clothes,” Sandy said, flinging open the basement door. Her shoes clattered on the treads.

  “Not all by yourself,” Nick drawled. “Plus, you forgot something.” He held out one of Harlan’s socks, the length of cloth dangling to his elbow.

  Sandy reached for it, and Nick snatched his hand back.

  “Suit yourself,” Sandy snapped, starting forward again.

  Nick grabbed her from behind, and Sandy went down hard, her shoulders hitting the lip of one stair, head banging against another.

  “Me first,” he said.

  Nick hauled her up a few steps, but it didn’t matter.

  Sandy had reached the middle of the flight, far enough down to see.

  Ben no longer lay there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Hope crested inside Sandy. Her shoulders ached from striking the stairs, and her skull felt knocked about as well, but Sandy was only faintly aware of both injuries.

  She turned to Nick, making sure to mask her discovery. “Actually, you know what? We don’t have to go down there at all.”

  “No?” Nick replied. “You going to dry Harlan’s clothes on the line?”

  He sounded normal, just like Ivy had when she threw down the clothes. “Of course not,” Sandy said, striking a note of casual ease. “But the better dryer is upstairs. It gets the load done much faster.”

  Nick regarded her. “Something you might’ve mentioned before,” he said, then added, “You have better and worse dryers?” He shook his head. “Rich people really are nuts.”

  Sandy allowed him the sharp smile at her expense.

  When her back was to him, she smiled, too.

  —

  “So where is this better dryer?” Nick asked once they’d reached the second floor.

  Again, Sandy endured his mirthless grin, wondering what was behind this brotherly banter. Jubilance at his imminent exodus? Or did Nick have some additional idea in his top hat of tricks, a final goodbye ploy?

  She needed a failsafe, a plan of her own.

  The dryer up here was actually a much worse one, part of a mini stackable unit for quick washes or single items when they didn’t want to troop all the way down to the basement. The excess suddenly struck Sandy as egregious. Why would anybody need two places to do laundry in the same house?

  But being upstairs would allow whatever Ben might’ve set into motion to proceed.

  “Dryer’s in here.” Sandy pointed to two louvered doors. “I’ll take care of it.”

  Harlan’s outfit would more than fill the compact drum, but Sandy would just have to overstuff it and hope for the best.
<
br />   “Holy shit,” Nick said, crossing into the bathroom. “Look at this thing. It’s bigger than the one for my whole block.”

  Sandy looked up, and an idea grabbed her. “Yeah, I know it’s a little much.” Don’t sound braggy in any way, she cautioned herself, or remind Nick of what he doesn’t have. Tempt him with something, but make him think he had the idea to take it. “Did you see the shower?”

  When Nick responded, his voice came from farther away, and it echoed. “It’s the size of a whole damn room.”

  “Right,” Sandy called back, injecting a rueful note. No one needs such a thing. How stupid and blind and greedy we were. Then Sandy added, “Dryer’s started. It’ll run for about ten minutes now. The clothes weren’t that wet.”

  That was a palpable lie; even a single shirt couldn’t dry in ten minutes. Plus, Harlan’s outfit had been soaked. But let Nick believe they had some super space-age appliance to suck the moisture out of clothes. Sandy didn’t need for Harlan’s clothes to emerge toasty; she just needed a few minutes to talk to him.

  Nick didn’t respond. Sandy wished she had gotten him to down a few pills, she could’ve used their cotton muffling effects on her side. Her hands clenched, holding on to the side of the louvered door. “You probably haven’t gotten a bathroom to yourself in a while.”

  Her brother’s voice drifted back. “Maybe I should rinse off while the clothes spin,” he called, and Sandy’s mouth went so dry with urging that she couldn’t answer. “Take the first shower alone I’ve had in twenty-four years.”

  “Sure,” Sandy said, the word emerging as a nearly inaudible hiss. “That’s a good—”

  Then her brother was before her, his eyes like twin spears, anything normal or friendly gone from his mien. “Idea?” he said. “Was that the word you were going for?”

  Sandy stared back at him, a slat on the door cutting into her palm.

  “What’d you think, that I would just have a leisurely soak? While you tried in some other half-assed way to screw me over? Don’t forget who invaded whose house,” Nick said, edging closer, into her space. “I own this palace, I own your kid, I even own a part of you.”