Her heart pounding, and her stomach, too, like a second, sour heart,
Kate pulls the window closed, locks it.She locks the back door, too, and as she does, she reaches for the phone.She pushes the on button—but there is no dial tone.It’s a cordless phone, it works offelectricity.She needs the phone upstairs in her study, the only old-style phone in the house.She is not certain whom she is about to call.Surely the police have too much on their hands to respond to some woman seven miles outside oftown who is pretty sure she saw some footprints in the snow.Even if she were to tell them she has seen the escaped Star ofBethlehem kids—what would the police do?Whatcanthey do?They can’t drive out in their cars, and even ifthey had helicopters, they couldn’t fly them in this weather.So?Will they all jump onto their crime-buster snowmobiles?
She sweeps the flashlight back and forth as she walks through the house, an oar oflight that rows through the sea ofdarkness.She realizes the only person she can call, the only person she wants to call is Daniel.
Iris will probably answer the phone, and then hand it over to him.As Kate makes her way up the steps, there is a nerve-shattering death ofa maple tree not fifty feet from the house, a noble old tree that seems ac-tually to scream as it falls, as ifits pulp were flesh.Kate hollers in fear—not that high, blood-curdling scream ofthe horror show damsel in distress, but the wavering, angry, monotone cry ofreal fear.She drops her flashlight, it rolls down the staircase, turning the house end over end until the flashlight hits the bottom and goes dark.
Kate is still making noise—a soft, stunned“oh-oh-oh.”And then she gathers herselfand shouts out,“Daniel!”She grips the banister, turns around.She wants to retrieve the flashlight.But no.Why walk back into that darkness?There are candles burning upstairs and the phone is there, too.She turns around again, stops.She remembers she still has not locked the front door, and so once again she turns around.She is turn-ing around and around.And in the midst ofall that turning she realizes that she is wet and clammy and there is a smell ofurine in the air.Fuck-ing tree.Fucking snow.Fucking gang bangers out there staring at her windows.Fucking Daniel, so far out there, so far away from her.
She clutches at her stomach, presses her hand against the wall to stop herselffrom tumbling down the stairs.She sits, feels along the side ofher pants.Just a little dampness, not so bad.Her underwear, however, is soaked.Okay, that settles it.Upstairs, for a change ofclothes.She starts to rise, but then sits again;there’s still the matter ofthat unlocked front door.
She cannot get up because she cannot decide ifit would be better to con-tinue upstairs or hurry downstairs, and the more she thinks, the more un-likely it seems that she will ever be able to make up her mind.She closes her eyes.The darkness within makes the darkness ofthe house seem like an ice cream parlor.She reaches up, grips the banister, pulls herselfup.She sways, and with every bit ofher will she forces a decision.She turns around and heads upstairs, where there are clean clothes and a working phone.
By the time she reaches the top ofthe stairs she hears the urgent knocking at her door.She knows it’s them, the boys, the boys with noth-ing to lose.All she can think to do is pretend she does not hear it.
The bedroom has always been the coldest room in the house.She opens her dresser drawer, her undergarments feel cold and slippery in her hand.Then she finds a pair ofjeans in the closet.She sits on the edge ofthe bed, undressing, dressing again, and through the noise ofthe storm she hears the pounding ofthe boys’fists against the front door.All she can think ofby way ofstrategy is that ifshe ignores them they will eventually go away.
Dressed, dry, but still cold, she waits for the boys to give up.She places a votive candle on the bedspread and then holds her hands above it, warming her palms over the tiny flame.She holds her breath so that the sound ofher respiration won’t interfere with her trying to hear ifthe boys are still trying to get in.She hears nothing but the wind and the tor-tured groaning oftrees, their canopies filled with ice and snow, any one ofthem liable to snap in two.Yet beneath the sounds ofthe storm, she can make out the urgent knocking ofthe boys’fists against her heavy front door.Gun gun gun.And then, suddenly, the knocking stops.
Kate pulls the phone offher bedside table and sits with it on her lap, her hand on the receiver.Ifshe hears footsteps in the house, she will call the police.But she doesn’t hear footsteps, she doesn’t hear anything—all she has is asensethat those boys have found their way into her house.
She cannot sit there wondering.She goes down the stairs to see, and when she is halfway between the first and second floor landings she stops.Fresh snow is swirling in the foyer and still more is blowing in.
As quietly as she can, Kate backs up the stairs, and when she is at the top ofthe landing she turns and walks quickly to her bedroom.There is no lock on the door;she swats a pile offolded laundry offan upholstered chair, drags the chair across the room, and jams it beneath the porcelain door handle.Then she blows out the votive candle and the freestanding candle on the marble-topped dresser and the room slips into darkness.
She sits on the end ofthe bed, folds her hands onto her lap, and breathes as quietly as she can.She feels absolutely and without question that her life hangs now in the balance, that one stupid move, haste, panic, impatience, curiosity, anything but the most profound and disciplined stillness will lead to her death.Her fear—no longer relevant, no longer useful—seems to have been superseded by an exquisite clarity.
The fear remains in abeyance, even as she feels someone coming up the stairs.It is part ofthe house’s idiosyncrasy that a footstep on the fifth stair vibrates along the master-bedroom floor.At night, she could always hear Daniel’s gloomy trudge upstairs, and by day she could hear Ruby coming up to rouse her.That creaky step, and its harmonic convergence with the house’s inner bone structure, is her distant early warning sys-tem;normally, it cues her to feign sleep, to pull the covers up over her chin, maybe place a pillow over her head.But tonight, all she can do is hold her breath.
The footsteps are in the hall, heading in her direction.
She cannot think ofwhat to ask God.Asking for protection is like asking for a pair ofskates.Ifhe doesn’t want you to die, then you’re not going to die.Ifhe does, you’re certainly not going to talk him out ofit at the last second.You don’t pray for your safety, you don’t pray for a home run, you don’t pray that your next book is a Book ofthe Month Club selection.The only plausible prayer is for serenity ofmind, for faith and acceptance, and Kate finds she has these things right now.
The footsteps stop before they reach the bedroom door.She hears another door close.Where did he go?The bathroom?
Silence.She counts it out to herselfto keep from losing her mind, the numbers create a kind ofpathway, bread crumbs in the forest.When she gets to thirty, she hears a voice shouting from the downstairs.It’s the voice ofa young man, someone she’d describe as obviously black.There is a foghorn quality to his voice, something to be heard over constant noise.
“Come on, Kenny, let’s go.”
“Lemme alone,”a voice answers from the bathroom.Kenny.His voice is sharp, high, full ofcomplaint.
“What are you doin’up there?”
“Taking a shit.”
“Come on.Someone’s gonna come in and find us here.”
“I’m not shitting outside.”
Kate leans back and gropes for the telephone in the darkness.She is not just going to sit here like some poor animal in a trap.She picks the receiver up, pressing her thumb onto the earpiece so that the hum ofthe dial tone won’t carry.
She dials911and waits for one ofthe emergency police operators to pickup, onering, tworings, three…
“Hey, Cyril,”another voice is saying downstairs,“there’s a bathroom by the kitchen.”This kid pronounces it“baff-room,”just the way Kate’s father did when he did his imitation ofhis one black patient who always said,“I still wishin’I could go to the baff-room mo’.”That he might use the bathroom in Dr.Ellis’s office was a subject ofjoke-camouflaged anx
-iety—“lock da baff-room,”and“git some bleach fo’da baff-room”were typical ofthe remarks Kate’s father made.
Her call to911has yet to be answered.How many rings has it been?
Fifteen?Twenty? Fucking hell, what is wrong with those people?
The husky-voiced boy calls up again.“This place is fucked.It’s darker in here than outside.We’re leaving!”
And not a moment after he says this, the maple tree that stands in front ofthe house, the proud, gnarled, forty-foot tree that as much as any other thing made Kate want to buy this house, suddenly cracks in two from the weight ofthe snow.The crown ofthe tree hits the roof, im-mediately tearing down the gutters;branches, halffrozen, covered in snow, thrust themselves like monstrous arms through the windows on the east side ofthe house.One long branch smashes through the bed-room window;the branches at the end are cold and thin and they brush roughly against Kate’s face.Wind and snow rush in.
Kate falls offthe bed, onto her side, and rolls over on her stomach, covering her face.She uses her elbows and knees to push herselfbeneath the bed.And while she is there—hiding—she hears the boys leaving her house, screaming crazily, halfin terror, halfin excitement.
Daniel stands next to Iris in the guest bedroom, holding a flashlight for her while she makes up the sofa bed.
“You don’t have to do this,”he finally says.“I’m perfectly capable of making a bed.”He nervously continues.“In fact, I used to make beds for a living.In college, or in the summers, actually, two years running I worked in a hotel in Delaware.I was a chambermaid.”
“You were?”
“Or a chamberman, or maybe a chamber pot.I made beds, that’s all I know.”
“You can make the bed when I’m snowed in at your house,”she says.
She speaks softly, as ifcalming an excited animal.
And then, because he cannot let anything stand with her, nothing is enough, he says,“We’re not really snowed in, we’retreedin.”
But she doesn’t volley back, she ends the exchange with a smile, brief, insubstantial, that could be weighed but wouldn’t register on any scale.She finishes her work.She has strong, useful hands;she smoothes her palm over the sheet and every wrinkle disappears.
“I don’t even know what time it is,”Daniel says.He tilts the flashlight beam toward his watch;a circle ofbright golden light appears on hiswrist.
“It’s too cold to stay awake,”she says.“Anyhow, when Nelson goes to sleep, as far as I’m concerned the night’s over.”
As best as he can make out, the sheets she has placed on his bed are dark blue.Surely, as in most households, these sheets have traveled from bed to bed, surely, then, Iris and Hampton have lain upon them in their own bedroom down the hall.He imagines Iris and Hampton on those sheets, their beautiful dark skin on the deep evening blue.
Iris steps back from the sofa bed and lays two fingers on Daniel’s wrist.The tenderness ofthis gesture overwhelms him, it is as ifshe has kissed him.But all she is doing is redirecting the beam ofthe flashlight.
She points it at the closet, where she finds extra blankets.“You’re going to be nice and cozy,”she says, dropping the blankets at the foot ofthe bed, and the proclamation, delivered in a throaty, good-natured voice, devastates him.He takes her to mean:Stay in your own bed.Don’t come creeping into my room.You are here, these are your blankets and stay be-neath them, be a good boy, nice doggie, stay.
“Do you have enough blankets in your room?”Daniel asks, bleating it, as ifasking for mercy.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
There are so many possibilities for speech or action;he could take her wrist, he could pull her toward him, he could say,“No, I want to sleep with you,”he could sigh, he could say,“I think we both know what’s going on here,”he could play it cool and just say good night, he could place his hand over his heart, he could—somehow this, too, seems possible—burst into tears, yes, yes, he could try to boo-hoo her into bed.It’s been done, what hasn’t happened in the history ofseduction? But finally Daniel can do nothing.He watches her as she moves toward the door.Then, a miracle.The bingo parlor ofhis mind comes up with a clear thought.
“I’ll light your way,”he says.
”Okay,”she says.“You can be like a watchman, those guys who carried a lantern and saw people home.”
“Useful work,”Daniel says, with a kind ofmanic encouragement in his voice, one that borders on hysteria, and then to himself:Shut the fuck up.
He points the beam up and the light bounces offthe ceiling and casts a pale gray glow.He walks behind her;her silhouette has put him into a kind offugue state.
They have arrived at their destination:the master bedroom.He waits at the threshold, shining the light into the bedroom while Iris goes to the night table, opens a drawer, finds a book ofmatches, and lights a bedside candle.
He can no longer wait there for the impossible to occur.She is not going to ask him to lie with her in that bed.In fact, the quality ofher si-lence now is pushing him away.She seems to have regained her balance.
The drug ofthe storm is wearing off, she is coming to.
“Why don’t I leave this flashlight with you,”he says.
”It’s okay.I’ve got one in here.”
He forces himself to smile, not certain she can see his face.“Sleep well, Iris.”
Here he is, standing practically in her bedroom, saying good night to her.It’s enough,he tells himself.He’s saidSleep well, Iris,he’s always wanted to say that.
But lying in that sofa bed, pinioned by the cold and the darkness, he finds that the miracle ofsaying good night to Iris isnotenough.Desire blooms in the darkness, he is choking on its scent.He is tormented by her nearness—how can he be letting this chance go by? He tries to force himself to sleep, but sleep gets further from him the more desperately he pursues it.Sleep has never eluded him as maddeningly since the months directly preceding his fall down the stairs, an assault that left him with a whole new vocabulary ofpain—searing, metallic, throbbing, dizzying, freezing, burning, electric—and an enduring dependence on painkillers.Percocet and Lortab didn’t really kill the pain, or signifi-cantly lessen it, but seemed to create a little chemical pavilion within his consciousness, a semipleasant place to which he could retreat and let the pain go on without him.It had not taken him long to increase his con-sumption from four pills a day to sixteen, and the number could have in-creased from there had he not, in a burst ofself-preservation, stopped taking them altogether, leaving his body not only without its customary supply ofsynthetic endorphins but unable to recall how to make its own, as ifthe supply ofopiates had lulled his body into a state ofmetabolic amnesia.At first, parts ofhis body that were not even injured began to throb and ache;he felt as ifhe had been dragged out ofsome weightless chamber and condemned to suffer the agonies ofgravity.Then the wrist, the jaw, the ankles, the back—which never really got better—and throughout it all he was unable to sleep.
Which brought him to a couple ofmonths ofnightly sleeping pills and which bring him right now to remembering that Iris has sleeping pills, though ofthe over-the-counter variety.Daniel slips out ofbed, steps through the darkness ofthe guest bedroom, and his foot lands on something furry and alive.He jumps back, frightened.He hears a low groan, and he turns on the flashlight.Scarecrow.She has been curled next to him all this time.She rubs against his legs, and when he bends to pat her she wiggles her hindquarters.
He finds his way to the bathroom.It’s small.Cold.White-walled, tiled, strictly utilitarian.Tub, toilet, sink.He is as careful and quiet as possible.To the right ofthe sink is one ofthose novelty gift mirrors meant to look like the cover ofTimemagazine, with the wordsHAMPTON WELLESMANOFTHEYEARembossed on the glass.To the left ofthe sink, a toothbrush holder affixed to the wall, with two brushes in it.A large and a small.He pulls out the one that is clearly Iris’s.It has a zebra-striped handle, pigeon-pink rubber gum massager at the end, unusually full head ofbristles.He touches it against his lips.
Daniel props
the flashlight onto the side ofthe sink and opens the medicine chest.Hampton’s shaving gear, four different kinds ofchil-dren’s cough medicine, liquid aspirin.Sominex.He pries offthe cap, only to find the foil safety seal still intact.He peels it back without really considering the audacity ofwhat he is doing.He shakes two tablets out and then realizes he must take them without water.Fine, whatever.
Just then, the ring ofa telephone.He switches offthe flashlight, holds his breath, as ifhe were not an overnight guest making a trip to the john but a thiefabout to be discovered.A second ring.And then he hears Iris’s voice.
“Hello?”
Daniel grips the edge ofthe sink for stability.
”I was asleep,”Iris says.
In the darkness and stillness ofthe house, her voice is everywhere, it is close, it is right next to him.“You know more about it than I do and I’m right here,”Iris says.And then, a little later, she says,“Okay, ifthe power’s still not on, we’ll get to the train station and come and stay with you down there.”And then, finally,“Me too, bye.”
Daniel knows what“me too”means.
Iris hangs the phone up and a moment later Daniel sees the glow from her flashlight as she comes out ofher bedroom and down the hall.
Her footsteps are silent;the only way he can gauge her approach is by the brightening ofthe light.Should he pretend he was having a pee, quickly stand over the toilet? But what about the door—how can he be doing that with the door wide open? He could be washing his hands—but what sort oflunatic would be washing his hands in the middle ofthe night? Not to mention there is no electricity, no pump, no water.
Iris walks into the bathroom and captures him in the beam ofher flashlight.She is wearing sweatpants and a turtleneck sweater, slipper socks, and a brightly colored Egyptian cap.“Are you all right?”she says.
She reaches down to ruffle her fingers through the fur on top ofScare-crow’s upturned head.
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