CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

1963

I was not allowed out on my own for the rest of January, so I tried to amuse myself at home. I made a snowman in the garden and dressed it in my mother’s pillbox hat, and I wandered the house drinking her expensive coffee, listening to Mark Dinning singing about his teen angel. My father called me every day from work to make sure I had gotten home from school safely. For the most part I obeyed him. I liked knowing he cared, but the house felt so dark and small and dreary, I thought I might just disappear. The last Saturday in January, my father went to Omaha for a ribbon ceremony. Before he left, he told me Mother was coming home soon; he could feel it.

“Have you talked to her lately?” I said.

“That isn’t necessary.”

“How do you know she’s coming back then?”

“Seventeen years of marriage.” He put on his coat. My father was fooling himself. He didn’t know Mother at all. She was too changeable.

“What does the feeling feel like?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He picked up his briefcase and pulled his hat low like Humphrey Bogart. “Like something is afoot. Like something good is bound to happen.” His tie was crooked. I wanted to straighten it.

Do you even know where she is? I wanted to ask. But I knew he had no idea. “I’m tired of staying home all day,” I said.

“That’s what happens when you behave irrationally. But I’m not getting into it. When Mother comes home you’ll be in one piece, not half frozen in some snowbank.” He opened the front door. “Be good, Puggy,” he said. “If I get back in time, we’ll go out to dinner.”

I tucked the sweaters I’d been wearing back into my mother’s drawers and sat down on the edge of the unmade bed, eyeing the spindly branches of the elm against a backdrop of flat gray clouds. I tried to guess if my mother was somewhere near, staring out a similar window at this same blank sky, thinking about coming home. I closed my eyes and felt around in the dark corners of my mind, trying to sense her, read her thoughts, feel her the way my father said he could feel her. My mother and I had the same blood. It should have been easy. But I had never understood any part of her, except the inexplicable force that had driven her to Nils. Danger. Wanting to be wanted enough to pull everything down. One step sparks an avalanche. Wanting attention from someone can lead you anywhere. Love could fling you out of orbit. There was no controlling how you landed.

Suddenly, staring down at the melting snowman in my mother’s ruined hat, I knew I was feeling the way she must have felt. Staying inside this house for another moment where nothing changed and nothing happened was going to kill me. It was a quiet gray Saturday in late January, and I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I wanted Cora to forgive me for jumping the fence. I wanted someone to tell me I wasn’t so bad. I needed to feel in my heart that I wasn’t so bad. I took a bath and brushed my hair till it shone. I put on a little makeup and left the house with Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

I walked with my head down, feeling that if I looked at anything other than my two feet moving forward, someone would stop me, take me by the shoulders, and walk me back home like a prisoner. I turned the corner and went quickly up the block and stood outside the Lessings’ house deciding what to do. South 24th Street was silent. It seemed like everyone had gone away. There were no people outside, scraping ice off windshields or scattering sand on slippery steps, and the Lessings’ windows were dark. The garage door was shut. I’d just put the book on the back steps where Cinders had lost his life. Cora would be reminded once again of all I’d done, bravely bearing the dead cat across the garden to the sepulchre. Then she could decide for herself whether or not she wanted to be friends again.

I sucked in my breath and started around the side of the house, crouching low when I passed the sunroom, just in case Cora was sitting there reading magazines or watering the plants. That was her chore. It occurred to me she might have her own reasons for keeping an eye on the neighbors, reasons that had nothing to do with my connection to Lowell. Perhaps she believed in her own connection, maybe she felt her own closeness to what had happened. Cora had once said cars slowed down and people pointed when they passed. I had never seen them, but I didn’t doubt it. Everyone wanted to see where something so horrible had happened.

But there wasn’t anything for anyone to see. The curtains in the Bowmans’ living room were closed; I couldn’t make out anything. Lowell would be back at college by now. He had probably forgotten about my lost card, dropped outside his window. Or maybe he had taken it to school with him. Maybe he had spent evenings alone in his dormitory bed unraveling the mystery of my identity or speculating about what his visitor had wanted. I didn’t have the answer. I had no idea what kept pulling me back.

I went behind the house and studied the Lessings’ windows for some sign of life. Through the diamond-shaped pane under the eaves I could see a light on where Mrs. Lessing worked. I imagined her sitting back in a chair soft as a cloud, frowning about an imperfection in something she had made, perhaps the blue of a wing drying more opaquely than she had wanted. Paintings were propped against the walls covered in sheets because Corrine Lessing didn’t want to see them anymore. Back when she had painted, the world was somewhere she wanted to be. The days fell in on themselves. The hours tumbled out like ribbon.

I took the book out of my bag and crept up the back steps. My feet crunched too loudly on a fringe of ice, and I slipped, grabbing the railing and pulling myself forward. For a moment, I stood, catching my breath. A breeze kicked up. Hair tickled my cheeks and caught at the corners of my mouth. I brushed it away. I was going to get a haircut, a stylish one that flipped out at the shoulders. It was only a matter of time.

I opened the screen and bent down to prop the book against the door, but the wood gave way against my hand and the book fell forward. The door creaked inward and swung back on rusted hinges. Practical Cats slapped the welcome mat. I pulled back my hand. My heart let go. I thought surely I’d been caught, but when I looked up no one was there. The kitchen was dark and still and somehow vacant, as if untouched for years. Perhaps the latch had busted, I didn’t know.

A glass had been knocked over on the kitchen table. Though the stem was intact, the bulb had shattered, and wine coursed out over the wood in a violent shock of red. I picked up the book, stepped inside, and closed the door softly behind me. I could hear drops hit the floor, and the sound of them on the cold tile made me want to cry.

I stood there for a moment, unsure what to do. Nothing else seemed out of order, but even so there was a sense of chaos. What would it be like to find them? This silence, this stillness would say something wasn’t right. And then you went deeper inside and found whatever horrible secrets lay hidden there. Rooms in disarray. Crumpled bedsheets, tipped-over tables, torn shades. Heads twisted at impossible angles. Open eyes that couldn’t see. What was it like to come upon someone and know it was too late? While you were tapping your watch impatiently or telephoning, she was struggling for life. Hope rose and fell, deflating like a lung. If you’d really listened to her tone on the telephone, what she was trying to say. Another time. It wasn’t like her to say such things.

I looked around for a rag. I thought about cleaning up the wine. What else could I do? But suddenly I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to touch anything. I had no right to be here. A scrape on the roof. My heart thudded. Sliding ice. I strained to hear any movement, any life, but there was nothing else. Light spilled through a window at the other end of the hall, and I went toward it, as if caught in a spell. For a moment, the sun broke through. Shadows darted like minnows, then melted away. Everything went back to gray.

In the living room the floor was slippery, recently waxed, and the clock ticked over the mantel. Mr. Lessing’s collection of antique canes stood upright, untouched in the stand by the fireplace. “Hello?” I said, not loud enough for anyone to hear. I didn’t want to surprise someone. It wasn’t my place to mount the stairs or find out if anything was wrong.

How would I explain this? It seemed so foolish to be frightened by a broken glass and an open door. Anyway, what could I do? There were explanations: the wind, for example. High pressure and low pressure pushed past each other to form tornadoes. Gravity kept things from spinning off the curve of the earth. There was a certain pattern, a scientific code. I went back to the kitchen. Wine had gathered in thin lines between white tiles like blood. I shook off a chill, opened the back door, and closed it firmly behind me.

Inside the house I’d forgotten to breathe, and now I took deep gulps of cold air. I leaned my back against the door, my pulse still hammering in my ears. The air was warming up. A breeze whispered in branches: Something is afoot. Ice in gutters groaned: About to fall.

And then a sudden movement caught my eye. Someone was by the sepulchre. My spine tingled with the possibility of having been watched. For a moment I thought someone was finally burying the cat. Or maybe it wasn’t a person at all, but something had definitely slipped, out there in the back of the garden, and caught itself on the branch of a tree. I could not make it out. The light was opaque, flat, and gray as one shape blended into another, impossible to perceive. There wasn’t any snow left in the trees. The branches were naked. I stepped forward. I made out something that looked like wings, fluttering white, then dark underneath. A trick of the eye. I froze with my hand on the railing. A sound drifted from far away, like a whisper you couldn’t quite hear. It was a gasp, a sigh, and for a moment I could not tell if it had come from me. The trees themselves seemed to answer. I stepped down from the porch. And then I saw her. My whole body shook with disbelief. Corrine Lessing was out there, clinging to a branch. Gasping, with no one to catch her. There was no one but me.

Don’t think. Don’t waste time wondering how. Forward through the snow, arms out in front. Feet slipping, knees buckling. Snow whitened. Shapes darkened. I no longer touched the earth. I kept my eyes on her the whole time. I did not think of anything else. Please, please don’t fall. And then I realized I was speaking out loud. “Please don’t fall.”

It seemed an incredible distance to reach her. She had heard me. Corrine Lessing’s head was turned in my direction. Her hair was loose, longer than I had ever thought possible. I could not read her expression. It must have been so icy. She must have been struggling to hold on. I could not think what to do. I could not think at all. Everything was white. And then I was under her. My foot kicked a bottle against the trunk. Wine streamed out. Red painted the snow.

“Mrs. Lessing,” I said. “I’m here. I’m under you.” I did not feel that my voice came from inside me but from some incredibly high, unreachable point. It was so thin. I calculated the height. Ten feet? If she fell, she might not even break a bone. It all might be fine. I could hear her breath, loud and ragged.

“Mrs. Lessing,” I said. “I can break your fall.”

“I don’t think so. No.” Her voice was so calm.

“I can.” I held out my arms. I put them back at my sides. “What should I do?”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’ll get help.”

“No.”

“Is anyone home?” My voice sounded shrill, ridiculous, hopeless.

“I—really … how silly—” She laughed nervously and caught her breath. And her arms slipped. Her whole body gave up, and she tumbled down. Her coat billowed with the slow sound of wind and her hair streamed out like silver wings. I waited with my arms open, bracing against the pain of impact.

The moments were frozen. Time was beautiful, jagged. Everything whittled down to a point. It was in my power to step aside. But this wasn’t my choice. She fell toward me and I kept my feet planted, my arms held out. I could be knocked unconscious. My nose might break. None of that mattered. I just wanted to save her.

I caught Mrs. Lessing’s coat in my hands. It pulled me down. Her body hit the ground. She didn’t cry out. I fell backward with my head against the sepulchre. Everything was weightless. The dark shapes of branches shifted above me. A bit of ice rained down, hitting my nose. My skull throbbed with cold. It was too quiet, so quiet.

But when I sat up, Mrs. Lessing was already on her side by the tree trunk, holding herself up with one arm, staring down at a stain of red in the snow as if it had come from some part of her. For a moment I thought it had too. Then I remembered the bottle. I wanted to tell her it was only the wine, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. I was too embarrassed. A coil of rope had spilled out of the pocket of her black coat, the frayed end dangling in the snow. An unfinished thought. I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

She looked up, startled, as if suddenly remembering me, and noticed the rope. I felt my face go red. She pushed it back in her pocket and I looked away, pretending not to see.

“It was so silly—I was trying—” She closed her eyes and opened them slowly, as if waking from a long sleep. She smoothed the coat over her green pants and fastened the buttons. I could see her hands were shaking. There was an angry red scratch down the side of her face.

I got up and went over to her. “Let me help you,” I said. My voice sounded unsure. I held out my arm and helped her up. Wet snow was matted, wrinkled where she’d landed. I could smell her breath, dry, stale like sickness.

“Susan?” she said, as if she wasn’t quite sure of my name.

I nodded, put my arm around her waist, and helped her toward the house. She couldn’t put any weight on the right ankle—it was twisted—but her face was blank, almost serene, without pain, as if her mind had crept to a far-off place.

I helped her through the kitchen door and pulled out a chair for her to sit on. “I can hang up your coat,” I offered.

“No,” she said, and put her hand over the pocket holding the rope. “I’m cold.”

How could I have been so stupid? To hide my awkwardness, I filled the kettle with water and placed it on the stove. I put a teabag in a mug. Everything seemed far off, as if in a dream. If I hadn’t been there, what would have happened? I didn’t want to think about the different ways things could have turned out, but I also felt a little proud. I stood back against the counter waiting for the water to boil. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands.

Mrs. Lessing touched the spill of wine on the table with the tip of her finger and rubbed it against her thumb. “Did I do that?”

“I can clean it up,” I said. I picked out the pieces of glass and threw them away. I got a rag from beside the sink and mopped up the spill.

She smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. It was a sad smile. “You’re a nice girl,” she said.

I put the cup of tea in front of her and watched as she took a sip. I didn’t think I should leave her, not until Mr. Lessing got home. “When is your family coming back?” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“I can stay,” I said.

Mrs. Lessing leaned her forehead on her hand and sighed. “I’m just tired. I need to sleep. I’ll go to bed.” But I didn’t want to take any chances. I didn’t know what she might do.

Mrs. Lessing pushed back her chair. Her eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything. They were dark, without centers, disbelieving. She was beautiful in a fragile sort of way, like a spiderweb, or a lovely broken cup. She stood up and had to brace herself on the table for support. I took her arm and helped her up the stairs.

*   *   *

The Lessings’ bedroom was light and airy, with sheer white curtains over windows that faced the street. A painting hung over the bed, a scene of gold prairie grass and a tiny cottonwood in the distance etched against a pale blue sky. The scene looked so real you could feel the grass tickle your legs. You could lie down in the shade of the tree, fall asleep to the sounds of insects flitting their paper wings. It would be nice to close your eyes at night and pretend you were inside a painting where nothing moved, where winter was far away and falling snow an illusion.

Mrs. Lessing sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to bend over to take off her shoes, but her back hurt too much, so I took them off for her. The ankle was swollen. “This is silly,” she said. “I’m embarrassed,” but I was the one who felt most out of place. I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to. I knew too much. I didn’t know what to do or say.

Mrs. Lessing unbuttoned her coat and laid it beside the shoes with the pocket holding the rope against the floor. There was no need to be so careful. I’d already seen. She hugged her arms around her narrow shoulders to keep off a chill. I pulled back the covers. She slid between the sheets.

I didn’t know where to stand. I put my hands behind my back.

She closed her eyes.

I wanted to keep her company. “Did you paint that?” I said.

“I don’t paint anymore. But this one John likes. He won’t let me take it down.”

“I think it’s beautiful,” I said. “I wouldn’t let you take it down either.”

“It’s outside Ogallala. Where we met.”

“How did you meet?”

She threaded her fingers together on top of the blankets. “He wanted to hunt on our land. But my father wasn’t home so he had to get permission from me. He came to the door with big boots and suspenders, and he smiled like someone you could trust. No one smiled in our house much.” She paused and shut her eyes again, as if she were trying to recall exactly the way it had been.

“Did you know right then you were going to marry him?”

“I didn’t know much. I only knew Rosario. I just walked behind this stranger while he hunted—from morning till late afternoon. My feet got tired. I watched him shoot six pheasants, but the dog brought back only five. I found the last one stuck in a bush, with its head under its wing like maybe it hadn’t died yet.” It didn’t seem to make her any happier to remember this. “Later, he said I was good luck. What do you think about that?” She closed her eyes again and hid her arms under the blankets. “You don’t need to stay.”

I glanced around the room for sharp objects, bottles of pills. I didn’t see anything. “I’ll get your tea,” I said.

*   *   *

When I went back upstairs, Mrs. Lessing still had her eyes closed. I thought she’d fallen asleep, so I put the teacup on the night table and sat down in the chair by the window, wondering how long I should let her sleep. I didn’t want to have to wake her up. Maybe sleep was the only place the past turned out differently. Did she dream that the Bowmans were alive again? What did it mean to climb up in a tree in the middle of winter with a rope in your pocket? My mind worked too hard to invent horrible scenarios. Now I only wanted something happy, a story in which Mrs. Lessing would get better.

Mrs. Lessing turned on her side and cupped her hands beneath her cheek. Her eyes were open, red and full of tears, but she didn’t make a sound.

“Can I do anything?” I said.

She shut her eyes and put her hands over her face.

“What should I do?”

“I’m so trapped. I can’t get out.”

“What do you want to get out of?”

She didn’t answer.

“If you left, they might never get over it, you know. They love you.” It seemed to be what she needed to hear.

“It’s never enough. It’s my mistake. No one can share that.”

“My mother left me. She’s been gone three months. My father’s upset. I’m not very pleased either. I get scared to go home sometimes, it’s so lonely.” I crossed my arms. I had no idea where those words had come from. I didn’t know what else to say, so I just sat there glaring at the coat.

“Sometimes you want to slither out of your skin, it feels so horrible. All you can do is pound your fists.”

“Oh,” I said, though I didn’t really understand. I’m always alone. I thought things would be different, my mother had told my father that night they fought so bitterly about Lucille. “Is that what you were trying to do?” I said.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to upset anyone.” She took a breath, opened her eyes, and looked at me. I couldn’t meet her gaze. It made me too uncomfortable. “Please don’t tell them what you saw,” she said.

But if something happened again? Then it would be my fault. “I won’t,” I said. “But you have to promise to try to feel better.”

“Thank you.” Mrs. Lessing turned over and faced the wall. Outside, the light had faded. Everything was still. The sky teetered on the brink of dusk. I felt I had lived a lifetime in one afternoon.

“I was sixteen,” I heard Mrs. Lessing say to the wallpaper. “I wanted to run away with Rosario.” Her shoulders rose and fell several times, and then her breath went heavy with sleep.

*   *   *

The light fell away. Shadows crept across the room. I listened to the sound of her breathing and wondered about her dreams. By moonlight, Corrine followed the trail of a dried up riverbed to the edge of the land. She called the secret greeting, a sand crane, the hoot of an owl. A rustle of grass, and Rosario stood. He’d been there since dusk, waiting for hours.

I sat by the window, waiting for Mr. Lessing. What could I possibly do or say to explain my being there. When I got home, my father might be there. I’d get in trouble all over again, but suddenly that didn’t matter. I realized something about my mother; she could not comprehend real suffering. She had always complained about being trapped in our house, but for Mrs. Lessing, being trapped meant so much more. Every time she looked out the window, she remembered that day, the drawn shades, Mrs. Bowman’s strained voice on the telephone. She too had inserted herself in the story: I was meant to save them. I was. I was. I wanted to cry. Little tears of blood. I thought of the beautiful red coat and wondered if Cora even thought twice about how much thought had gone into choosing it.

Lights turned into the driveway. I could hear a car door slam. From behind the fringe of a gauze curtain, I watched them pile out of the car. Mr. Lessing went around to the back and opened the trunk. He unloaded some bags and distributed them between his children. Toby said something and Cora gave him a little push. The red wool looked nice with her hair. They seemed so happy, without a single idea of what had happened while they’d been gone, without any idea at all of what I had seen. I wondered if they’d ever know, if anyone would ever be told this. I picked up Mrs. Lessing’s coat, crept into the hall, and carried it down the stairs. The living room clock chimed the half-hour. Keys fumbled in the lock. I hung the coat on the hook by the back door. I pulled the rope partway out of the pocket. Boots stomped in the foyer.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“You’re stupid.”

“Your mother’s working.”

“She’s always working.”

I opened the back door, closed it softly behind me. I heard the latch click. I stepped into the garden. It was the time of evening when the past seems more vivid and even pleasant memories are heartbreaking. Everything was still, bathed in purple twilight, and the smell of warm fires drifted toward me on a breeze. I felt a sudden chill, though the air had not been so warm in months. Melting ice pelted the drainpipe like falling dimes. I watched the light in the hall turn on, and then someone came into the kitchen. It was my last chance to tell them what had happened. But the dangling rope, I hoped, would speak for itself.

I started around the side of the house, trying not to make a sound. But my feet crunched like teeth on cotton. I wanted to disappear, melt into the night, so no one would ever know I’d been there. I couldn’t understand why I felt so horrible after doing something good. I had saved Mrs. Lessing, hadn’t I? But I wanted to escape all this sadness. Adults were supposed to be strong. They knew about the world, and yet that knowledge only seemed to make them weaker.

There was a sound. A whisper. At first I thought snow was sliding off the roof, that my ears were playing tricks on me. But then it came again: “Hey.” I froze in my tracks, my heart pounding, afraid to look up. The darkness danced with mysterious shapes. Everything inside me moved too fast.

Lowell Bowman was standing on the other side of the fence, watching me. I could see him in the soft light, with his head cocked, leaning up against a tree. He had his arms crossed over his chest, and at the end of one hand the orange ember of a cigarette danced.

He came forward through the snow, put both hands on the fence posts, and stood there staring at me. He took a drag of the cigarette. My legs felt brittle, about to snap. “Come here,” he said.

I had to push myself forward. I went toward him with my head down, afraid I wouldn’t be able to speak. What if I fell? What if he could read my thoughts, knew I loved him, found it too strange? My heart beat so hard I thought he might hear it. I was so close now I could have touched him. I’d waited so long on the other side of the window; now I didn’t have the courage. I smelled the cigarette. I didn’t look up.

“I saw what happened,” he said. I wanted his voice to be like music. But it was accusing, angry. It wasn’t me, I wanted to say.

“What was she doing in that tree?” he said.

“Oh.” I covered my mouth with my mitten. I looked up and met his eyes, trying to smile like I wasn’t afraid. It was getting so dark I could barely see his face. I had never been able to see his face. It didn’t matter.

“What’s their name? She all right?”

“I can’t talk about it here,” I said, looking back at the house.

He studied me a moment and put his cigarette out in the snow. “Come over the fence then. Or walk around,” he said, moving his finger in a little circle. “Whichever you prefer.”

My whole body was shaking, but I managed to put one leg over the fence without incident. When I brought the other leg around, the hem of my coat ripped on a post and pulled me to the ground.

I scrambled up before he could help me and brushed myself off to show him I was OK.

He coughed to hide a laugh. His feet shifted. Oxfords in the snow. That meant he didn’t care about ordinary things like ruining good pairs of shoes or ripping coats, things I had to care about now. “I should have had you come around,” he said.

“It’s just dark.”

We stood there in silence beneath the canopy of the pine tree where I had hidden myself to watch him no more than a month before. There was no glass between us this time. Now I was beside him. He wanted something from me. I was the only one who knew what had happened. He cleared his throat. “You’re on my mother’s roses.”

I looked down at my feet and felt the tears come to my eyes.

“I’m kidding,” he said, after a time. “We’re nowhere near the roses.” But he didn’t smile. I wasn’t quite sure how to please him. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle shake to emphasize the joke. I wanted his hand to stay, but he took it off and put it in his pocket.

I couldn’t believe he had touched me. After all this time, he had touched me without me having to touch him first.

The Christmas before my grandfather died, Aunt Portia had made a Linzer torte, and when I tried to lick the powdered sugar off the rim of the plate, she’d slapped my hand with the spatula and said, “Good things come to those who wait!” Maybe I had waited long enough. Maybe I was going to have a good thing happen.

“Come inside,” he said. “Everyone else went away. They’re in Palm Springs.” He kicked a chunk of snow, breaking it apart into smaller pieces. I couldn’t believe they’d left him rattling around in this house. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.

“I’ll come if you want me to,” I said.

“Do you know who I am?”

I shook my head no.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“I’m a stranger.”

Maybe this was the way with college boys. They were clever. They expected you to be clever in return. “Well, you should tell me who you are, then,” I said.

“I’m Lowe.” He had to bend his head a little to talk to me.

I couldn’t say anything in return. Susan wasn’t good enough. Susan told too much. My voice felt stuck. He was tall, willowy. I smelled cigarettes and, beneath it, the faint scent of beer, something wiser.

I followed him through the snow to the patio door. He didn’t say a word. There was only the sound of his footsteps and mine just behind, like a small echo of a bigger voice. Some part of me had always expected it, to meet him, and yet I couldn’t believe it was happening. When he slid open the patio door, I held my breath, closed my eyes, and stepped into the place I’d always dreamed of being.

The living room was bigger than it had seemed from the outside, running the entire width of the house. There was the couch where I had watched Lowell read, the round mahogany table where his aunt sat wrapping Christmas presents. There were so many beautiful things here that I had never been able to see: soft-looking armchairs a dusty shade of red and a grand piano by a window that looked out onto the street, which seemed a part of a different world. Everything was real. I imagined Starkweather pacing back and forth in front of the window, keeping guard while Caril Ann slept. I could almost smell it, sick and sweet, the perfume she’d spilled to cover up death. The feeling I had always been able to sense; it was hidden in the drapes, the carpets. I could feel it in the air. A slow black sadness, a collective guilt. We have seen the ugliest parts. These drapes wear the blood of the woman who hung them. We have always known. We walk the thinnest lines.

I was afraid to look at Lowell, so I looked at everything else instead. Here I was. Here he was. It would be so easy to make a mistake, to ruin everything by looking too long at him, by saying something wrong, like I always seemed to do. You had to play games, my mother would say. You had to pretend you weren’t interested. The less you wanted him, the more he wanted you back. I knew I’d never play those games right. If he so much as looked at me, he’d be able to see all the things I wanted from him.

“So, what was she doing up in that tree?” Lowell said, running his hands through his short hair. There was intensity to his blue eyes. I imagined tears clinging to the ends of the sad, dark lashes. I imagined wiping them away, saying, It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, Lowe.

And then I realized I’d seen him before. He’d been in the lobby of the clubhouse last summer, nervously fixing his tie in the mirror. There had been something awkward about his fingers, the way they’d stumbled through the knot, like the whole world was watching. But there was only me, looking up from a magazine, waiting for my father’s golf game to end and watching everything.

“Could I have something to drink?” I said. I could feel myself blushing. I stared down at my feet. It was so hard to meet his eyes.

“Sure.” When I looked up he was smiling, but I couldn’t make myself smile back. I was too nervous. I followed him through the foyer where Mr. Bowman had been shot. My heart pounded. I looked for a stain of blood by the door, some little sign. Nothing. It seemed like someone should have done something to remind us all of what those people had gone through, but I knew Lowell would never ever forget.

In the kitchen, a half-finished sandwich sat on a plate by the toaster. Mustard and mayonnaise jars with knives still in them, empty bottles of cola and beer, littered the counter. There were dirty footprints by the back door. I wondered how long Lowell had been here alone. A vase of sagging purple flowers sat on a wooden table in one corner. The blossoms had grown brown around the edges. Petals lay scattered across the white doily like leaves from a dying tree.

Lowell made no apologies for the mess. He pulled out a chair for me to sit on and went to the icebox. I ran my hand over the wood surface of the table. Starkweather might have sat in this very chair cutting out pictures of himself, composing illiterate notes to the law, but now everything was cluttered, ordinary, disappointing.

“What’ll it be?” Lowell said.

“What do you have?”

“Milk, orange juice, cola, beer.”

“Beer, please,” I said, trying to sound casual.

Lowell hesitated in front of the icebox. He looked over his shoulder. “How old are you, anyway.”

“Old enough to drink,” I said, pretending to study my thumbnail. “Although I usually prefer wine.”

He shrugged and removed the bottle tops with the end of a corkscrew, which I took to be a sign of experience. College boys must do everything with confidence, like passing off a football or moving a girl’s hair from her neck. I could barely walk across the room in front of someone I wanted to impress. Lowell sat down in the chair across from me and took a drink of his beer. I watched his Adam’s apple rise and fall, that small animal motion. He had seemed so vulnerable standing in front of the mirror at the club, awkward, out of sorts, the way I always felt. I had to remember that. It was something to cling to. How had the world come together like this when just moments ago it had all been in pieces?

“I was about to do something,” he said, “but then she let go and I saw you out there, helping her up.” He picked at the label on his bottle.

We sat in silence.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?” he said, after a little while. He was trying to sound casual, but even so I could see it was important, that he needed to know. He put his elbow on the table, rested his chin in his hand, and looked right at me. It would be wrong to mention the rope.

“I just came over to drop something off and I saw her about to fall.” I drank more beer to hide my blushing. It made me warmer, more comfortable.

“You’re not friends with their daughter, that redhead, are you?”

“No,” I said. “Not really. Just school.”

“What’s your name?”

“Puggy,” I said.

“What’s your real name?”

“That is my real name,” I said, indicating my nose. I hadn’t wanted to point out my nose. It was embarrassing, but then Lowell’s wasn’t perfect either. Some might have found it too large. I wanted to kiss it. I braced myself for another taste of beer.

“So you popped right out and they took one look at your nose and said, ‘My God, that’s it!’” He slammed his bottle down on the table for emphasis. “‘We’ll call her Puggy!’”

“Maybe,” I said. “You haven’t met my mother.” And then I was sorry to have mentioned mothers.

Lowell got up, went to the window, and looked out into the darkness. The sky was electric blue, paler toward the horizon, as if the moon were rising where the sun had fallen. Could he see the tree from that angle? Had he been making that sandwich when he’d seen her fall? How long did he stand there wondering what to do?

“Why was she up there in the first place?” he said, turning around to face me.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Why did she get it in her head to climb a tree?”

I shrugged. “Everyone was out,” I said, like this was explanation enough.

He came back to the table and flopped down in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “I mean, do you have any idea at all why a woman would do a thing like that? That’s something a kid would do.” But I couldn’t let on I knew who he was, that I knew Mrs. Lessing felt guilty about what had happened. I couldn’t tell about the rope. It was a delicate balance. I wanted to draw out the story. I wanted to keep his attention. I wanted to say the right thing.

“She’s a little crazy,” I said. “I went out there and tried to catch her. I barely even broke her fall.”

“Did she jump?”

“No,” I said. “She fell.”

“Did she hurt herself?”

I shook my head. “Not really.” The beer made me warm, my words easy. I felt almost pretty at moments. I had all the answers Lowell needed, and he would keep me here as long as I didn’t give them to him completely straight. But maybe he didn’t want to be alone either.

“So you helped her into the house? You were there for a while,” he said. The idea of Lowell waiting for me to come back outside sent chills up my spine. My heart felt light, full of air, about to burst.

“I sat by her bed and held her hand,” I said. “I comforted her with funny stories. I waited till the family got home.”

“What stories?”

“Embarrassing stories,” I said.

I watched him finish his beer.

“Once, when I was younger, I had to go to this dancing class, but it turned out to be just me and the teacher,” I said. “He was at least forty. He had a blue fish named Fred Astaire. He taught me the rumba. Do you know how to rumba?”

Lowell shook his head. He looked amused.

“When we were doing the cha-cha, he gave me a flower to hold in my teeth like one of those Spanish dancers. I got swept away on the music and then I kissed him on the neck.”

Lowell laughed. “That’s a pretty funny picture. How did you kiss him on the neck if you had a flower in your teeth?”

“It dropped on the floor.”

“What then?”

“I don’t remember. He picked up the flower and handed it back to me. And we continued dancing like nothing had happened.”

“I don’t believe you.”

I felt myself blush. “It wasn’t anything worth remembering. I think I went home.”

“You told her that story?”

“Well, not exactly. But she’s an artist. Artists do crazy things all the time,” I said.

“Are you an artist?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Yeah, you’re too young to know.… I doodle. I like to collect things.”

“Like what?”

“Artifacts,” he said. “The Indians had trade routes all the way from California to Florida. Someone dug a Pueblo kachina out of the Everglades. In Montana, there’s a cliff where the Nez Perce used to chase buffalo, and in the grass underneath it there’s a rib cage the wind whistles through. If you look hard, you can still find spears, beads … arrowheads.”

I could see him under the shadow of a cliff in the hot sun, sifting through dirt with long careful fingers. This was Lowell. These were the things he cared about. I wanted to crawl into him. I wanted to know everything there was to know about him. “Have you been all over?” I said.

“No.” He pushed back his chair and went to the icebox.

“Can I have another beer?”

“You’re barely in high school, right?”

“So?”

“So you’re not old enough,” he said, smirking. But he came back with another beer anyway and put it down in front of me. “Just don’t drink it all,” he said.

I took a sip.

“When she was little, I used to tease that girl.”

“Who?”

“Next door. I feel bad about it now,” he said. “I came home from baseball late one night, and she was sleeping on a cot in the driveway with a weird little bug light on it. I remember her face was this funny shade of blue and she was sucking her thumb. I don’t know why, but I took the cot and ran down the middle of the street, rolling it in front of me. She woke up, screaming and crying. I felt bad, so I rolled her back home. I was twelve, so that girl must have been—”

“Eight,” I said.

“What? How do you know?”

“I guessed,” I said.

“My mother just told me not to do it again.” He stood up and went over to the sink. “I always got away with everything, I don’t know why.”

I looked up at him, but he was staring out the window. The light above the counter cast a warm glow across his shoulders. I watched him run his fingers through his hair. I could tell he was thinking about something. “I’m not particularly special,” he said. “I’m not going back to college.”

“How come?”

“Everyone’s—I mean, I’m not … never mind.” He shook his head.

“Are you going to stay here?”

His brow was furrowed, but beneath it his eyes seemed wide, almost frightened. “They think I’ve left for school already.”

“Where will you go?”

“Egypt, maybe. The pyramids. The Valley of the Kings. I need to ride a camel across the desert.” He came to the table and stood over me, looking down. “Hey, come with me. I’ll show you the rest of the house.” He took my hand, and when I stood my head felt airy. Everything was bright, sharp, a slice of light on a sunless day. I left the beer half finished on the table and followed him through the dining room. The crystal chandelier winked. We went into the foyer. “You know what happened?” he said.

“No. What happened?”

“Never mind,” he said, and pulled me up the stairs.

*   *   *

It was a boy’s room. Nothing had changed. The brass knocker on the door was tarnished, but I could still read his name. I took the little handle between my thumb and forefinger and tapped, once, twice, three times. He put his ear to the door—“Anyone home?”—then nudged me inside.

Lowell’s room looked out over the street; from this window Caril Ann had watched Mr. Bowman’s Packard turn into the driveway. What had she felt, crouched there waiting in the dark? Was it fear? Had it been this desperation, this need? Was I very much different? These same toy soldiers had watched from the case. This same golf trophy—YOUNG PUTTERS, 1955—had sat on the bookshelf as people lost their lives.

Lowell sat down on the bed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. I sat down too. There was a large gap between us. For a moment, neither of us spoke. We both looked at the floor. The carpet was dark green. I wished I’d taken the beer along, so I’d have something to occupy my mouth, my fingers. Every part of me ached for more. “For a minute I thought you wanted to take me to Egypt,” I said.

“That’s your fault.” He yawned. “You didn’t bring your passport.”

“Oh.”

He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “So this is my room,” he said. “The very spot where I always lay, coming up with my brilliant philosophies.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t explain. It’d be like Greek to you, Piggy Pug.”

“Stop.” I giggled.

“I’d love to be able to waste away in a Chinese opium den. I’d like to pen a letter to my aunt from a velvet couch and sign it with a puff of smoke.” He pursed his lips, as if he were blowing smoke rings, and propped his head against the wall. “I don’t want to go to church ever again. I want to be fat, but I can’t get fat. I’ve tried. I ate nine pieces of fried chicken in one sitting. It doesn’t work.”

“Do you like fat girls?”

“No.”

“Then what makes you think they’d like you fat?”

“They don’t like me anyway. Who cares?”

I like you, I wanted to say. Why couldn’t he see that? Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he thought I was fat. “Your bed’s so small. How do you fit?” I said.

“I said I wanted to be fat, not that I am fat.” He hit me lightly on the shoulder. He got up, went to the window, and paced up and down. “I have to keep moving,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. My legs feel strange.”

I followed him into the hall where Lowell’s mother had fought for her life. My heart raced. My thoughts tumbled in on themselves. Starkweather said she’d taken a shot, yet nobody had been able to find the bullet hole. Was it here, or there? Nobody had answers. Nobody knew. The truth lay buried beneath layers of ground.

He led me to the master bedroom. By the light from the half-open door I could make out a gold headboard, a nightstand, a lamp. And bits of red, shimmering, catching the light. Something magical. A treasure chest spilling out jewels. A ghost woman wearing a cluster of rubies.

My fingers quivered. Light trembled. Blue, like the flash of a camera. A burnt-out bulb. The dark made patterns. When he tried another lamp, everything took shape.

In the corner by a closet, the dress was stretched over a dummy with a white ribbon that said QUEEN AKSARBEN across the chest. Cora and I had seen it through the binoculars, but it was even more beautiful close up. The sequins were red, orange. One person might have spent her whole life sewing them on. This is the dress of a woman up on stage singing in a sultry voice, I thought to myself. A man wouldn’t be able to help himself. He’d come out from behind a curtain and kiss her bare shoulder.

Lowell flopped down on the bed with his arms folded under his head and crossed his legs. “That’s my aunt’s Aksarben ball gown. She doesn’t want anyone to forget. She doesn’t want anyone to forget anything. But at the same time she pretends not to see it.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. He seemed about to answer.

I didn’t know if I should have asked him to tell me more about it. I didn’t know whether I should lie down next to him either, take his hand in mine, and tell him I was listening, whatever he needed to say. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to spill it all out just yet, to tell me the things I already knew too much about. How could I possibly act surprised?

He shrugged. “I’m not complaining.”

I wasn’t the sort of person who could console him about chance, about having it all ripped out from under you. It was only that I felt the same way; I just didn’t have as much of a reason. People chose not to love me. For Lowell, it wasn’t a matter of choice.

I felt full of nervous laughter. Dizzy. I went over to the dummy and pulled a dress strap down over one shoulder. The sequins were cool, shiny little bits of light.

“Very nice,” he said.

I giggled.

“You can try it on.”

I turned around and looked at him.

He smiled, nodded his head.

“It wouldn’t fit. I’m too—”

“You’re not,” he said.

“I’m too short.”

“So what?” He sat up and grinned at me. The idea seemed to please him. “I think you should.” He jumped off the bed, pulled the zipper down the back of the dress, and lifted it over the dummy. A body moving through beads. A gypsy curtain. “Here.” He handed me the dress. “Open the closet door and hide behind it,” he said. “I won’t look, I promise. Just take off that stupid ribbon.” His voice was full of the game. He was excited.

I felt excited too, but what if it didn’t fit? No boy had ever seen my bare shoulders, except at the pool, but back then no one had been looking. What if they weren’t nice shoulders? What if my stomach bulged?

He lay back down on the bed. “I’m waiting,” he said.

I opened the closet door and stepped behind it. There was a full length mirror on the inside. It didn’t shield me completely. “Close your eyes.”

“OK,” Lowell said, and did as he was told.

I fumbled through the buttons on my blouse, and let the cold cotton fall to the floor. I stood in front of the mirror in my bra, my skirt, my stockings, my boots. There was so little between us, half a door, a mirror, no walls or windows. I felt my lungs caving in. Why was I so afraid? This was what I had always wanted, wasn’t it? To be in this room alone with him, to have as much attention as he could possibly give. This was my choice.

When I bent down to take off my boots, I peered around the edge of the door. For a brief moment his eyes caught mine.

“Don’t,” I said.

“I’m not.” He closed his eyes again.

I unhooked my bra, and let it drop. Cold air tickled my skin. The hairs on my arm stood up. My nipples felt strange, alive, almost painful.

I stumbled out of my tights. My feet were damp, and I rubbed them over the carpet. Letting my skirt fall in a heap, I stood there for a moment in nothing but my underpants, feeling the air prickle my skin. The underwear was ugly, white and large, but it seemed my hips had changed, rounded out, gently narrowing into the waist. I had a waist, breasts, a nice slope to my shoulders. Even so, the dress wouldn’t fit. My thighs were too big. My stomach wasn’t tight enough. All that color against such pasty skin. What was I doing? A pulse whirred in my ears. I didn’t check to see if he was watching. I didn’t want to see the disappointment. My fingers shook. My legs were going to go out from under me. I wasn’t ready. For one moment, I closed my eyes and wished to be anywhere else.

“What’s taking so long?” he said.

I didn’t answer. I picked up the dress, and stepped into it. The fabric slipped over my thighs, my hips. Sequins shimmered like a thousand lit matches, tickled like a thousand fingertips. I put my arms through the straps. The fabric was cold against my chest. I reached behind me and zipped up the back. The dress fit like cool new skin. My body took shape, and I was a mystery. I was sultry. Yes, the straps were too loose. Inches of sequined cloth pooled around my feet. But my body had never felt so sure. I held my hair on top of my head, turned around in front of the mirror, and looked over my shoulder. The back was low. There was a freckle to the left of my spine I had never noticed.

“Let me see,” Lowell said.

“It’s too long. I need shoes.” I dug around on the floor of the closet. In a white shoebox, I found a pair of red silk pumps and put them on. They slipped in the heel, but the fit was close enough. The toes looked sharp, pointed like little trowels. I could walk.

“Come back out here,” he said.

“Cover your eyes.”

I gathered the extra fabric in my fists, stepped slowly from behind the closet door, and walked toward him. Sequins made a sound against my legs like falling rain. Lowell had his hands over his eyes.

“OK, you can look,” I said.

He separated his fingers and peered between them, then took his hands away slowly as if he were unveiling some magnificent treasure. He sat up and raised his eyebrows, and nodded his head. “It fits pretty well.” But I could tell he wanted to say more than that. Something in his face had changed. He was noticing me in a new way, a way that no one ever had. No one had ever seen me like this before.

“You really think so?” I asked. The strap had fallen down over my shoulder.

“Really.”

I pulled it back up.

My head swam. The light was soft. Beautiful and uncertain. Crouched beneath the sill of Cora’s window, this room had seemed like a box, and this dress a jewel tucked safely inside. It was a fantasy we’d never be able to touch. Fancy dresses wouldn’t fit. We didn’t run fast enough. We were all wrong. But now I was on the inside. I held the jewel in my hand. Everything I had ever wanted came rushing toward me. My whole life pulled me forward. I could see for miles. I could see for years. I was going to be a woman. He would always want me.

“You’re pretty.” He leaned back against the gold headboard, studying me. “You don’t even know it.” I imagined him in a smoking jacket, velvet slippers. The prince of a fallen kingdom.

I couldn’t help grinning. “It’s the dress. I just became pretty.”

“I know, like a flower.” He frowned. “I watched you grow.”

“Why are you frowning?” I wanted to know.

He smiled. “Things that grow don’t last.”

I went to the window and put my hands on the sill and peered into the night. Cora’s turtle lamp was on, but I couldn’t see her. I was a square of light suspended in darkness. Are you out there watching? I put my lips up against the glass and kissed the cold pane. Can you see me? On the edge of the stone pool in the garden, the angel blew its trumpet. The killers ran. Bright shapes of goldfish darted beneath a frozen surface. I could feel them, sudden and smooth. Shocks in the dark. Just like me.

Lowell came up behind me, took my hand, and pulled me away from the window. My heart stumbled. “Let’s dance,” he said.

“There’s no music.”

“So what?” He spun me around in a little circle. I tripped on the hem of the dress, lost my shoe, and stumbled back against the bed.

He got down on his knee, fished under the dust ruffle, and came up holding the shoe. I took it from him and cradled it against my chest.

“I don’t believe you can cha-cha.”

I laughed and threw the shoe across the room. It hit the closet door and thumped to the floor. My body felt stiff, strange. Awkward. I lay down on the bed, and Lowell lay next to me. The lamp cast a soft pool on the ceiling. The shade was enormous, a dark shadow, a bat wing. I could hear him breathing.

Lowell put his arm on my shoulder and turned me on my side. Sequins caught on the bedspread, pulled at threads, came free, scattered like little drops of blood. “Look,” I said.

“Who cares?”

I lay there staring at him, afraid to breathe. His eyes glittered, but his face was serious. “I’ve seen her in that tree before.”

“What?”

“Mrs. Lessing.” He pressed the tip of my nose with his finger. “You know. Tell me why. What was she doing?” I didn’t know what to say. My voice felt caught. My heart thudded against bone.

He put his hands around my waist and lifted me on top of him. A line of sequins shimmered where I had lain. There was one in the crease of his collar, a little secret, my secret. A place I had touched. I smelled starch, beer, a breath of smoke. Something else, like sun hitting skin, a gentle sweat. He gathered my hair in his hand and brushed it behind my shoulders.

I decided I never would cut it.

“Tell me,” he said. Something magic, a puff of smoke, and I could feel the different parts of his body rising to meet me.

I leaned forward and got up close to his ear. I moved my body against him. “There was a rope in her pocket,” I whispered. “She had a rope.” He shuddered. I could feel every bit of him, his spine, his heart. The tips of his fingers fluttered. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, a desperate motion. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me tight to his chest. I could hear blood drumming through too-narrow veins.

“Was she going to use it?” he said.

“I don’t know.”

He put his nose in my hair and took a sharp breath. “God.” He leaned back against the pillows. His eyes were closed. He seemed a long way off.

I put my head to his chest. “I can hear your heart,” I said. “Can you hear mine?”

He opened his eyes, and looked at me. “No. What’s it saying?”

I kissed him on the ear. He shifted under me. He slid his tongue down my neck, and my skin came alive. His breath was hot and short. I felt my body opening. Sequins shimmered. Fists crushed fabric. I stepped inside myself, and he was there. Somehow, in this giant world we had come to find ourselves in each other, and still, it wasn’t enough.

He lifted himself away and lay down beside me. “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” he said.

I didn’t know what I wanted him to do. Red sequins were scattered everywhere like beads from a broken necklace. Everything had tumbled free. I looked down at the dress. It was still all in one piece. I fixed the straps back over my shoulders.

Lowell sighed and rolled over. “I don’t want you to go,” he said. “But let’s just lie here. I’m tired.”

“That’s what I want,” I said. “Just to lie here.”

He ran his finger over my shoulder and closed his eyes.

I watched his chest rise and fall. I touched his hair. He didn’t move. “Lowe,” I whispered, barely moving my lips. He didn’t hear me. “I always knew this would happen. I’ve been waiting my whole life.”

I watched the hard angles of his face give way to something softer. I didn’t think of Mrs. Lessing or my father all alone, pacing the halls of his father’s house tapping his watch, waiting for his family to come home, mistaking his own reflection for the woman he loved. I didn’t imagine all the things he’d have to say. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to stay here forever. Lowell’s eyelids moved. He dreamed about me, about all the things there were left to do. The night got darker, deeper, and I lay there wondering if he’d heard my words.