43

Officer Rossman sits in their kitchen like some malevolent spirit, a tight frown on his face, as if he’s practiced giving bad news and knows the right facial expression. There is something wrong with her hearing; Alice can only hear phrases coming out of his mouth, not full sentences, not complete thoughts. “There will be an investigation.” “The medical examiner.…”

She is aware of a sound like the susurration of the ocean. It’s been a long time since they went to the shore; maybe this summer they’ll rent a place on Cape Cod. The susurration begins to hiss and build, until what’s in her ears is a roar. Her own heartbeat, her own blood pounding up and through her brain, clouding the words coming out of Rossman’s mouth, obscuring the meaning until it breaks free of his mouth and penetrates her soul.

Stacy is dead.

This is Ed’s fault.

*   *   *

“Hey, Alice.”

Alice is furiously vacuuming again.

“Alice, put that thing away and come with me.” Ed was on his way to Lil’s when he changed his mind. Buddy is in the Cutlass, waiting for his daily ride.

Alice can’t hear him. Ed steps on the off button of the canister vac. “I said, forget this and come with me.”

“I’ve got to finish this.” She steps on the button.

Ed pushes it off. “Let’s do something, go somewhere. You’ll never finish vacuuming.”

“Where?” She doesn’t move to restart the vac. She shoves a strand of hair behind her ear in a girlish motion.

“I don’t know, but it’s too fine a Saturday to be wasted on vacuuming. Grab your jacket; let’s go do something.”

Alice stands there with the vacuum nozzle in her hands. Her hair isn’t yet in its twist, just pulled back in a workaday ponytail. The morning sun filters through the window, backlighting her, so that the uncaught strands look like a halo around her head. “Like what?”

“Time for a little adventure. Want to go look at cars?”

“That’s an adventure?”

“Have you looked at cars lately? They’re all about the adventure.”

Ed can see her debating his offer. In the old days, the really old days, there would have been no hesitation. Now everything is a debate.

“What about Buddy?”

“He’s waiting in the car. We need to find something that he likes, too.”

“When did we decide to get a new car?”

“We haven’t. I just thought it might be nice to see what’s out there.”

“I’ll get my jacket.”

Why does it feel like he’s won a major victory?

Alice pulls off the thin T-shirt she’s wearing and puts on a blue oxford shirt, puts her feet into her Dansko clogs, and runs a brush through her hair, sweeping it up and securing it with a clip. She’s done this so often that she doesn’t think about the action, just checks the result in the mirror hanging over her bureau. She should put on lipstick.

Ed is standing in the doorway, his reflection behind hers, his eyes admiring what her reflection doesn’t reveal to her. Alice watches as Ed’s reflection bends to kiss the back of her neck. It’s like watching strangers through a window—avatars of Ed and Alice Parmalee.

The softness of Ed’s lips against her skin is not a reflection, but real, and sends a frisson of energy through her body, a quickening of something she’s forgotten existed. For once, she doesn’t say “Oh Ed.” For the first time in a very long time, it feels like her idea.

*   *   *

“I forgot about Buddy.”

“It’s cool in the garage. He’s fine.” Alice sits on the edge of the scrambled bed and pulls on her jeans. “But let’s go. He’s probably wondering what happened to you.”

Ed reaches for Alice’s shoulder and pulls her down against his bare chest. “Let’s not tell him.”

Alice swings her feet back onto the bed and sighs. “I think he may figure it out.” She doesn’t struggle to break free of his embrace, but settles herself into it. “He’s such a smart dog. It’s like he understands everything.”

“He’s really great, isn’t he?” Ed shifts a little, begins to stroke a lock of her hair as if he’s stroking the soft ears of the dog. “I went there yesterday. To the millpond.”

Alice lies very still. Her heart is beating. She is breathing. She feels the weight of each individual rock pressing against her own ribs. The water rises but does not crest the dam of her grief. “Was it all right?”

“After a while. Buddy was there and he went a little nuts on a squirrel that literally dashed right under his nose. He nearly fell in, but didn’t. He did look a little embarrassed, though. Alice, he made me laugh. There. That place. I laughed.”

And then Ed holds her so close that the weight of the rocks is nothing compared to the pressure of his arms and his need. The grief does not subside, but the waters do, and Alice pats Ed’s arm. “It’s okay, Ed. It was good for you to go. It’s the same for me when I go to the cemetery. There’s some comfort in the tangible.”

“I thought maybe I’d figure it out, if I finally looked at it. But all I figured out is that people still fish there and it’s still a pretty spot. The leaves are already changing and the big trees are reflected in the millpond, like you’re seeing everything double. Peaceful. Except for that squirrel, completely still. Nothing about it explained anything. She wasn’t there, Alice.”

“She wouldn’t be there, Ed. Any more than I find her in the cemetery. She’s here. And not. We lost her. We had her for a little while and we lost her. End of story.” Alice pulls herself away from Ed and they both sit on the edge of the bed. “Sometimes I think that I need to gut her room and turn it into a den or an office or something useful. Put all of it away. And then I realize that once I do, I will have accepted her death.”

“I think that maybe we have accepted her death, but not the reason for it. It wasn’t like a car accident, where you’d put a cross and a teddy bear at the scene; it was an illness. It was something so out of our experience, we will never be able to understand how she felt.”

They are silent again. But this time, the silence isn’t a wall, but a cocoon.

“What do we do, Ed?”

Buddy barks suddenly, an impatient complaint of abandonment.

Ed kisses Alice. “Let’s go look at cars.”

“Maybe we should turn in the van. Get a Prius. Something economical. I don’t need all that space.”

“The Cutlass is older. Maybe we should see what they’d give us for that.”

Ed is dressed first and goes out to the garage to soothe Buddy. Alice is back in front of the mirror, repairing her hair, putting on a little lipstick. She sees herself smiling, which is a surprise. Maybe it’s the diffused light through the ivory-colored shades in this bedroom, or maybe it’s something else, but the reflection coming back at her isn’t as pinched as it’s been. She’s got good color in her cheeks, probably from all the walks she’s been taking with Buddy. If she turns her head in a certain way, she even looks a little pretty, a little girlish. Alice looks at herself in the mirror and sees a hint of roses in her cheeks, something besides sadness in her eyes. What they’ve said was hard but, in a strange way, comforting. As if they’ve faced a common enemy and not fled.

*   *   *

At first, it was nice to have the front seat all to himself. Buddy doesn’t know how long Ed will be. But after a couple of minutes, he settles down, nose under tail, eyes closed, but ears alert for Ed’s return. Eventually, he dozes. Then he wakes and is puzzled. He hasn’t been left alone in a car for this long, and never without being someplace other than where they started. He barks. This is a little naughty for a dog who can down-stay for hours, but there was no command. He barks again: Hey, where are you?

Ed comes back, all treats and apologies, which is good. But still they don’t move. “Backseat, boy.” Ed waves Buddy over the seat back. Now Buddy is intrigued. A passenger? This is unprecedented except when they both took him to the vet. Vet? Buddy makes a little interrogative noise in his throat. What’s up?

Alice appears and climbs into the Cutlass. They talk and suddenly everyone climbs out and gets into the minivan. This is better. The middle seat offers a great view, which he can change by going from side to side. Buddy is excited; the routine is different. Something new is happening. Like yesterday, when he and Ed went to that pond where the squirrels were lush on the ground and plenteous in the trees. That was fun. An adventure. Except that Ed slowed down and stopped. Stood at the edge of the water without moving for a long time; stuck like humans sometimes get when their activity is invisible and is often accompanied by sighing. Not the sighing of comfort like a dog when he settles for the night, but that sighing that broadcasts human distress. This clearly wasn’t meant to be a walk, just a visit. Maybe Ed thought that Buddy would rid the place of its squirrel vermin. He tried, very nearly ending up in water, something that he has no interest in doing. Water is for Labradors. That flushed Ed out of his immobility. That stopped his sighing.

This is bound to be an adventure, both humans in one place. No need to herd them; they are willingly together. Buddy sniffs the air behind the humans. He cocks his head. Notices that their hands touch now that Ed has the minivan on the road. Buddy loses interest in the scenery going by, doesn’t think to look for squirrels, or cats or bikes. He keeps his herd-dog eyes on the touching hands visible in the space between the front seats.

He fails to notice the cemetery gates as they drive by, the left-hand pillar nearly scraped clean of its flaking paint; he is intent on the humans here with him now.