CHAPTER TWELVE

LESLIE STOOD OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL, the sun dappling the sidewalk and playground. She was early this afternoon, a full quarter hour before school was out, hoping that being early would make it up to Ava for being late the day before.

Where were you, Mom?! I was all alone out here.

Leslie knew she could not tell her daughter that she was barely able to stand erect without fainting yesterday, let alone be exactly on time.

And Leslie assured herself that Ava had not been alone. There were a few students remaining on the playground when she had arrived, and there was always a teacher watching, making sure that every child would be matched up with a parent by 3:00. A child on the playground later than that would be ushered into the office and the secretary would call their home.

Leslie insisted that it had been at least twenty minutes before three when she had arrived, and Ava insisted that even though she couldn’t tell time yet, it had been much later than that.

Today, Leslie checked her watch a dozen times during the afternoon, leaving the apartment at 2:05, to make sure she was outside well before the final bell sounded.

Ava came out of her classroom slowly, with a wary eye, and even though she saw her mother, she did not run to meet her like she had before. She strolled, as slowly and deliberately as a kindergarten student can stroll, and dropped her backpack at her mother’s feet.

“Trevor wants to play with me. Wait here,” she said, her words curt and final.

Leslie took the punishment without comment.

Okay, I was late … almost … yesterday. She has a right to be worried, or a little angry.

They both were well aware of what had happened in the past and Leslie wanted to assure her young daughter that being late one time was not the start of a downward spiral, a repetition of what was before.

Leslie picked up the backpack and hefted one of its straps up to her shoulder. It was surprising heavy.

They must have visited the library today.

Ava made a habit of selecting the maximum number of books allowed (five) and she worked under the assumption that a bigger book was a better book.

The door of the kindergarten opened, and a student shot out as if propelled by an unseen force, followed by Mrs. DiGiulio, shaking her head in mock surprise. She must have spotted Leslie in the shadows and waved to her, inviting her to come closer.

Something about a grade school teacher that makes you obey, Leslie thought as she walked closer. A few feet away, Mrs. DiGiulio used the whistle that was around her neck.

Every student on the playground stopped and turned.

“Well trained,” Mrs. DiGiulio said under her breath, then shouted, “Ava Ruskin! Your mother will be in the classroom with me. Do you understand?”

Ava shouted out a “Yes!” almost like a little three-foot-tall Marine.

“Come on inside, Mrs. Ruskin. If you have a minute, that is.”

“I do. I was going to let Ava play for a while.”

Once inside, the teacher said, “Sit down. Take the big person’s seat. Perching on these small chairs is for the small and the limber—and I am no longer part of either group.”

Mrs. DiGiulio fussed with a pot on the counter behind her desk. “Would you like some tea? I just made a pot for myself, and I always make too much. It’s my treat at the end of the day.”

Leslie wondered if there were more tea drinkers in Butler than in Greensburg. She never drank tea in Greensburg, and here, it seemed as if tea lovers surrounded her.

“Sure. That would be nice.”

The teacher poured out two cups and handed one to Leslie.

“I already put sugar in the pot. And if caffeine bothers you, don’t take more than a few sips. I buy this from a little coffee shop in Pittsburgh. It has the most curious mix of things, and they say this tea brews to twice the kick as Lipton’s.”

Mrs. DiGiulio swirled her tea, almost spilling it, and sat down at her desk. “Mrs. Ruskin, being a kindergarten teacher can sometimes be a handicap. I find that I have much less tact than other people. Children don’t respond to tact, or veiled comments, and adults who are overly polite—or obtuse. Kindness, yes. Calmness, yes. But tact … well, they get confused. They would much rather get to the point and deal with it. I’ve been a kindergarten teacher for nearly thirty years, so forgive me if I am too direct.”

Leslie waved her hand, as if dismissing any concerns Mrs. DiGiulio might have—even if her confession brought a certain tightness to Leslie’s chest. The kind she’d feel before her husband, or rather her ex-husband, in one of his cycles, would start his litany of all the things she had done wrong during the day, or week, or month, or year, and when she’d only be able to listen and never defend nor explain. Yet she smiled as bravely as she could, hoping Mrs. DiGiulio wouldn’t start telling her what a bad parent she was, or what a bad job she had done raising little Ava.

“Do you feel all right, Mrs. Ruskin?”

Leslie felt a shimmer, like the ground quivering, just a bit. That is how her husband often started, by asking if she felt okay, if she felt normal, and then proceeded to tell her how foolish she was for thinking that she was normal and that she was far from normal and that normal wives and normal mothers do not go into a panic for running out of orange juice in the morning, although it was really obvious that she should have gone to the store the day before, or even gotten up a little early to run to the convenience store around the corner—even if they did charge too much, and a normal housewife would have planned ahead.

Leslie corralled her thoughts and attempted to smile. “I’m feeling fine, Mrs. DiGiulio … why do you ask?”

She’d never have asked her ex-husband anything like that, unless she wanted to have a full evening’s worth of being told exactly what was the matter with her.

Mrs. DiGiulio looked as if she were trying to evaluate, to temper her reply. Leslie knew, from experience, that hesitation meant bad things.

“I am not one to interfere, ” Mrs. DiGiulio said kindly. “Oh, who am I kidding? I am one to interfere. But in a good way, Mrs. Ruskin.” She laughed to herself. “In a good way, trust me on that.”

She leaned forward. “In this classroom, we pray before lunch. I have always had the students pray before lunch. I know this is a public school and we’re not supposed to do that, but I do. If they want to fire me for believing, then they should fire me. It’s important that the children learn how to give thanks. A simple prayer is all it is. We have a big God, don’t you think? But … that’s not the reason for any of this. Today, at lunch, before we prayed, Ava raised her hand. And it was very simple. She asked me if I would pray for her mother as well as our lunch. And I said I would. I didn’t ask what the problem was. I didn’t ask if you were sick or anything. I figure that a child will tell me what he or she thinks I need to know.”

Mrs. DiGiulio waited a long moment. “When a child does something like what Ava did—being worried about a parent, wanting to help, wanting me to pray about it—their request means it’s something the child thinks they can’t help with. I think they feel powerless. I think she’s worried about something.”

Mrs. DiGiulio smiled gently. “I told her we would pray for you, and I did, and then she looked a lot less worried, like she knew the prayer would fix things. So I knew I had to ask you if everything is all right. And if it isn’t, is it something I can help you with?”

For the last minute or so of listening, Leslie had stared at her hands, now tightly folded and held in her lap.

No one must know.

“Sometimes people you think can’t help, can,” the teacher added.

Leslie remained silent.

No one must know.

“I want to help you. I want to help Ava. Let it go, Mrs. Ruskin. It’s too hard to hold it all in.”

Leslie continued her silence, then, after a long moment, looked up. Mrs. DiGiulio’s face was kind, open, and caring.

The words came out on their own, almost with Leslie not saying them. “Panic attacks, Mrs. DiGiulio. I’m having panic attacks again. They’re even worse than before.”

She caught her breath, opened her hands, and placed them on the desk, flat, in submission. Mrs. DiGiulio simply listened, allowed her to talk, and didn’t interrupt.

“If he knows … if he finds out about them … he’ll blame me for …”

“Your ex-husband?”

“He’ll take Ava from me. I know he will.”

Leslie drew in an uneven breath.

“And I can’t let him do that. I just can’t.

Jack switched out the lights and locked the front door.

The place must have been a locksmith shop. This is one huge and expensive deadbolt. And that locked door in the back. I suppose I could tear out the doorframe and saw around the door hinges. Wonder what’s back there, behind that door? Must be something valuable … or at least interesting.

He placed the brass key in the breast pocket of his worn denim jacket, and buttoned the snap, something he always did before … well, before, when his life was much more episodic and dramatic and confused. He had gotten accustomed to waking up in strange places. Things in his pockets might be missing. He didn’t want to lose this special key, so he added a small bit of insurance by buttoning it.

He was certain he wouldn’t repeat himself again, never go back to that life he once led, even if he hit an occasional pothole or encountered the occasional accident.

Leslie hadn’t returned yet to her apartment with Ava in tow, as she always did on school days, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t want to further explain his absence from work that morning. He would have to lie, and he never liked lying—even if it was for the best. Despite what had occurred the night before, he’d accomplished a fair amount of work this afternoon. The ceiling was all but finished. There were only two missing tin squares, and Jack had managed to switch them, so the empty spaces were confined to the far corner of the room. He was certain he could find an acceptable replacement—maybe not a perfect match but close enough.

He drove back to his apartment and parked the truck in the alley where off-street parking was allowed overnight. He placed the truck keys in the other breast pocket and closed the snap as well, without thinking or considering what the gesture meant. He would have gone upstairs, would have taken his jacket off and sat on his Goodwill sofa and watched the early news, but he felt a certain restlessness, and knew he would not be able to concentrate nor sit still.

He walked instead. He walked toward the building that used to be the Post Office, with its massive granite columns, fluted and strong, like they could have been on the facade of some small Greek temple. The elegant building housed some anonymous state agency, and Jack grew dispirited every time he walked past. The lintel stone over the columns had the words United States Post Office carved in deep relief. These words were all but hidden behind a badly painted wooden sign, in faded red, blue, and white that announced it was the Regional Services Center/Mid-States Division/H.U.D. The sign didn’t fully span the carved words.

He tried not to get angry or indignant, but it was impossible. To Jack, such things seemed like a travesty against the historic integrity of a building.

Just cover all the words! Make it look like you planned ahead!

He walked past the old Post Office, down the street, toward the one supermarket in town. He stood outside the store and read off the weekly specials on cake mixes, eggs, ground chuck, and skim milk. Jack seldom, if ever, bought any of those items. He favored ramen noodles and canned meals that didn’t need refrigeration, since his refrigerator was motel-sized and could hold little more than a carton of orange juice, a quart of whole milk, and a few bottles of water.

Instead of his typical miniaturized grocery shopping, Jack took a right turn and walked away from downtown, feeling like he needed to be somewhere other than right here, yet not certain where that other place was. He walked north along Main Street and headed up the hill. It was a steep hill. This was western Pennsylvania after all, and while there were no mountains, steep gradients abounded. He leaned into the hill and pushed his legs, hoping to clear whatever buildup had settled in his muscles and lungs and brain. Halfway up the hill, when he could see the crest when he straightened up, he stopped, breathing harder than he should.

To his left was a brick drive—not just a driveway, but a narrow road, curving into the hillside, cutting through a dense thicket of shrubs and trees and vines, like a lost road into a hidden jungle. Not a tropical jungle, but a western Pennsylvania jungle, with thorns and thistles and a tight culture of green leaf. At the edge of the nontropical jungle, on the south side of the brick road, was a sign. No one, Jack surmised, could see the sign while driving past, all but hidden by stray foliage and intrusive vinings: WELCOME TO NORTH SIDE CEMETERY.

Jack waited at the sidewalk. He knew there was a cemetery on this side of the street. He could see the waiting headstones, standing there patiently, he thought, as he crested the hill. But he had never been in the cemetery. He’d never had a reason to visit. But the air was warm, the sky pellucid, and Jack’s head had only recently ceased throbbing.

Maybe the peace and quiet will do me good.

He stepped onto the brick pavement, its edges rounded, its channels made uneven by years of cars and hearses, and made his way, further inside and upward, heading to the crest of the hill, the high ground above the town of Butler.

Mrs. DiGiulio wanted to come around the desk, put her arms around Leslie and hold her, like a mother comforting a child. But she didn’t. Children were still milling about, in the halls outside were other teachers, adults, parents, who may read too much into any gesture of caring. And Mrs. DiGiulio knew enough about panic attacks to know that drawing attention to them was not a recommended course of treatment.

Instead, she leaned in closer and spoke with calm reassurance. “Mrs. Ruskin … I know it feels hopeless. But I’m sure it’s not.” She reached over and put her hand over one of Leslie’s hands. “I know someone you can talk to.”

“I’ve been to counselors. I’ve read books. Nothing helps.”

Mrs. DiGiulio could tell that the panic in Mrs. Ruskin was rising. She could see the sinews in the young woman’s neck tighten, drawn sharp in outline, pulsing.

“This person is different. He is.”

Leslie shook her head. “I don’t think anything would work.”

Mrs. DiGiulio waved off her objection. “You have to be open. He’s a pastor. Very nice. Tim Blake. I go to his church. The big stone church on Diamond Square. He talked about it.”

“About what?”

“Panic attacks. He had them. He was open about the condition.”

Leslie shook her head, as if to clear her thoughts. “Like in a sermon?”

Mrs. DiGiulio nodded. “He was really open about dealing with them. The congregation knew and was very supportive. If anyone would understand, he would.”

“He’s still preaching? They let him preach?”

“Of course, Mrs. Ruskin.”

Leslie waited for a long moment.

“I’m sure he would love to help,” Mrs. DiGiulio said with her most encouraging smile.

By the expression on Leslie’s face, it was clear she had never been this open with anyone about her condition and was not certain if this openness was a good thing or a very troubling thing.

Mrs. DiGiulio saw Leslie look down at her hands as she spoke, her words quiet, almost without emotion.

“What’s his name, again, Mrs. DiGiulio? I’m willing to try anything. I just can’t lose Ava. I can’t. I would die. I wouldn’t be able to live anymore.”

And as she heard that final sentence, Mrs. DiGiulio was quite certain that Ava’s mom meant it.

North Side Cemetery proved to be a quiet place. The traffic noises retreated, held at bay by the thickness of trees and shrubs, held back by the rows of grave markers and headstones, some from the early 1800s, and silenced by the sprinkling of small American flags, soft and still in the autumn afternoon.

One of his first counselors, years ago, more than a decade ago, when he was at the very beginning of his problems, once took him for a walk in a cemetery, much like this one, asking him to imagine his name on a headstone, the dates of his life, what it might say about him. Jack hated the counselor for doing that, and now, he could not erase the man’s image. Every cemetery he passed, that counselor’s smug and condescending face popped into Jack’s memory. He saw it today, briefly, and he pushed it away.

They’ll say what they say. I’ll be dead then and it won’t matter to me. It won’t matter to them, either, I guess.

He didn’t like cemeteries for a hundred reasons. The quiet unsettled him, unnerved him. It brought back memories. He didn’t like those memories.

He arrived at the top of the hill, a little winded, and surprised that the early settlers would use such scenic ground for a burial place. Standing at the crest of the ridge, he could see down over Butler—the courthouse, Diamond Square, the steel mills further south, the high, craggy ridge that ran parallel to Route 8, south of the city, the creek as it became a river. He would have sat down and enjoyed the view, but there were no park benches in the area. After reflection, Jack tried to recall if he had ever seen benches placed in a cemetery. He imagined that benches would be scarce, so he kept walking, heading north, toward the end of Main Street, when it stopped being Main Street and became Route 8 again. He knew there was a small strip mall, a cluster of businesses, there. He thought there was a restaurant in that mix. He was hungry now and did not want to go home to yet another bowl of ramen noodles from his microwave.

His memory was correct. He took a window seat in the nondescript eatery, in a small booth, facing the highway, and waited, his hands folded politely, staring at the traffic.

“Need a menu?”

“Sure,” Jack responded, though he was just as sure he would probably order a cheeseburger and fries.

These small places can fool you sometimes. Maybe they have something exotic.

They did not. Standard American fare dominated the short one-page menu. But the place looked clean and well cared for and that was enough for now.

The waitress brought silverware wrapped in a paper napkin, and a sturdy glass of water. The rim of the glass was nicked and scratched to a well-used patina, half full of ice, half full of water.

Jack didn’t surprise himself. He ordered what he thought he would order.

The food came quickly. The cheeseburger was done correctly—a thick burger, medium, American cheese, with crispy fries, lettuce, and tomato on the side, everything hot, and just a little greasy.

As he ate, he noticed another table in the middle of the restaurant, occupied by a young family of three: a mother, father, and a small child, no more than three years old, in a high chair pulled close to the table. The father, maybe twenty-five years old, sat, leaning back, reading a newspaper, folded into quarters. Jack could see it was the sports page, the crammed text of a series of box scores to some contest. The mother and son sat together, the mother making sure that the child was eating some small chunks of something soft, both of them laughing, heads close, a child’s arm in the air, a mother’s hand cupping the back of a head. The child must have gotten hold of a packet of crackers, held it, flexed his arm, and sent it flying. It hit the newspaper directly.

The young father slapped the paper on the table, speaking quietly, but harshly; only shards of his words could be heard from where Jack sat. Both the mother and son cowered, just a bit, leaning away. The child looked surprised, then upset; the mother turned away from the father, her eyes locked on her son. The father sat still, his paper held like a weapon, then drew it back up again, shaking it once as if to clean whatever crumbs might have settled.

More memories. Another layer of sadness settled over Jack.

The waitress came to the table, picked up Jack’s empty plate, and unasked, filled his water glass. Then, almost as she turned away, she asked, “Dessert? Cherry pie is homemade.”

Jack shook his head, then reached for his water glass. He noticed the tremor in his hands as it moved. He wondered if the waitress noticed as well.

He knew the why and how and when of that tremor.

He knew it well.

After a long time to play on the playground, Ava seemed happy to take her mother’s hand as they walked from the school. They crossed Main Street. Just to the north of them was a series of Victorian homes, most in immaculate condition, some needing a little care. And to the north of this small, exclusive enclave, was the entrance to the North Side Cemetery.

The light changed to green, and Ava took off with a skip.

“You’re in a good mood. I take it school went well today?”

Ava nodded vigorously. “I got to be the milk person today. Chelsea was sick.”

Leslie kept looking both ways as they crossed. It was a blind hill, after all. “What does the milk person do?”

Ava looked up, almost rolling her eyes. “Mom, I told you about this before. I was milk person already.”

Leslie saw the near roll.

“I don’t remember. Tell me again.”

Ava offered a most dramatic sigh, her shoulder slumping. “Well … just before the clock’s hands are together, Mrs. DiGiulio tells us when exactly, we get to leave class early and go to the lunchroom and pick up the milk cartons for lunch. We have to carry them on a big tray and they’re real heavy so we carry it together. That’s what a milk person does. If we didn’t do it right, nobody would have anything to drink at lunch.”

Ava stopped for a second. “Except for Jacob. He can’t drink milk. He throws up if he does. He threw up the first week of school and made everybody sort of sick. They don’t give him milk anymore.”

She started walking again.

Leslie waited to speak. She knew she had to. She knew Ava was waiting for the question as well. Leslie could just tell.

“Mrs. DiGiulio said that you asked if the class could pray for me. That was very sweet of you.”

Leslie looked down at her daughter, her Dora the Explorer backpack on her back, her dark hair glistening in the warm afternoon sun. At one time, Leslie did go to church—the Congregational church where Ava went to preschool—at first with her husband. Randy had said he believed. But it had become clear that any faith he had was in himself and his ability to succeed, to control everything and everyone around him. Soon it was just she and her daughter who went to church. Until Randy decided that they shouldn’t go either. Ava must have liked Sunday school. She asked about it now that they lived in Butler, but only occasionally, never insisting, just wondering if she could go once more, now that her daddy wasn’t there. She once told Leslie that Trevor talks about Sunday school all the time.

“Mrs. DiGiulio says that God answers us when we pray. That’s true, isn’t it, Mommy?”

Leslie did not leap to answer. She had prayed. She had prayed a lot back then. She prayed to find a place where she’d no longer be terrified and shaking, with bands of fear gripping her chest so fiercely, like a giant snake squeezing the life and breath out of a poor, simpering creature, with her husband’s … her ex-husband’s … furious breath at her neck, his strong fingers tight on her arm, leaving an angry accordion of red marks on her white skin. She had prayed. She thought she had prayed to God. But her husband said that God doesn’t answer stupid prayers. Maybe that’s what they were. She wasn’t sure then and wasn’t sure now, what prayers might be considered foolish and what prayers God might listen to and actually answer.

She was as certain as she could be without really knowing, that He would listen to a child like Ava. Jesus liked children. She could remember, from the times she did go to church as a child, the brightly colored flannel pictures of Jesus on a black flannel board, with Him surrounded by children, holding them on His lap. He liked them a lot. Leslie knew that much about the Bible and Jesus.

I wonder if God listens to every prayer said by grown-ups? Gramma Mellie sure believed He does.

“It’s true, Ava. I’m sure God heard your prayer.”

Ava dropped her mother’s hand and bent down to pick up a cluster of acorns, a triad of them, with leaves still attached. She stuffed it into her jacket pocket, the golden leaves sticking out like a small, rustling flag.

“Good. That’s what Mrs. DiGiulio said.” And with that, Ava skipped off in front of her mother.

This was a quiet block, filled with houses, and the corner, where their home was, was a quiet intersection, an intersection that Leslie did not worry too much about, though she still worried some. She let Ava skip, alone, to the corner.

“Don’t cross without me.”

Ava stopped skipping, but still swayed, left to right, as if she was listening to private music in her head, music that Leslie could not hear, music not loud enough yet to cancel out the voice of a concerned mother.

As Leslie closed the gap, she wondered again if she might find voice to a prayer that was not foolish, but actually heard, and perhaps, even answered.

Jack was content with living in Butler. He liked it, for the most part, during the few months he had lived there. The town itself was small, compact, and close—at least the old part of the town. There were shopping malls and strips malls and clusters of restaurants, franchised businesses radiating out of the town, but the more charming old section of town and downtown itself was built on a human scale. Jack could walk from the south side to the north side in less than fifteen minutes. Even now, well on the north side of town, he was only a short stroll from the center of Butler. And this walk was all downhill, some of it steeply downhill, so the effort it would take to get home would be slight.

Having eaten an early dinner, he felt better, and the queasy blanket that had covered him since the morning was now gone, replaced by an emptier feeling in which sickness played no part.

He walked past the offices of the hometown radio station, a station he never listened to. He wasn’t really sure why, but he thought it had to do with the fact that it featured an on-air swap meet every morning, and Jack couldn’t tolerate that instead of music, or the sort of music that a swap-meet radio station might play.

He stood at the corner of North and Main, waiting for the light to change. The light snapped to green and Jack hesitated. Three blocks to the east was the Knights of Columbus hall. He knew that he should turn, but he hesitated.

He took a deep, deep breath, and instead of crossing the street, turned east, toward the old high school, past the Methodist Church, past a classically designed bank building, no longer a bank but an insurance agency.

Maybe … maybe I should go to that meeting.

The further east he walked, the slower his steps became, fear slowing each forward motion. Fear and embarrassment and anger.

He knew the building before he could see the address. Outside, in a large glass-enclosed structure, stood a statue of the Virgin, glossy with dime-store colors, the sort of statue that felt more at home in the 1950s than today—a female figure, close to life-size, with movie-star curls of plaster hair, and an ethereal heavenward stare.

Jack stared back for a long time, wondering where one would go to purchase a statue like that. Is there a market for those anymore?

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and walked to the front door, slowly, with hesitation and some level of dread.

I should go inside … I guess.

Once at the front door, he could see, on the side of the entryway mounted on the faux rock facade, a silver-framed, black announcement sign, with ridges running horizontally, holding individual white letters pressed into those ridges.

Times of meetings were posted, for the K of C clubs, youth meetings, special events and the like.

At the bottom was a simple listing: AA: Meetings—M, TU, TH, 8 pm.

Jack let out a sigh of relief. Today was Friday.

Well, I guess that’s my answer then.

He turned quickly, as if he’d just remembered something in his car or house that needed urgent attention, and hurried away from the shadow of the entryway and from under the benevolent watch of the old Madonna.

Jack wouldn’t admit to using circumstances as tests, but this afternoon, this attempt had been a test. The schedule had failed. The opportunity had passed. Jack was in the clear now. He had tried. It could no longer be his fault. He would have stepped through those doors; he thought he would have stepped through those doors, at any rate, had they been opened. But they were not. They were locked and Jack had no choice in the matter. He had to move on.

It had often been like this in the past. Jack had tried, but circumstances had prevented good things from happening. He had tried to be a good father. He had tried his best to be a good husband. But it was difficult. His job was difficult. Everyone had demands on his time. There had been stress, lots of stress, every day, on the job and at home. He had to deal with that stress somehow. If his wife had not understood, well, maybe it was that she never had to deal with such stress.

I did. I tried to be good enough for everyone.

So what if he stumbled once in a while?

Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has a bad day now and again.

Familiar arguments brewed in Jack’s thoughts. Familiar defenses, familiar offensives, familiar hurts and wounds were torn open, a little at a time.

As he crossed Main Street, as he waited for the light, a Butler police car slowly cruised past, the driver’s window open, the driver’s arm resting on the window frame. The officer, slow and steady, stared at Jack as he stood at the corner.

Jack’s breath caught in his chest when the policeman stared at him like that, as if Jack had done something wrong or had something in his pocket that would cause trouble, something that if the policeman knew about, would bring about the flashing red lights.

But I didn’t do anything wrong.

The squad car finished the corner, and made its way away from Jack. Even though the light had changed to green, Jack waited. He closed his eyes.

Nothing wrong at all.

He fought back the trembling in his hands. He fought back the anger in his throat.

Down at the end of the block, and just around the corner, right next to the old theater, was a small convenience store.

Jack crossed the street and walked inside. A bell jingled with an angel-like sound as he entered.

He knew what he wanted—and where it was. He picked it up, walked with great purpose to the counter, and laid his purchase and a ten-dollar bill into the metal tray. The clerk slid them both under the bullet-resistant glass, scanned the bottle, tapped at the register, tossed in the change, and pushed the tray back under the glass.

“You need a bag?”

“Nope,” Jack said and slipped the pint bottle of vodka into his front jeans pocket.

He walked out, quickly, as if to distance himself from what he had just done.

Insurance, that’s all. I won’t even touch it. I’ll just have it. In case. Insurance, that’s all. The insurance will help. Steady my nerves. Just having it. Not drinking it. Holding it. That’s all I’ll do.

And he hurried toward his apartment and away from any intrusive eyes of who might be watching.

“Macaroni and cheese?”

Once upon a time, Leslie had enjoyed experimenting with recipes. Cooking and baking had always been so enjoyable. Now she considered dinnertime the most difficult period of her entire day. Deciding what to cook seemed like an insurmountable task at times, so most nights she stuck to a few traditional, tried-and-true favorites.

Ava screwed up her face, tight, like a pickle, or an olive in a jar. “What kind of mac and cheese?”

An unexpected response.

“What do you mean, what kind?”

“The kind in the blue box. I don’t like the kind in the white box.”

“The blue box?”

Ava set her jaw firm. “It’s cheesier.”

Leslie flipped open the pantry cabinet, hoping that there was a blue box in there.

There was.

She switched the burner on, added the water to the pan, and waited for the boiling to begin. This was the old-fashioned sort of mac and cheese, the kind where you actually had to cook the noodles and drain them, adding the butter and milk and cheesy orange powder at the end. The whole meal would only take a few minutes, but it gave Leslie something to do, something to accomplish.

She ladled the entire pot of yellowy noodles onto a plate, then called Ava to the table. Leslie planned on having a cup of coffee for dinner; her recent episodes seemed to strip away whatever appetite she may have had.

Ava sat, folded her hands on the table, and bowed her head.

The two of them seldom, if ever, prayed before meals.

“God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.”

Leslie looked up, but Ava’s head was still bowed.

“And thanks for listening to me at lunch. Mrs. DiGiulio said You would listen. Amen.”

Leslie added a soft amen of her own, led by her child’s example.

Ava smiled, picked up a fork, and began to eat, bending her face to near plate level so she could easily shovel the noodles in without the possibility of dropping any or of wasting time in the process.

It reminded Leslie of a dog eating, and the practice would usually bring about a reprimand. But not this evening. There was too much on Leslie’s mind to grow impatient over eating styles.

After observing half of the pile of noodles disappear into Ava’s sidelong face, Leslie could hold back no longer.

“Ava, eat like a lady, please, and not a lady dog.”

Ava poked upright, as if fully expecting her mother’s request, almost as if she had been concerned that it had not been forthcoming sooner.

“What else did you ask God about?” Leslie asked, keeping her words just curious, not demanding. She turned her coffee cup, now half full of lukewarm coffee, moving the cup’s handle to be perpendicular with the table’s edge, making sure it was as perfect as it could be without measuring.

Ava chewed, perhaps thoughtfully, then swallowed large, making it appear that she was forcing a baseball-sized lump of yellow noodles down her throat.

“Things,” she finally said.

“What sort of things?” Leslie asked, adjusting her cup again.

“Just things,” Ava repeated, then speared another forkful of noodles.

Leslie, in most situations, would have left the subject lie, knowing her daughter could hold secrets completely. “That’s all? Just things? You won’t tell me?”

Ava looked at her mother’s face, and the young girl’s eyes caught Leslie’s and held them there for a long time. There was a flicker of something—maybe it was hope, maybe it was resignation, maybe it was a sliver of maturity showing on the young child’s face and in her eyes. Leslie wanted to believe that it was a glister of hope. Then Ava began to chew again, and the contact was broken.

And in that long moment, Leslie became, at the same time, both surer and uneasier, knowing that what Ava had prayed for seemed so very, very far away.

Jack unlocked the door of his apartment and hurried inside, almost slamming the door after him, as if someone was pursuing him. He leaned against the closed door, breathing deeply, his eyes shut, feeling the pleasant outline of the bottle tucked into the front pocket of his jeans. The buzzer on the streetlight down at the corner sounded three times before Jack moved. Slowly, carefully, he extracted the small bottle of Russian vodka from his pocket. He made no attempt at opening it. He made no attempt to find a glass and something to mix with it.

Just insurance, that’s all it is.

He placed the unopened bottle on a small shelf built into the wall, an alcove, most likely built to house an old-style rotary phone, as if this were the most natural place to secure such a bottle, not to be used, but simply to have; not to have access to it, just comfort coming from simple accessibility.

I’m not going to drink it.

He sat on the sofa heavily, grabbed the TV remote, hit the power button, then the mute button. The blue light of the screen flickered on. It did not matter what show was running. Jack did not want to watch or listen, yet the fluttering illumination felt right.

He hadn’t yet taken off his jacket. He didn’t think he could move easily, so he waited, eyes closed, arms folded across his chest, until the urges had diminished, became controllable. He waited and took shallow gulps of air, blocking out the images he’d once assumed were under control, or banished, or forgotten.

They weren’t.

I’m not going to drink it.

He shouldn’t have walked through that cemetery today. He should have remembered what headstones and epitaphs would do to him. It had been such a long time since he’d had to deal with all that. He thought of his daughter again and her mother.

I’m not going to drink it.

And then, from nowhere, from the darkness, came the image of the locked door in the back room of the Midlands Building.

Why am I thinking of that?

Jack let that thought take over. It was different than thinking about the closed bottle. But it was no safer. After a while, after the sky outside grew dark, Jack listed over to one side, found the small pillow at the edge of the sofa, placed it under his head, closed his eyes, folded his arms again over his chest, tucked his hands inside his coat, and prayed that sleep might come and free him.

I’m not going to drink it.

Just before sleep came to him, one thought rolled into his awareness: I have made a wasteland of everything I’ve touched.

Ava snuggled under her Pretty Princess blanket and smooshed up the pillows behind her. On her nightstand was an adult’s thickness of books—books from the school library, as well as books Leslie bought at garage sales, at least twenty books in a teetering stack. Leslie watched as Ava removed one from the middle of the stack with great care and gently opened the cover.

The child smiled as she first encountered the first page. “This one looks real good, Mom.”

For those few moments that she watched, Leslie felt at peace, but only for those few moments. That calm feeling, a stranger to her, disappeared as soon as she stepped out of her daughter’s bedroom. It disappeared because … well … everything was tenuous; everything in Leslie’s life precarious. Everything was at risk.

Am I ever going to be free of all this? Am I ever going to be safe?

She paced in the living room, between the kitchen and the french doors, finally sitting on the lawn chair on the balcony, watching the western sky grow gold, then darken. She pulled out the slip of paper in her breast pocket and stared at it. She looked at her watch again. She stood and walked to the phone in the kitchen.

She had found the strength, earlier in the day, to call the church where Tim Blake, the man Mrs. DiGiulio had mentioned, was senior pastor. Actually, he was one of only two pastors on staff. Grace @ Calvary was not an extremely large church, apparently. The tape message went on and on, giving times of services and meetings, a complicated message about the youth group, the times Pastor Blake would be in the office—and his home phone number as well. The tape claimed he’d be in his office Friday evening until 9:00.

She took a breath, then another, then took the phone off the receiver and dialed. The call must have been directed straight to the pastor’s office phone after hours.

“This is Pastor Blake. May I help you?”

In that instant, Leslie froze, unable to make a sound.

“Hello? … Hello?”

Leslie felt a tremor in her hands. It was all she could do to return the phone to its cradle. It was all she could do to slump into a kitchen chair.

In the hall, near the bathroom, in the faint glow of the nightlight, she saw her daughter, standing there, almost in darkness. The young girl was staring intently.

“It was a tape machine, honey. That’s all it was. I’ll call later.”

Ava stared at her mother for a long time, without saying a word, then shrugged and turned away.

Leslie knew what she was thinking.

She has seen this all before.

Amelia Westland, age fifteen years, nine months

Butler, Pennsylvania

April 10, 1878

I have not yet found a chance to seek out Mr. Beck, though I have discovered where the livery is located whilst on a rare afternoon ramble when the Barrys were on a short holiday. It is not a far distance, and my thoughts of him being nearby are constant. We have time to go to services, but it is plain Mr. Beck attends a different church than I. I am not perplexed, since our growing town boasts of six different Sunday meetings, ranging from Episcopalian to Methodist. I wonder, should our paths yet merge, if our faiths will meld without controversy.

I pray that we will see each other soon. God assures my heart that we will. I know God is with me, and I pray day and night that His will be shown to me. I do not wish to grow old alone and barren, like the Misses Burnett and Tollifer.

Perhaps, when it is summer, I might see Julian in the streets. As I grow mature, the doctor indicated that I will be allowed to visit the markets in town on his behalf, seeing as how the Misses Tollifer and Burnett find walking long distances troublesome and painful.

The LORD will command his lovingkindness in the day time,
and in the night his song shall be with me,
and my prayer unto the God of my life.

—Psalm 42:8