Every day, it seemed that Little Springs spilled farther over its former boundaries, like a flooding river swelling over its bank. Far up into what was once unbroken farmland, now there stood housing developments and condominiums and little shopping centers, always with more under construction to the north and east. Every day, more people arrived. So, every day, there were more places for them to live and shop and work. It used to be said with a grin that the largest city in Nebraska was Omaha, the second largest was the state capital, Lincoln, and the third largest was Memorial Stadium during a Nebraska Cornhuskers game. Now, Little Springs had more people than Lincoln. Though, until the next census brought more government funding, the county still had to make do with the same resources it had had before. Which was why it fell to David and his one deputy to keep the peace.
Mostly, David avoided this part of town—the suburbs, as he called them. This was where the people with money lived, and they seemed to have few problems. Occasionally there would be a call of someone breaking into a car, or a domestic dispute.
Not that he admitted it, but he also avoided this part of town because it was where Tabby lived.
He wasn’t sure what he hated more, the guilt he felt over abandoning Tabby in that week before the giant fell—when they all thought they’d be dead soon, anyway—or that whenever he saw her, she refused to wield that guilt against him. Even their divorce had been calm, silent. Almost perfunctory. He had given her the house, which she then sold. She had given up any claim to his parents’ land. And just like that, it was done.
David rolled past one manicured lawn after another. Children playing along the streets. Immaculately dressed people arriving home from work. Some stood and stared as he passed. No one waved to him; but then, he didn’t wave to them, either.
The stone-sided townhouse stood atop a slight rise. The lights were on. David parked out front and rang the bell. At the last moment, he remembered to take his hat off.
Tabby answered the door in fitted jeans and a flowing sweater, a necklace of chunky stones, fingers flashing with rings. She looked like a mountain hippie, the kind of person they would’ve made fun of as kids.
“David. You should’ve called first. I haven’t cooked anything.”
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s been awful busy; I just had a free minute. I don’t need anything to eat.”
She held the door just long enough to let her annoyance be unmistakable, then opened it wide and gestured him inside. The house opened into a great room with a tall ceiling flowing into the kitchen and dining room.
“Nice place,” he offered. “Brian’s out?”
He asked quickly, saying nothing more, hoping that Tabby wouldn’t realize this visit was more premeditated than he acted.
“Work,” she said. “He’ll be back from Denver tomorrow. You want to see my studio?”
“Sure.”
She led him through the house, to a big room with a window facing west, the spire visible above the outline of the giant, its skin now indigo against the fading red of the sunset. A large easel sat in front of the window, holding a large canvas that revealed the same scene. The land. The sky. The giant. The spire.
The room was filled with more paintings. Hanging on the walls. Stacked on the floor. Stuffed into a large shelf. Each showed the same thing. The only variable was the sky and the coloring. Different times of day, different hues, from deep purples to pastel pinks and blues, harsh reds, garish yellows. Some with the cloud of sandhill cranes circling the spire. Painted in an exacting realism that perfectly captured the otherworldly horror.
Tabby twisted her finger in her hair, watching him.
“Wow,” David said. “You’ve been busy.”
She laughed so loud it took him aback.
“Busy. Got it. Thanks.”
He waved his hand around the room.
“What? I mean, I’m impressed. You never painted that much. Before. It’s a lot of work. I meant it as a compliment.”
“That’s what every artist wants to hear: ‘That looks like a lot of work.’”
“Christ, Tabby. What do I know about art? They look great, okay? Beautiful. It’s just . . . It’s all the same thing. You don’t paint anything else?”
“No, I don’t paint anything else,” she said, crossing her arms. “That’s the idea. Every day, every hour, it looks different. But Gulliver never changes. The world changes around him. I kind of think of it like a mirror, held up to us.”
She was quiet a moment, then looked away and continued.
“And it helps. Painting it. It helps me not think about all the terrible stuff going on out there. Or all the stuff we don’t know. Or what could happen. It was the only thing that helped me get through, after it fell.”
The only thing. Because David was nowhere to be found.
Though he had apologized before, he felt the impulse to do so again whenever he saw her. She gave him a look then that told him that it was done, this moment. That they should move along.
“People buy these, then?” David asked, peering closer at a painting.
“Yes, people buy them. Faster than I can paint them. What do you think paid for this house?”
“Wow. That’s great, Tabby. Really.”
She wrapped one arm around herself, rubbing at her elbow.
“Brian and I invited you over for a reason, David. I wanted you to hear it from us. We’re pregnant.”
“Oh,” he said.
She laughed, even louder this time, then finally smiled her big smile, the smile that had made him fall in love with her.
“You never did know what to say, did you?” she asked.
He shook his head, grinning back. “No. Sure didn’t. Okay, let me try again. Let’s see, what am I supposed to ask? When are you due? What are you having?”
“October. We’re having a girl.”
“A baby girl. What you always wanted. Congratulations, Tabby.”
Now that he looked, he could see the forming of a bump in her stomach. A child, growing there. A child that could’ve been his. Should’ve been his. No joy came with the thought. Only relief that he wouldn’t have to raise flesh and blood, to bring it into the world and watch it suffer. No, things had worked out as they should have.
He wasn’t sure if he should hug her, but before he could decide one way or another, she was walking back toward the kitchen asking if he wanted something to drink, and he was turning her down.
At the door, he remembered the reason he’d come.
“You said Brian’s back tomorrow?”
She eyed him suspiciously then. As much as David could never read Tabby, she always could see straight through him.
“Why do you keep asking about him?” she insisted.
“It’s nothing. I just . . .”
Her eyes hardened.
“Okay,” David admitted. “I made a traffic stop. Turned out there was a load of drugs in the vehicle. There was something in there that I didn’t recognize.”
“And you thought Brian could tell you?” she completed his thought.
David gave a pathetic shrug.
“Brian works in legal agriculture, David,” Tabby said. “He isn’t some criminal.”
“Marijuana might be legal in Colorado, but it isn’t here,” David argued back.
“You should leave,” she said, half turning away. But he’d already seen that she had started to cry.
He held up his hands.
“I’m sorry, Tabby. I really am. I didn’t mean anything.”
He had started down the stone steps toward his truck when he heard her feet behind him.
“David.”
He turned. Her anger was gone, replaced by sadness.
“You’re working the investigation. Jason?” she asked.
He nodded.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice.
“There’s something you should know. I didn’t want to tell you, but you should know.”
He stepped closer.
“Missy told me something. A few months ago. Maybe you knew already.”
Know what? his eyes demanded.
“Jason was having an affair. I don’t know if it has anything to do with it, but . . .”
She said nothing more. Driving home in the dark, David rolled the sentence over and over in his mind. One more detail. One more rough-edged piece. One more jagged edge tumbling through his thoughts, crashing against all the other bits, refusing to fit.