Fenton is pretty sure he knows what is happening here. This is the whole family. Claire, Trudy, and Mercy match Tammy’s descriptions precisely. And anyone could guess that this other man is Tammy’s father. He has her eyes, her smile, her strong chin.
Here we all are, thinks Fenton, set out in a spray. It is like a constellation fanning out from the single figure at the doorway of the house (Trudy), connecting to a dot here (Tammy) and there (Fenton), and ending in a tight cluster of three (Darren, Claire, Mercy) at the end of the laneway. And just like a constellation, once you see all of the stars together, once you see that they make a shape, you can almost see a white line connecting them. Standing there in the driveway, Fenton can see a faint white shimmering thread travelling through the air from one person to the next. It disappears in the sunlight if he looks at it head-on, but if he turns his head just slightly away, it’s there.
Fenton loses sight of the thread as a cloud slides across the sun.
It is colder and darker and trouble is coming. He can feel it.
He walks over to the grass by the driveway and lies down on his back and waits for the feeling to pass.