ASOFT RUMOR MOVED ACROSS MARQUETTE that winter. In the dead of January, most people were hibernating and not listening to town gossip. Still, the news that a mysterious boat had docked in the lower harbor late one night passed slowly from the men at the fish house to the lottery lady at Doc’s, then on to the gas station attendant, who told the snowplow removers, until finally Janeene heard it from her mailman. Yannick Murphy, the only eyewitness, claimed to have counted fifty people sneaking off the boat. Dressed like Eskimos in long fur coats and heavy boots, they walked single file along the breakwater until they got to shore, where Yannick lost track of them in the dark quiet streets. They spoke French, and Yannick was certain they were Canadians. Their conversation sounded clandestine, he reported, as if they were planning something dangerous.
Lake Superior had not frozen that year. The cold weather snapped every few days, allowing the warmer temperatures to melt the thick ice formations that extended from the shallow waters close to shore. Some mornings the deep blue lake sparkled like sapphires, making it impossible to look at anything without squinting. Then suddenly the wind would push in heavy winter clouds, changing the horizon to a solid mass of gray. All memory of sunlight gone.
Janeene and her husband, Phil, were newcomers to the area. Not understanding how the winters affected the people of the Upper Peninsula, Janeene believed everything she heard about the mysterious boat. One night, just as they were going to bed, she saw the sharp, angular movements of a deer outside the front window and knew that someone must be hiding in the cluster of evergreen trees. Something had frightened the deer into motion.
“Are you afraid?” her husband asked. “Do you think those people are going to harm us?” They had recently moved from Detroit, and Phil wanted her to feel safe in their new home. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her gently on the top of her head.
“No,” Janeene said and believed this to be true. She simply wondered who they were, where they had come from, and why they were hiding in Marquette. She tried to talk to her neighbors the few times she saw them, but they were rarely out. Mostly she relied on her mailman. He was the one who told her how the boat had sunk moments after landing. Janeene invited him in for coffee, hoping to learn more about these strangers. Instead he began confusing things. One day he told her that Tori Anderson had seen some of the boat people in the grocery store buying large quantities of meat and dairy products. The manager of the IGA found forty-seven dollars in Canadian bills in the cash drawer, but neither cashier remembered or would admit to taking the money. Later when Janeene asked the mailman what time Tori had seen them, he looked startled and told her he had no idea what she was talking about. She knew he slipped whiskey into his coffee mug when he thought she wasn’t looking, and after he had forgotten what he told her for too many days, she decided it was best to stop asking him in. She didn’t want to worry about him getting drunk and walking down the narrow sidewalk paths. She worried he would fall. He could lie hidden behind the waist-high snowbanks for weeks before anyone found him.
Phil was amused by her fascination with the town gossip. He was the kind of man who believed he could protect his wife from anything. He took pride in their marriage and considered their relationship different from and better than anyone else’s.
“It’s us against the world,” he would tell Janeene when something upset her. “We’ve got to stick together.” Phil’s assurances always sounded like warnings, and she stopped telling him when she had had a bad day. Coming home from dinner parties or nights out with friends, Phil would discuss the things that were wrong with each person they had been with. “Carl’s too concerned with making money to pay any attention to his marriage. Denise is too wrapped up in Carl’s life to see that she is wasting her own.” Janeene understood what Phil was talking about, but also knew she would not have noticed these things on her own.
They had decided to move north the previous year when Phil’s mother died. An only child, Phil inherited money from his father’s dry-cleaning business, which had expanded into five stores in the northern suburbs of Detroit. The interest on the inheritance was enough to support them, and without the need to work, there was no reason to stay in Detroit. In September they rented their two-bedroom condominium and moved into his family’s vacation home in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Phil thought it was the perfect time to start a family. They had been married six years—their love was obviously secure—and now they had money and time to devote to children. Phil had been subscribing to the Marquette newspaper for a year and told Janeene that it was one of the safest cities in the world. There was some crime—teenagers shoplifting at the mall, cars stolen from the deer camps—but only one murder had been reported in two years. Phil studied the case carefully. A twenty-two-year-old man had been found in Presque Isle State Park. The police told the newspapers that someone from the iron-ore ships had robbed and killed the young man. That rumor didn’t last. The hospital in town was the largest employer, and word got out that the man had been gutted. The victim was a homosexual, and the people of Marquette, if not the police, were certain that some kind of homophobic local had committed the murder. They did not believe the crime was as random as the police insisted. Phil, used to the crime rate in Detroit, did not consider this incident something that could change his mind about raising his family in Marquette.
“Gutted?” Janeene read the article after Phil told her about the case. “What does that mean?”
“Like you’d do to a deer,” Phil explained. He ran his hand up her stomach to her throat and splayed his fingers across her cheekbone. “The guy’s insides were taken out.”
Janeene asked if there were any photographs of the body.
“Would you look at it if there was one?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She swatted at his hand as if his touch bothered her.
Although she was hesitant to tell Phil, Janeene did not want a baby. She did not want one growing inside of her, and she especially did not want to care for one. She continued taking the pill even though she told Phil she had thrown them away in August. Since their move north she had stopped coming when they made love. She knew she did not have to reach orgasm to conceive, yet she thought that if they both came during sex it would be something greater than it was, which might somehow lead to a baby. This was something she did not want, so she refused to share her desire with him.
Since neither of them was working and since they had so much free time, they made love often. It was frustrating to hold back, and Janeene longed for the late afternoon, when Phil went jogging. Finally alone in the house, she would escape to the upstairs bathroom. There were days when she couldn’t wait for him to get out of the house before she began touching herself. She would stand in the bathroom, her fingers covered with lotion, waiting for the slam of the front door. If the feeling was intense enough, she’d start rubbing herself, often reaching orgasm just as Phil called out good-bye. Then the house would settle around her breathing. She would do it again. This time on the bed without her clothes. It never took more than a few minutes until her body would start shaking with an incredible need that seemed to get more desperate the longer they lived in Marquette.
She always kept her eyes closed. Either afraid or embarrassed by the act, she was not comfortable watching herself get excited alone. Afterward she would rush to do something physical like scrub the bathtub or wash the kitchen floor—anything so she didn’t have to think about what she was doing.
Having money without working was strange for both of them, and Janeene wondered how long they could keep up with the simplicity their days presented to them. Like on a vacation that continued long after it should have, they seemed to be waiting for something to happen, for someone to tell them that it was time to go home.
They still got up early—the same time as when they worked in the main office of the dry-cleaning business. Instead of going anywhere, they made lists of chores to do around the house, even though these were things they would finish by noon. In the early afternoon they’d walk down the street to the diner and order grilled cheese sandwiches and french fries covered in hot gravy. The waitress called them dears and filled their coffee mugs so full that the thin brown liquid poured over onto the matching saucers.
Afterward they’d walk to the Peter White Library so Janeene could read the Detroit Free Press. She had never been particularly fond of Detroit until the move north, but now she wanted to hear everything she could about the city. Phil spent his library time looking for books on Michigan. His grandparents were from the Copper Country, one hundred miles north of Marquette, and he was interested in learning more about the history of the region. He read a book a night and told Janeene trivia about the region. The world’s only marble lighthouse was in Livingstone County. The water flowing over the Tahquamenon Falls was a dark root-beer color because of the iron ore deposits in the land. They made plans to visit these places in the summer. Janeene much preferred talk about traveling around Michigan to talk about the family Phil wanted.
“This is good,” Phil told her one night while reading his book. “I’m happy here. He looked up from his reading, his index finger holding his place on the page.
“It is peaceful,” Janeene agreed. She did not turn from the window.
“My father should have sold the business when he was alive,” Phil said. “He deserved to enjoy life like this.”
Janeene nodded, though she wasn’t sure she agreed with Phil’s enthusiasm about their decision to leave Detroit. She wanted to know what they would do if they simply lived off the money someone else had spent his life earning. Who would they become?
She sat backward on the couch and drew a circle design in the fog her breath made on the windowpane. There had been no news about the strangers for weeks, but she still believed the rumor as strongly as she had when the mailman first told her about the boat docking. Therefore she was not at all surprised to see two men walking up the shoveled path toward the house. She stood quickly, and when Phil asked her what was wrong, she told him there were people at the door.
The men stood on the top steps dressed in orange Day-Glo jackets, the kind deer hunters wore. The air was bitter cold, but they seemed unaffected by the wind or the freezing temperature.
“Our car broke down,” the younger man said, and Janeene knew as soon as she heard him speaking English with the tonality of the people from the U.P. that they were not from the boat. She was at once disappointed, as if she had been cheated out of something she deserved.
“We need your phone,” the older man explained and then stepped inside without waiting for permission. In Detroit, they would not have answered the door unless they were sure they knew who it was, but here, so far north, with the weather the way it was, the two men seemed as harmless as snowmen. They introduced themselves as Henry and Wade, and when they both took off their hats and stuffed them into their jacket pockets at the same time, Janeene asked if they were father and son.
“There’s no use denying that,” Henry winked at her.
“Something I’ve been trying to do my whole life,” Wade interrupted. They did not look so much alike—Wade’s hair was white blond like a child’s, his father’s was graying. It was the way they stood—back swayed forward as if proud of their low thick stomachs—that gave them away as family.
“Yours was the only house lit on this whole block,” Henry told Phil. Small chunks of snow fell from the tops of his boots. He shook them onto the carpet, where they stayed in perfect round shapes as if they could ignore the warmth of the house.
Janeene looked out the window to check on her neighbors. They never seemed to be home, but she had no idea where they would be at this time of night in Marquette.
“We’ve pissed away enough time,” Wade told his father. “Let’s not spend the rest of the night yammering on about nothing.”
“No reason to be rude.” Henry seemed happy to be in the house. “You’ve got to talk to people. You don’t just barge in and start using their phone without saying hello. These are the kinds of things that separate us from being animals.”
Wade told him to get moving and call Bob’s Boron up the road.
“Ignore my son,” Henry told Phil and Janeene. “He’s not used to being around nice people.”
Wade pushed his father as if he could physically force him to the telephone. Henry lost his balance and tumbled into Phil.
“I’m sorry,” Phil apologized and backed further into the corner.
“You didn’t do anything,” Henry said. “This one’s the bone-head.” He swatted at Wade with an open palm.
Phil offered to make the call, but Henry and Wade seemed more interested in arguing than getting anything done about the car.
“Boron’s closed down two years ago,” Henry insisted. “The building’s already been bulldozed.”
“The station in Ishpheming is closed. This here’s Marquette. Nothing’s been bulldozed around here.”
“I know where we are.” Henry said. “Sleeping Beauty’s the one who’s been sawing logs since we left Munising.” He closed his eyes and made exaggerated snoring noises.
“At least I was sleeping sober,” Wade said and then turned to Janeene and asked her for a phone book. She told him they didn’t have one. Marquette, especially in the winter, was not that big a place. She said she thought the gas station on the corner of Third and Front was open until midnight.
“Do you hear that?” Wade said. “Now go call so we can get someone to jump that thing.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Henry argued back. “I’ve known Bob every year I’ve been on this earth. Who would know better than me how long he’s been out of work? Hell it’s probably been longer than two years. Probably closer to three.”
“It’s always the same with you, isn’t it?” Wade asked. You’re like some kind of broken record. A goddamn broken record.” He made a circular motion with his hand, imitating a record moving round a turntable.
“You’re talking garbage,” Henry said.
“You just have to be right. About everything. Even if it’s none of your business.”
“You don’t know my business,” Henry told him.
“If you say something’s blue then it’s just got to be blue. Even if everyone else in the world says it’s green. You say blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Blood vessels popping all over your face, you keep insisting on blue. No one’s listening to you. No one cares about your goddamn blue. But you won’t give up—will you, old man?”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you.”
“You got no right to talk about me.”
Henry leaned forward and punched Wade, but his balance was unsteady and he missed. The sound they made in their throats was low and raw, like dogs breathing as they circled each other.
Wade moved away from Henry, but Henry tried another punch. This time he stumbled and fell. Janeene didn’t see Wade touch his father, but wondered if he had tripped him.
“Get up, old man,” Wade dropped to his knees and straddled his father’s body so that his father couldn’t move. “Get off this floor. This isn’t your floor. You can’t be sitting all over it when it’s not even yours.”
Henry shifted his weight forward onto his elbows, but as soon as he tried to get up, Wade pushed him down. They played like kids on a seesaw.
“Say you’re wrong,” Wade said. “Say you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a lunatic,” Henry shouted back. “I don’t admit to anything.”
“Say it,” Wade insisted.
“Lunatic,” Henry shouted.
“One last chance,” Wade threatened. “Just one last chance.”
“Get off me,” Henry kicked at his son and his pants tore open. He spread his legs and showed them all the long split running up the length of his inseam. The exposed flesh of his inner thigh was bright pink, burned from the wind and cold.
“Now look what you’ve done,” Henry yelled and slapped his son. This time Wade didn’t strike back. He laughed instead, which made Henry even madder.
Janeene felt like she had front-row seats to a show she shouldn’t be watching. Their fighting, which had seemed so childish when they first came here, was now real. She was thrilled by the strength and anger of their fight.
“How am I going to get home with my pants like this?” Henry tugged at the ripped material, showing the loose skin of his thigh. “Take a good look at what you’ve done.”
“I’m not the one who ripped your pants,” Wade shot back.
“You’re the one who didn’t want to waste the night in Marquette,” Henry argued back. “I can’t go outside like this. I’ll freeze my ass off.”
Wade asked Phil if they could borrow a pair of pants. “Nothing special,” he said. “Just something for this drunk to wear home.”
Phil said he’d go look for something and then motioned for Janeene to come with him. She knew he didn’t want her alone with these men, but she didn’t want to leave. She liked their arguing, however stupid it was. It was such a relief to be around people—to have something to listen to besides silence. Phil waited, and she knew she had no choice but to go with him.
“This is ridiculous,” Phil complained once they were out of earshot. “They’re drunk and I don’t want them in the house. We should call the police.”
Janeene checked the ragbag for something Henry could wear, but all she found were some old beach towels. The multicolored material was so out of place that it took her a moment to remember what the towels were used for.
“He can’t go outside with that rip in his pants,” Janeene said.
“He outweighs me by fifty pounds,” Phil argued. “What’s going to fit him?”
“It’s the jacket. He just looks big,” Janeene said. “You must have something he could wear.”
Phil told her to wait there, but as soon as he went upstairs she went back into the living room, where Wade was still sitting on his father. They were engaged in some sort of silent stare-down, neither of them moving or speaking.
Phil came down with a pair of his grandfather’s pants—light-colored wool trousers. He handed them to Henry, who thanked him with a nod of his head. Wade continued staring at his father.
Henry unzipped his pants and Janeene told them she’d wait in the other room while he changed.
She poured herself a glass of brandy and sipped it slowly. It was not something she drank very often, but the medicinal taste was somehow comforting and she finished the glass in three swallows.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Phil had the trousers under his arm, his face tight with disapproval and impatience.
“They’re too tight to get over his ankles.”
“Do you have another pair?”
“Not that I’m going to give him,” Phil said. “These will fit if I open the cuff a bit. They’re baggy enough for him.”
He flipped the scissors off the pegboard and sat at the kitchen table.
“They’re just like the people from the boat,” Janeene whispered suddenly. “Coming out of nowhere in the middle of the night like this.” It was not quite ten o’clock, but daylight seemed something foreign, something they might never see again.
“I can’t believe you’re still listening to that nonsense,” Phil said.
“What do you mean?”
“All the stuff about the boat,” he said. “I’m so sick of that nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense. Yannick Murphy saw them.” Janeene was surprised by Phil’s tone. She knew he was uncomfortable with these men in the house, but there was no reason to take his anger out on her.
“Yannick Murphy says he saw fifty people getting off a boat and you believe him?”
Phil made a small cut in the material and began to pull. The pants were thick and difficult to tear.
“People don’t make up things like that.” Janeene leaned across the table to help, but Phil shoved the pant legs off the table, where she couldn’t reach them.
“You ever stop to ask yourself what Yannick Murphy was doing in the lower harbor at two o’clock in the morning?”
Now she was irritated. She had already told Phil the story of Yannick walking home from Doc’s Saloon. Drunk, tired, and cold, he was more surprised than anyone to see the boat skimming the dark water as it slowed to dock in the quiet night. The breakwater was icy and he set out to warn them to move the boat to the marina. That’s when he saw all the people getting off the boat. That’s when he heard them talking and knew that something was up—something strange was about to happen.
“He spent the night in a bar and you’re going to believe what he says?” Phil said. “People see all kinds of things when they’re drunk. Flying saucers. Seven-footed animals. Mystery ships.”
“Maybe you’re the one who’s afraid,” Janeene said. “That’s why you don’t want to believe it could happen. Because you’re afraid of them.”
“I’m not afraid of something that doesn’t exist.” Phil pulled at the material with both hands, and this time it gave way. It caught the side seam and ripped all the way up to the crotch. They were no better than the pair Henry was wearing.
“I don’t have anything that’s going to fit this guy.” Phil threw the trousers to the floor.
“What about something else of your grandfather’s?” Janeene would not fight with Phil. Not with these men in the house. “All that stuff we found when we moved in?”
Phil nodded but did not get up from the table.
“Do you want me to look?” Janeene asked.
“No,” Phil said. “It’s not insulated up there. I’ll go.”
“A little cold’s not going to kill me,” she said.
“What?” Phil turned to her.
“Nothing,” she shook her head. “Nothing.”
When he left, she picked up the trousers and turned them over her arm until she had rolled them into a ball. She was angry that Phil was so upset. It wasn’t as if the men had interrupted them. It wasn’t as if they were doing anything important when the men came knocking at the door.
She knew they would talk about the men after the tow truck came and jump-started their car. Phil would be relieved that they were gone. He would sit on the edge of the bed and talk to her even after she told him she was tired. He would keep talking even when she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. All talked out, he would crawl under the covers and want to make love. Janeene, not finding a reason to say no, would go through the motions.
The thought of the empty house and the days ahead with nothing to do, no one to talk to except Phil, got her so frustrated that she shoved the wool pants into the dirty dishwater just as Wade walked in the room. He did not ask her what she was doing.
The dinner plates had been soaking since six o’clock. Janeene buried her hands up to her elbows and turned the heavy wool in the dead soapsuds while leftover bits of pork chop and mashed potato floated to the top of the still, gray water. She tried to act like nothing was wrong, but she felt foolish taking her frustrations out on a pair of pants.
“You and your husband don’t look like you’re from around here,” Wade said quietly. She fished the pants out of the water and hung them over the side of the sink. The excess water dripped onto the floor.
“We just moved here in September from Detroit,” she said.
“You must be going nuts.”
“I’ve never been around this much snow,” Janeene said. “It gets cold in Detroit, but nothing like this. Some nights I can almost hear the temperature falling. It just keeps getting colder. I think the wind’s going to pull the house down with it.” She was out of breath from speaking so quickly.
“I didn’t mean the weather,” Wade said, and Janeene asked if he was talking about the people.
Instead of answering, he picked up the bottle of aspirin, but his fingers were too thick to open it. He stuck it in his mouth and tried with his teeth.
“Do you have a headache?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.” Wade handed her the bottle. The cap was wet from his spit. She turned it until the two arrows pointed at each other, then popped it open with her fingernail.
“Feel my forehead,” he said, “and you can tell me if I’m sick.”
His skin was soft and warm, but she could not tell if it was feverish. She started to pull her hand away, but Wade held her wrist with a firm grip. He was not hurting her, but his touch made her nervous. Her fingertips brushed the corners of his eyes and he closed them. His lashes were darker than they should have been with his hair so blond.
“What are you doing there?” Henry yelled and Janeene dropped her hand and shoved it back into the dishwater.
“I’m not doing anything,” Wade said and turned to face his father.
“She wouldn’t touch someone like you unless you bribed her,” Henry yelled at Wade.
“He’s got a headache,” Janeene interrupted. “He doesn’t feel good.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, old man,” Wade said. “Stay out of what you don’t know.”
Their heavy bodies were not used to the heat in the house, and the smell of their perspiration was everywhere. The strong, stale odor was strange in the winter world, which kept everything so sterile, and Janeene found it unnerving.
“He didn’t make me do anything,” Janeene said. The pants had dripped onto the floor and she tripped on the wet tile when she started to leave the room.
Wade held her hip and asked if she was all right. She could feel the skin bruising beneath his touch.
Henry smiled at them. “Well. This is cozy,” he said. “And you with your husband just up the stairs.”
Janeene was still holding Wade’s aspirin. She put them on her tongue and then turned to the sink and cupped water into her hand. The aspirin dissolved in her throat, the chalky substance creeping back up into her mouth. She turned and spat them into the dishwater.
“Excuse me,” she apologized and went upstairs to see why Phil was taking so long. He was not in their bedroom. The spare bedrooms were cold and dark, and she opened the attic door and called up the steps.
“Phil?” There was no sound. She called his name again, but her voice echoed back to her. She slammed the door and hurried downstairs, wanting to get away from all the emptiness.
Henry was sitting on the couch watching television. He was wearing a pair of dark green pants she didn’t recognize but knew they must have been among Phil’s grandfather’s things. She turned down the sound on the TV and asked Henry where Phil was.
“Like that’s something that you’re concerned about?” Henry smiled.
“Of course I’m concerned,” she said. She wanted Phil there with her.
“Don’t give her a hard time,” Wade said. “Tell her where her husband is.”
Henry kept staring at the television, but pointed to the front door.
“He left?” Janeene asked. “Why? Where would he go?”
“He’s getting his car started to give us a jump.”
“What about the gas station?” Janeene said. “Couldn’t they tow you?”
“The truck’s out in Big Bay,” Henry said. “They’re not sure when it’ll be back.”
“It’s a bad night to be out,” Janeene said, and Henry laughed.
“They’re all bad nights to be out.” Henry zipped up his coat and pulled on his cap until it covered his ears.
“No sense in all of us getting cold,” he said. “You two might as well stay here where it’s warm.”
Wade stood in the middle of the room looking out the window. She knew he was standing too far from the glass to see anything but his own reflection. Yet he was concentrating as if he could see into the night.
He was silent for some time and then slowly, as if coming out of a trance, turned and asked if she was afraid of living in Marquette.
“What would I be afraid of?” she asked.
“Things. All kinds of things go on in these parts,” Wade told her. “There’s lots to be afraid of.”
“Like what?”
“Like ghosts,” he said. “Aren’t you afraid of ghosts?”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Like something haunting my attic?”
“I’m talking about people coming back from the dead,” he said.
“People don’t come back from the dead,” she told him.
“They don’t?” Wade looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “You know that for a fact?”
“Why would they come back?” she asked.
“To settle the score,” he told her. “They might want to get even.”
He was trying to tell her something. He had been trying to tell her something all night. The taste of copper filled her mouth, and she swallowed hard to get rid of it. “Did you kill that man in the park?”
“Is that what you think?”
The wind was cold by the open door, but she didn’t move. The icy blasts ran up her spine. Her skin spotted with goose-bumps.
“We’re hunters up here,” he said. “Gutting a deer is something we all know how to do. Those are the kinds of things we learn when we’re twelve.”
“This is a strange place,” she told him. Her voice sounded distant, as if it belonged to someone else.
“You’ll get used to it,” Wade said. “After a while you’ll get used to it.” He had been scratching his skin under his shirt, and suddenly, as if he’d had enough of the discomfort, he unbuttoned the top buttons, exposing a large red shape on his chest. It looked like a tattoo—an undefined drawing she didn’t recognize right away—but when she stepped closer, she saw that it was a scar. The skin was unmarred, with no hair, like a baby’s.
“What about the people from the boat?” she asked.
“They could have killed him, too,” he told her. He turned to face her head on as if proud of this mark.
“No. I want to know what they’re doing here,” she said. “I meant what are they doing in Marquette?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because I want to know what happened to them,” she said.
“Will you tell me? Will you tell me what happened to those people?”
“No,” Wade pulled away.
“Why not?”
“Because,” Wayne rubbed the scar as if her touch had made him sore. He buttoned his shirt and turned toward the front door, where they saw Phil making his way up the front walk. Her heart raced as he stepped inside. She grabbed the edge of the table and held tight to stop the dizziness taking over. The room seemed to be losing light, as if Phil had carried the night in with him.
Phil’s glasses fogged, and he set them on the table. Janeene reached for them so that she could wipe the condensation off, but her hands were clumsy and she pushed them onto the floor. Phil bent to pick them up.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and she nodded.
“Did you figure out what was wrong with the car?” Wade asked.
“Nothing,” Phil said. He put his hands to his mouth and blew on them and then got the flashlight out of the drawer.
“There’s nothing wrong with the car? Nothing at all?”
“Not that I can tell,” Phil said. He tested the flashlight. The strong light hit the opposite wall and filled the room with long shadows.
“I think your father ran over something,” Phil told Wade. “The car started up right away. It didn’t need the jump. There’s no other reason you would have stalled out.”
“Did you see anything?” Wade continued rubbing his chest through the thick layers of winter coat he was not wearing.
“It was probably a deer,” Phil said. “A deer’s got the strength to stop a car like that.”
“Did you check the grate?”
“There was nothing,” Phil said.
“Then it wasn’t a deer,” Wade told him. “Deers leave their fur.”
“There was nothing except a dent near the driver’s-side headlight,” Phil said.
“There’d be blood if it was a deer,” Wade said. “Those animals bleed more than any animal on this earth.” They stood, ready to leave the house.
“Wait,” Janeene called as they went out the front door.
They turned back and looked at her. “What?” Phil asked.
“I want to see it. I want to see the car,” she said. She put on her coat and wrapped a wool scarf around the bottom part of her face.
“It’s thirty below out there,” Phil said. “Stay in here where it’s warm.”
“There’s no reason for you to be out on a night like this,” Wade said. “This kind of cold can kill you.”
They were gone before she could protest further and right away the silence of the house was overwhelming. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to let go of whatever it was that was scaring her. The panic increased, and she stepped outside and stood on the front porch, letting the wind run through her body.
Phil and the men huddled around the two cars, but she could not hear their voices. She did not know if they were talking to each another. Phil had pulled his car around so that it faced Henry’s, and the front ends touched like animals confronting each other.
She turned toward the lake and saw a flash of light shoot up from the ground. She stared into the darkness, and a few minutes later there was another flash. Certain that it was not her imagination or something in the sky, she stepped off the porch. Staying close to the houses, away from the street lamps, she walked as fast as she could through the snowdrifts. When she was far enough away so that the men would not hear or see her, she took off.
She ran stiffly in her heavy winter clothes. The cold air filled her lungs, and her sides ached with cramps. The fear stayed with her, but she refused to stop. She had to know what was out there.
The breakwater was somewhere off to her left. She could hear the rustling noise in the tall evergreen branches. It was too dark to know exactly where she was until she reached the beach. The winter wind had caught and trapped the sand like waves in motion. She turned to look where she had come from. Marquette was covered in a shadowlike net cast from the lake. It was near midnight. The streets should have been deserted, yet she thought she saw shadows moving in the distance. If there were only a bit more light, Janeene was certain she would at least see hints of all the figures hiding on Superior’s shoreline. But understand them, she could not.