He texts Deanne again:
can we just talk.
please.
give me a chance. I love you
He waits an hour, hour and a half, but there’s no response from Deanne. Finally, he gives up, turns off his phone, goes to sleep.
Or he tries to sleep. There’s the soft gurgle of the television, blue light leaking under the door of his room. Then the shift and step of David John and his mother going to bed. Past that, silence. Or something above silence: the sweep of snow carpeting upstate New York in a gentle but steady flow, dirt and grass disappearing with something less than urgency, the asphalt outside of the Blessed Church of the White America snow-coated, the spilled blood covered with white, the world around him covered entirely with white, cold and fresh, snow gliding from the heavens in an unhurried cadence, enough to keep the plows working through the night, but not enough to remake everything in the image of God.
Brody Ellis on his back. His face a pit of despair, gone. The protester—who was it? was it somebody he knew? Mrs. Howard? who?—unmoving. The glass falling over him, calling for his sister. She’s still because she’s scared. She’s still because she’s dead. Snow falls over all of them, covering bodies, covering blood, crosses in graveyards catching the snow, houses in Cortaca with roofs made pale and strange, the university campus inverted, the snow licking the surface of the lake, snow turning into dark, cold waters.
Snow covering Corson’s body, the sound of the truck hitting Corson’s body, Corson’s body, Corson’s body, don’t think about Corson’s body, Corson’s body, don’t think about Corson’s body, don’t think about Corson, don’t think about Corson.
Don’t.
The blankets are twisted around him, hot, his underwear damp from sweat, his hair slicked, the air around him cooling as the fire in the woodstove goes low, but he can feel himself burning. He can feel himself ready to ignite.
But somewhere, in all of that, he does sleep, because it’s morning.