HOME IS A SMALL TWO-STORY house on North Broadway. When Hastings comes through the door his daughter, Liza, hugs his legs and laughs as he picks her up and twirls her to the ceiling. She kisses his cheek and calls him Daddy and smiles beneath orange curls. He crash-lands her on the couch and tickles her stomach until she squeals.
In the dawn-lit kitchen he unbuttons his uniform and hangs it on a hook. Instead of graduate school in the humanities he enrolled in the police academy and graduated top of his class. He had options but chose to work for his hometown rather than for the state. He had reasons. He was of the town, and the town was of him. He wanted to raise a family here, have his children walk the same neighborhood, play in the same park, and attend the same school. He wanted security and familiarity and imagined himself a protector. And he wanted to wear a jet-black uniform.
He pours himself a tall glass of water. That summer he installed an advanced filtration system and a reverse-osmosis tap beside the sink. It had almost exhausted their meager savings. But now the water tastes safe and clean.
His wife comes to the doorway and twirls her curly red hair thoughtfully. Even at thirty she is slim with hips and reminds him of the cheerleader she was, something feral.
At night he watches documentaries on lions to study how they move.
“Did you guys ever find Randy?” she says.
“Nope. As you can see, I’m not looking that hard.”
“He’ll turn up. I don’t know why Becky’s so worried. He’s always been a flighty roach.”
“Why are these here?” He points at three pens and an open checkbook, scattered over the kitchen table. “These don’t belong here.”
“I just forgot I set them there, Brett.”
He gathers them, places them neatly in a small desk. “Everything has its place, honey.”
She slinks closer, sets her head on his broad chest, runs a hand through his sandy hair. “I’ve missed you.”
He kisses her forehead, tastes her sweat. “How was your day yesterday?”
“Mrs. Taylor came in at ten and then Mrs. Lassiter at noon. Martha Wehr at two, wanted me to make her look like Jennifer Lawrence, but I don’t do miracles.”
She cuts hair in a room he built off the pantry. In the Yellow Pages she is listed as Whitney Hastings, Stylist. She enjoys making older women look pretty. They enjoy her energy and kindness, and the occasional town gossip from an officer’s wife. Whitney also teaches a yoga class at the wellness center.
“Then your daughter comes home from your mom’s and watches her iPad, starts barking. Gesundheit this and gesundheit that.”
“Which lesson is she on?”
“Oh, I don’t know. She moves through them so fast. She wants to impress you.”
On a calendar next to the refrigerator is her monthly menu. Tonight is baked tilapia, steamed broccoli, and mashed sweet potatoes. They eat supper at 7:00 PM every evening around a candlelit table, no television or screen of any kind, only classical music. The radio on the mahogany server is perpetually tuned to Bach FM, violin concertos and piano sonatas. It was not Whitney’s taste, but he assured her it was good for a child’s development.
“Daddy!” Liza rushes around the corner. “Listen to what I can do!”
He smiles for his daughter to go on.
She stretches her milky neck and clears her throat. “Die Musik ist nett und mein Vater ist super schlau.”
“Ah. Sehr gut. Danke. Und deine Mutter?” He pats Whitney’s head. “Was ist Sie?”
“Sie ist… um.” Liza twirls on her feet. “Sie ist sehr schön!”
“Good work, lady.” He gives her a thumbs-up. “I’m proud of you. Keep at it.”
“What did she say?” Whitney frowns. “What did she say about me?”
Liza snaps her fingers into pistols and runs back into the living room.
“It was sweet,” he says.
“I can’t understand her. You two got your own secret language, and I’m left in the lurch.”
“You could learn with her, honey. Watch the lessons. You could help each other.”
“Yeah, right. It’d be like going back to school. I’d rather donate an organ out my nose.”
He flicks her hair and changes into dirty jeans and a white T-shirt, his “grubbies.” He hands her his holstered .357 revolver, and she locks it in a drawer beside the washing machine.
“Maybe I could teach her how to cheerlead.”
“No,” he says. “No. My daughter will not be a cheerleader.”
“I swear.” She sighs. “It’s so easy, pushing your buttons. You forget I know you.”
He realizes his mistake. “It’s not that… I don’t care that you were.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waves him outside. “Be gone, milord. Take your little pupil with you.”
Off the back porch is an enclosed herb garden, some squash and green beans. A large lavender bush grows beside the steps, his favorite scent. Liza sits nearby and plays with her dolls.
“You have to pull out these weeds,” he instructs her, “so the best plants can grow. Weeds suffocate the healthier plants.” His fingers dig into the dirt. Roots dangle from his palms.
The male doll moves its blocky hands, blinks its eyes at the chunky female rolling along the porch edge. “She’s happy. Now she’s sad. So he feels sad. Willst du Milch trinken?”
They were gifts from his parents, newly automated toys from Japan that move independently through a simple system of battery-powered sensors and motors.
“Her name is Heidi. His name is Frank. They live in a house at the end of a lane.”
“Your mom and I will sometimes argue about how to raise you. I think of you like a plant. You just need the right light and environment. The less we interfere, the better. Everything that you’ll become is already written inside you, like a seed.”
She positions the dolls, makes them dance. “They love each other.”
He sprays the garden with a green rubber hose.
“That water smells weird, Daddy. Bad.”
“I know, sweetheart. Don’t ever drink it. Always get a glass from the osmosis faucet.”
The man-doll shakes his square head at him, scowls with narrowed lids.
“Are you making it do that?” Hastings says.
“No, it’s doing that. When I wave my hand, like this!”
The toy waddles back and forth. The woman’s square head spins.
He considers the damp soil, the dripping hose, a small bullet hole in the bag covering Randy’s face, the mess within. He glances at the window, but his wife isn’t there.
“People want to believe in alternatives, that the world can be something other than it is. Environmentalists will talk about substitutability. Soy will replace meat. Wind and solar will replace coal and oil. There is an underlying belief that technology can save us. But there is no substitute for water. None. Without water, after three days, you suffer in the most miserable way you can imagine. Your body withers. Your brain shrivels and rips away from your skull. And then you die.”
Liza stays very still, quiet. She picks at a stain on her shirt. Then she wiggles her hands. “Hey. Look, Daddy. Look. They’re dancing. They’re making sounds. They’re thinking.”