IT’S A NINE.” The boy holds it up in the air.
“Why not a six?”
The boy shrugs. “Well, let’s just put all the numbers together and we can figure it out later.”
Jeremy looks at the jumble of puzzle pieces on the shorthair carpet. It’s not a rocket ship. It’s nothing, just pieces.
“Look for the corner pieces, Kent. And the ones that go along the sides. Pieces with straight sides.”
“I want to put the numbers together, and the letters. They go together. I figured out the dinosaur puzzle all by myself. You were wrong about the rocket ship. We should also find all the colors and put them into a pile.”
Jeremy puts the toe of a scuffed brown loafer into the pile of pieces, moving them about; he can’t recall a puzzle this complex. Where’s the top of the box? He needs to know what picture they’re even trying to create. He looks at the base of the reddish armoire; it’s not there. Where is Emily? He thinks he hears voices in the other room. One sounds so familiar but he can’t place it.
He looks down a darkened hallway. Someone standing in the darkness. Something. A creature.
He looks at the boy. “No point in grouping by color. Almost all the pieces are red. Corners and sides.”
“Why do we always have to do it your way?”
He looks at Kent. The boy now has a mustache and stands nearly six feet. He blinks and Kent is himself again, adorable and boyish, red and blue pajamas with baseballs.
“Kent, we don’t have to do it my way. We have to do it the right way. If you want to do it the wrong way, then you may as well do everything the wrong way. Good way to get a great fast-food job. You can put the Kent in Kentucky Fried Chicken.”
“The world doesn’t have corners. It’s a circle. Besides, I’m the one that recognized the colors of the bridge.”
Jeremy looks near the boy’s pajama-clad feet. A pile of puzzle pieces with letters, combining to make words. One of them combined into an arch. Wait, no, the span of a bridge?
“Bad logic. Just because something doesn’t have corners doesn’t mean it can’t have sides.”
“For goodness’ sake, Jeremy, why can’t he be right?”
Jeremy startles at the sound of the woman’s voice. Seized with fear of recognition, he turns slowly around Emily’s living room to find out where it is coming from. He turns his gaze from the armoire to the futon couch, the scratched end table bought at the secondhand store from that woman with the vulture’s pose. He stops on the antique chair next to the front window.
He sees her, holding a box in her hand.
“You’re dead,” he says to his mother.
“Oh really,” she says, and smiles. “Then how come I’m looking right at me?”
Kent lets out a hysterical laugh.
“She thinks you look like an old woman.”
“That’s not what she—” Jeremy pauses. Looks at his mother, her flowing gray curls, the blue hospice gown. “You have the puzzle box.”
“I do.”
“Show it to me.”
She looks at the cover. “That won’t make you happy.”
“Mom, this is serious. This is about the end of the world. This is about—”
There’s a low growl. It’s coming from the other side of the room. In the darkened hallway. Jeremy looks up. Something in the shadows.
“A lion.”
“Calm down, Jeremy.”
“Mom, listen!”
“You’re losing your cool.”
“Give me the fucking box.”
Kent laughs. “Mom, Jeremy just said ‘fucking’!”
“Let yourself love them, Jeremy.”
Jeremy sighs. He hears a pounding noise. It’s the front door. Someone frantic to get in.
“Wake up, Jeremy,” his mother says. “You’re almost out of time.”
“To save the world?”
His mother smiles. It’s so tender, angelic, a smile he’s never in his life seen from her.
Bang, bang, bang.
“I’ve seen that bridge before.”
“Wake up!” she implores.
Jeremy startles. Bang, bang, bang. He’s awake. A succession of thoughts. The numbers, the bridge.
He knows where he’s seen that bridge. Exactly that view.
Dry air courses into his nostrils, a shrill feeling bordering on painful from having slept inhaling recirculated air. How long did he sleep? The sharp artificial light in the bathroom burns his eyes. He vigorously shakes his head, willing the blood there.
He hears the voices. Outside in the hotel bedroom. He’s still locked in the bathroom. Andrea, presumably, is still outside. The TV, or is she no longer alone?