“Let’s sit.” Clay gestured at the stools at the kitchen island.
“Clay, I should explain.” G. H. took this on as a masculine burden, like arranging rental cars for trips out of town. He thought another husband might understand. “As I said, I would have called. We tried to, actually, but there’s no service.”
“We stayed not far from here a couple of summers ago.” Clay wanted to establish that he had some hold on this geography. That he knew what it was like to have a house in the country. “Impossible to get a signal most of the time.”
“That’s true,” G. H. said. He had sat, put elbows on marble, leaned forward. “But I’m not sure if that’s what’s happening at the moment.”
“How’s that?” Clay felt he should offer them something. Weren’t they guests? Or was he the guest? “Can I get you some water?”
Down the dark hall, Amanda used her cell phone as a light. Having confirmed that Archie and Rose still existed, lost in the unworried sleep of children, she tarried just out of sight, straining to hear what was being discussed while trying to get her phone to engage. She gazed at it as if it were a mirror, but it did not recognize her—maybe the hallway was too dark—and did not come to life. Amanda pressed the home button, and it lit up, showing her a news alert, the barely legible T of the New York Times and only a few words: “Major blackout reported on the East Coast of the United States.” She jabbed at it, but the application did not open, just the white screen of the thinking machine. This was a specific flavor of irritation. She couldn’t be mad, but she was.
“Tonight we were at the symphony.” G. H. was in the middle of his explanation. “In the Bronx.”
“He’s on the board of the Philharmonic—” Connubial pride, it couldn’t be helped. She and George believed in giving back. “It’s to encourage people to take an interest in classical music . . .” Ruth was overexplaining.
Amanda came into the room.
“The kids are okay?” Clay did not understand that this had been only pretense.
“They’re fine.” Amanda wanted to show her husband her phone. She didn’t have any news beyond those eleven words, but it was something, and represented some advantage over these people.
“We were driving back to the city. Home. Then something happened.” He wasn’t trying to be vague. Even in the car he and Ruth hadn’t spoken of it, because they were afraid.
“A blackout.” Amanda produced this, triumphant.
“How did you know?” G. H. was surprised. He had expected to have to explain. They’d seen nothing but darkness all the way out, and then, through the trees, the glow of their own house. They couldn’t believe it because it didn’t make sense, but they didn’t care to make sense. The relief of light and its safety.
“A blackout?” Clay was expecting something worse.
“I got a news alert.” Amanda took her phone from her pocket and put it on the counter.
“What did it say?” Ruth wanted more information. She’d seen it with her own eyes but knew nothing. “Did it say why?”
“Just that. There was a blackout on the East Coast.” She looked at the phone again, but the alert was gone, and she didn’t know how to return to it.
“It is windy outside.” Clay felt that the cause and effect was clear.
“It’s hurricane season. Wasn’t there news about a hurricane?” Amanda couldn’t recall.
“A blackout.” G. H. nodded. “So we thought. Well, we live on the fourteenth floor.”
“The traffic lights would have all gone out. It would have been chaos.” Ruth didn’t want to bother explaining in more detail. The city was as unnatural as it was possible to be, accretion of steel and glass and capital, and light was fundamental to its existence. A city without power was like a flightless bird, an accident of evolution.
“A blackout?” Clay felt like he was simply offering the word to someone who had forgotten it. “There’s been a blackout. That doesn’t seem so bad.”
Amanda didn’t buy it. It didn’t seem true. “The lights seem to be working here.”
She was right, of course. Still, everyone looked at the pendants over the kitchen island, like four people seeking hypnosis. You couldn’t explain electricity at all, neither its presence nor its absence. Were her words an act of hubris? There was the sound of the wind against the window over the sink. Immediately thereafter, the lights flickered. Not once nor twice; four times, like a message in Morse that they had to decipher, like a succession of flashbulbs, but it held steady, it held course, the light held the night at bay. The four of them had breathed in sharply; all four of them exhaled.
9
“JESUS CHRIST.” THE LORD’S NAME IN VAIN MEANT BLASPHEMY but also futility. Jesus cared nothing for Clay, but the power didn’t go out. Clay had already imagined Amanda and the other woman (what was her name?) screaming. Maybe it was unkind to equate femininity with fear. He’d have to reason with them—a windy night, a far-off corner of Long Island. The world was so big that much of it was remote. You could forget this if you lived too long in a city. Electricity was a miracle. They should be grateful.
“It’s fine.” G. H. said it to himself, to his wife.
“So there was a blackout, and you drove all the way out here?” Amanda couldn’t make sense of this. Manhattan was so far away. It didn’t make any sense.
“These roads—they’re familiar. I barely even thought about it. We saw the lights go, and I looked at Ruth.” G. H. didn’t know how he would explain what he didn’t entirely understand.
“We thought we might stay,” Ruth said. No sense dancing around it. Ruth had always been direct.
“You thought you might stay—here?” Amanda knew these people wanted something. “But we’re staying here.”
“We knew we couldn’t drive into the city. We knew we couldn’t walk up fourteen flights. So we drove out here and thought you might understand.”
“Of course.” Clay understood.
Amanda looked at her husband. “What he means is, of course we understand—” Did she, though? What if this was some con? Perfect strangers worming their way into the house, into their lives.
“I know it’s a surprise. But maybe you can . . . This is our house. We wanted to be in our house. Safe. While we figured out what’s going on out there.” G. H. was being honest, but it still seemed like he was selling something.
“It’s our good luck we had gas.” Ruth nodded. “Honestly, I don’t know how much farther we could go.”
“Aren’t there any hotels . . .” Amanda was trying not to be rude, but she knew this sounded rude. “We’ve rented the house.”
Clay was thinking it over. He began to say something. He was persuaded.
“Of course! You’ve rented the house.” G. H. knew they’d talk about money, because most conversations got there eventually. Money was his subject. It was no matter. “We could of course offer you something. We know it’s an inconvenience.”
“You know, we’re on vacation.” Amanda thought inconvenience too mild a word. It felt like a euphemism. That he’d been so quick to bring money into it seemed more dishonest.