“I just needed to shut her up and let us leave. I mean really. I thought I was at a political rally for a second there. Sign up for this, vote on that.”
As they started to walk down the hill, a blue sedan with Lyft and Uber signs in its window pulled up to the curb. A woman exited. She was tall with dark hair. Not a hint of a smile as she nodded hello to Hillary.
“Evening,” Hillary said. She didn’t introduce her sister, and the woman started walking up the long driveway. “Uber drivers hate long driveways, have you noticed that?” Hillary said as they walked. “It’s really absurd. I mean, what’s the point of paying if you have to walk?”
Something about the tall woman’s gait, slow and methodical, like an adolescent boy’s, made Hannah turn and watch her.
“Who’s that?”
“Someone late for book club who’s going to get yelled at for not reading the book.”
Hillary’s studied breeziness and lack of introduction hung in the air. Along with the way the woman walked. So familiar, it made Hannah shiver.
“Wait, is that…is that her sist—Is that Marisa Gothie? From high school?”
She stopped and watched her walking, and Hillary pulled her arm.
“I thought the Gothies moved,” Hannah whispered.
“Well, people move back. As you should know.”
“Jesus, Hillary, does Marisa live here, in the neighborhood? Does she come to the book club?”
“No! She lives somewhere, I don’t know. West of here. And yes. Sometimes. Once in a while. She’s friends with Monica. But not her sister.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s been twenty years, and it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” Hannah said. “Great, well, I guess I can’t be in the book club.”
“Stop it, Han,” Hillary said. “Let it go once and for all.”
Another fire truck and an ambulance approached them and passed from the Gotham Road side. Without flashing lights and sirens, they were just lumbering beasts, moving slowly, too large for their narrow, winding street.
“Weird that they’re leaving but the police aren’t leaving, too,” Hannah said.
“I guess.”
Hannah stopped and turned back, as if she wanted to snapshot the moment, capture it to understand it better.
“I think there’s lights from three police cars down there.”
“It’s probably just the ornamental lights of their landscaping on the trees or something.”
“Red lights?”
“Okay, I don’t know. But you’re on edge now, so just stop worrying. And please don’t buy into that whole bullshit arson situation. Anne is a fucking racist.”
“I’m not buying into anything,” she replied. “But three police cars?”
“I would normally say they’re bored and looking for excitement. But they have a kid to find now, so there goes that theory.”
“Maybe these two things are related. The fire and the missing girl.”
The idea was suspended between them now, and Hillary shuddered. “Jesus, I hope not.” She crossed herself quickly, as she’d done since childhood, looked at her sister, and stared, until she did the same.
Hannah thought of her father, who used to take them to church so their mother could sleep in. Her father had taught them how to cross themselves, how to throw salt over their shoulder, how to blow on dice and wish for snake eyes. He’d also taught them how to put out a grease fire, with baking soda and a rug. A grease fire he started once or twice a month by falling asleep drunk while cooking. There were a lot of ways, she knew, to start a fire.
But only a few to extinguish one.
Eight
Eva
I watched through the window, waiting, hoping to catch Hannah before she got inside. I saw them walk up the driveway together and sighed. Of course, the two of them coming back together. I hadn’t counted on that. That complicated things, of course. How could I win in this situation? Both grandchildren mad at me, and soon, if I didn’t choose my words carefully, both daughters, too.
Oh well. You don’t become a mother to make friends, do you?
Above me, I heard Morgan stomping around in her room. Cleaning it up, allegedly. Throwing clothes into the hamper, toys into her baskets and cubbies. Thud, thud, thud. All the money they’d spent on this house, and how the sounds still carried! No soundproofing! I’d sent her there when she’d tried to run down the driveway toward Miles. Grabbed her little arm when she didn’t pay heed. And the look on her face! The shock of betrayal! Fun Grandma turned into stern Grandma! But I knew I was throwing right thing after wrong.
I should have grabbed Miles’s arm, too. Should have yanked him away, let the animal fall, endured the screams from both of them. Was that what Hannah would have done? I don’t know. It certainly was what Hillary would have done. No nonsense, fast-acting Hillary. But Hannah would have wanted the story, the reasons. Would she have stayed down there, waited with him, reassured him somehow even though there was another child alone up the hill? Would she have worried, as I did for a moment, what exactly he planned to do with that animal if I left him alone?
I’d left him there a few minutes to make up his own mind. Then, when he hadn’t returned, I’d gone halfway down. I told him I’d called animal control and they were on their way.
“No, Grandma! They’ll kill her!”
“Miles, they are the experts. You are not. If she can be saved, they’ll save her.”
That had always worked with my girls. Research, expertise. It’s not up to us. Let’s turn to the authorities. But they weren’t rebellious. Wise and crafty, but not rebels. Miles was another story altogether.
“No!”
“Miles,” I said, “you have to leave it in case you are seen…tampering with an animal. They may think you’ve hurt it! What would happen then? Do you want to go to prison? Now get up here right now!”
Oh, later I would beat myself up about those words, my haste, my choices. The empty threats turned full. But it seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Not prescient. Not prescient at all.
And so he started his slow walk up that hill of grass. So artificially green, still, devoid of clippings, mulch, or errant leaves thanks to the trucks that arrived every other day and tended it.
I sent him into the living room, the boring, dull living room, with no television, no toys or games. Just a silver bowl and a book of Avedon photographs. Not even a candy dish. Not even a magazine he could thumb through.