But this never happens.
An hour later the whole hill goes dark; the phone goes dead.
Now it’s Elena and the storm. The two of them. She torches last night’s candles. Shadows jump against the walls. Elena’s jittery hand. Elena’s own head. She hasn’t eaten all day. She could make hot chocolate. The stove’s gas. She pours two shots of Chivas in her mug instead.
Windows flex and clatter. The house throbs with her body: she’s the pounding heart in it. Shrubs scritch and slap. Limbs snap. Limbs tear. She thinks of the men from the square, wonders if they crawled into dumpsters and closed the lids.
Somewhere a door slams. Iris blown home? This is Elena’s prayer. In the kitchen, the back screen flaps. When she tries to latch it, a gust rips it from her hands. Hinges shear. Pellets hit her face, icy rain, tiny stones tossed by a tiny fist. The boy, she thinks, he’s out there. Voices roar in the whirlwind, all the lost children rising out of mud and grass.
Is she drunk already? Skinny woman, empty stomach — she tells herself that’s all it is.
Another door bangs below her, the one from garage to basement. Please, God, make it Iris. She stands at the top of the stairs and calls. No answer, only that smell of feral cat.
She takes her bottle to the couch, doesn’t bother with the mug. Candles gutter and flare. The animal follows, marks its territory, sprays its scent. She feels it heave in the leather beneath her thighs and back. Someone’s sewn its torn chest. Someone’s filled its belly with blood and gas.
She drifts. Dreams the creature on top of her. Crushing air from her lungs. Pinching veins in her neck. This beast has a thick hide and six hands. He’s heavy as three men. Feathers slap her face. Then it’s only the boy. Small, hard. The one from the Ave. The one from the square. The child. Little fingers too short to grip her neck. But he has his knife. And he’s so fast.
Then it’s Iris. White face, purple mouth. Iris with her sharp hips. Shaking her wet hair. Iris so close they take the same breath. Iris says, You know why I came back?
She jolts awake. Alone. It’s her own body that makes the couch warm. Her sweat. It’s her own small fist shoved in her mouth. Her own will that keeps her silent.
In the kitchen, a simple click. The refrigerator door opened and closed. Could it be that harmless? Iris willing to eat her food at last? No. Iris drinks coffee with cream. Eats salsa and chips. Once a day. Never here. The one in the kitchen cracks four eggs in a quart of milk, shakes three times, guzzles it. He tears off chunks of sausage with his pointy teeth. The better to eat you, he says.
Please, she thinks, make it quick. She remembers all those forbidden boys — black hair, dirty hands — Mexicans who picked fruit in her father’s orchards; Indians who worked for nobody, who never would, that’s what her father said; almost blue boys who sat on mailboxes, who pretended not to see the girl hiding in her pale skin, who said things she couldn’t understand as she passed, low things, tender threats, murmurs that made her feel flushed and damp, curses that made her want to beg forgiveness. I’ll throttle you. If I ever catch you with a boy like that. So she was with the clean white boys in the field. Drinking rum. And it was dark. And there was no color anywhere. So it was safe. And they were nice boys, sons of her father’s friends, boys she’d known since kindergarten, boys who were going to college next year. So how could she explain their hands on her, the marks they left, fingerprints on soft flesh, green bruises, arms gripped? How could she explain red marks on her neck and breasts? How could she go home and who could she blame and who would her father throttle if she confessed?
Later she thought she made it up. Just a bad dream, a hot wind full of dust. The next night she sat at the dinner table, moving her fork to her mouth, chewing, swallowing, as if eating still made sense.
Where was Mother?
In the bathroom with the door locked, lying in the tub, water so deep she could float.
Where was Little Sister?
In the kitchen getting Daddy another scotch and milk.
Years later little Julie was the one. Just like Elena. High in the parched hills above Yakima. Laughing, drunk. Then she was crying, clawing at the ground.
No one’s ever going to hear her.
No one’s ever going to come.
These sisters keep their silence forever. Each pretending the other doesn’t know.
How did Elena guess? She sat awake all night watching shooting stars flame out. Near dawn, Little Sister climbed in the window down the hall. Elena heard the shower pound and pound; she remembered her own skin, imagined Julie naked, scrubbing herself raw till scalding water ran ice cold.
Tonight Elena lies in another house, safe from her sister’s voice, deaf to words never said out loud: If you knew, why didn’t you help? How many years since Julie climbed in that window? Decades now. How many months since they’ve spoken on the phone? Elena can’t remember, doesn’t want to count. Julie has three ex-husbands and four children lost. The last time she called, Julie said the kids were still in foster care but she’d gotten sober, found God.
This time it’s not her sister sneaking in the window. Not her sister rattling doors in this house.
It’s the boy. She’s sure. Wet dog. The smell in the back seat all along. Yes, you brought him here yourself.
She crawls. She still has this advantage. It’s her house. She knows its obstacles. She scrambles to the stairs, where she can close one more door, slide one more bolt.
She can trap herself. Lie down in the tub. Roll under the bed. Squat in the closet.
She can make herself very small.
She can slip into Geoffrey’s suit and shoes, pretend to be someone else. She can plead for mercy, make bargains, talk to Julie’s God. She can swear she’ll never tell. I forget your face already.
She can say, Take anything you want.
The boy roars with laughter.
He says, Thanks, I will.
His voice fills her lungs like God. He holds all the cards. He has no reason to make deals with stupid girls.
But what does he want with her body? And what will he do with her blood?
This is where she finally goes: into the attic under the eaves, the coldest place, the cobwebbed peak of the house. It’s the last place he’ll look. Birds flap against a tiny window. Pigeons, swallows, gulls. They tap, all beak and claw. She could save them, cover her fist to break a hole. But she’s afraid they’ve gone mad in the storm. Afraid they’ll peck her apart.
There’s a trunk half full of sweaters where she lies down, deep in the smell of cedar, wrapped in Mother’s frayed quilt.
She hopes the boy finds the bottle of Chivas by the couch and drinks it all. She hopes he finds Geoffrey’s Goldschläger, twenty-four-karat flakes swirling in schnapps. She dreams veins full of metal, heart clogged with gold. She imagines morning, finding the boy curled on the floor, kneeling beside him, tying him with twine and scarves. She’ll wait for him to wake. She’ll say, Let me take you home.
The house erupts. The boy hears this thought. Home. His voice is exploding glass, a tree limb torn.
He says, I had a mother once, stupid as you are now.