My father was holding my mother tightly as she wept against him, and I heard him say: “He told us they might come.”
I waited halfway down the stairs, holding my breath.
“But how could that be?” my mother asked. “How could it be the same people?”
“I don’t know, but it was. I saw them. I heard what they said.”
My mother began to cry again, but the tone had changed: it was now a high keening, the sound of someone breaking apart. It was as though a dam had burst inside her, and all that she had kept hidden away was now pouring through the breach, sweeping away the life she once had in a great torrent of grief and violence. Later, I would wonder if, had she managed to hold herself together, she might have been able to prevent what happened next, but she was so caught up in her own sorrow that she failed to see that, in killing those two young people, her husband had destroyed something crucial to his own existence in the process. He had murdered a pair of unarmed teenagers, and, despite what he had said to her, he was not sure why; that, or he was unable to live with the possibility that what he had told her was true. He was tired, wearier than he had ever been. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep and never wake up.
They became aware of my presence, and my father removed his right arm from around my mother, and welcomed me into their embrace. We remained that way for a minute until my father patted us both on the back.
“Come on,” he said. “We can’t stay like this all day.”
“Are you hungry?” my mother asked, wiping her eyes on her apron. There was no emotion to her voice now, as though, having given vent to her pain, she had nothing else left to give.
“Sure. Eggs would be good. Bacon and eggs. You want some bacon and eggs, Charlie?”
I nodded, although I was not hungry. I wanted to be near my father.
“You should take a shower, change your clothes,” my mother said.
“I’ll do that. I just need to do something else first. You worry about those eggs.”
“Toast?”
“Toast would be good. Wheat, if you have it.”
My mother began bustling around the kitchen. When her back was to us, my father held my shoulder tightly and said:
“It’ll all be fine, understand? You help your mother, now. Make sure she’s okay.”
He left us. The back door opened, then closed again. My mother paused and listened, like a dog sensing some disturbance, then returned to heating the oil in the pan.
She had just broken the first egg when we heard the shot.
CHAPTER THREE
THE MOVEMENT OF THE clouds against the sun caused the light to change rapidly, disconcertingly, brightness briefly fading to a wintry dusk in the blink of an eye, a taste of the greater darkness that would soon encroach. The front door opened and the old man appeared on his doorstep. He was wearing a hooded jacket, but he still had his slippers on his feet. He trotted to the end of the path and stopped at the edge of his property, his toes lined up with the lawn, as though the sidewalk were a body of water and he was fearful of falling from the bank.
“Can I help you with something, son?” he called.
Son.
I crossed the street. He tensed slightly, wondering now if it had been such a good idea to confront a stranger after all. He glanced down at his slippers, probably thinking that he should have taken the time to put on his boots. He would have felt less vulnerable in boots.
Up close, I could see that he was seventy or more. He was a small, fragile-looking man and, I imagined, he had always been that way; he did not carry himself like one who had once been significantly bigger and fitter, yet he had enough inner strength and confidence to face down an unknown man who was staking out his home. There were men younger than he was who would simply have called the police. His eyes were brown and rheumy, but the skin on his face was relatively unwrinkled for someone of his age. It was especially taut around his eye sockets and cheekbones, giving the impression that his skin had begun to shrink, not loosen, against his skull.
“I once lived here, in this house,” I said.
Some of the wariness left him.
“You one of the Harrington boys?” he asked, squinting as he tried to identify me. There were marks on either side of his nose from the spectacles he usually wore. Perhaps he had decided to leave them inside in order to make himself appear less frail than he was.
“No, I’m not.”
I didn’t even know who the Harringtons were. The people who bought the house after we left were named Bildner. They were a young couple, with a baby daughter. But then, over a quarter of a century had passed since I had last seen the house. I had no idea how many times it might have changed hands over the years.
“Huh. What’s your name, son?”
And each time he said that word, I heard the echo of my father’s voice.
“Parker,” I said. “Charlie Parker.”
“Parker,” he repeated, chewing on the word as though it were a piece of meat of whose taste he remained uncertain. He blinked rapidly three times, and his mouth tightened in a kind of wince. “Yes, I know who you are now. My name’s Asa, Asa Durand.”
He held out his hand, and I shook it.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
“Twelve years, give or take. The Harringtons were here before us, but they sold it and moved to Dakota. Don’t know if it was North or South. Don’t suppose it matters much, seeing as how it was Dakota.”
“You been to Dakota?”
“Which one?”
“Either.”
He smiled mischievously, and I saw clearly the young man now trapped in an old man’s body. “Why would I want to go to Dakota?” he asked. “You want to come inside?”
I heard myself say the words before I even realized I had made the decision.
“Yes,” I said, “if it’s not an imposition.”
“Not at all. My wife will be home soon. She plays bridge on Sunday afternoons, and I cook dinner. You’re welcome to stay, if you’re hungry. It’s pot roast. Always pot roast on Sundays. It’s the only thing I can cook.”