Sweet Lamb of Heaven (27 page)

Never seen anything like it, they said. There were no holes or slits, no punctures at all: the tires were perfectly good except for the fact that the treads on the rear ones were a bit too worn for comfort.

They wanted to sell us two new tires.

“Maybe these mechanics are in league with Ned too,” I said nervously. Lena was feeding coins into a vending machine, out of earshot, and I watched her as I spoke.

“I thought I was the paranoid one,” said Will. “Still. Maybe we
should
replace all four tires, huh?”

“I don't want to be chickenshit,” I said. “But OK.”

Will drove after that while I tried to play a word game with Lena, thinking of animals whose names started with the last letter of the animal before. But she soon tired of it and asked to use my tablet for a game, making hairstyles on cartoon people whose faces looked like square potatoes.

When we got to his house I was relieved. I'd sat in the passenger seat with the muscles in my stomach clenched—sat forward the whole way, strained, unable to relax enough to lean back in the seat. The guy who'd installed the alarm system was waiting for us, his van idling in the driveway behind Will's truck, now covered in drifts of hardened snow. Will warned me as we were driving into town, so I wouldn't take fright, I guess—that's what I've come to, apparently. I have to be warned about the presence of men in vans.

We all went up to the door, rubbing our gloved hands together in the cold, the installer chugging along beside us, a drunk-nosed man with a beard. He let us in and walked us through the system, whose electronic display looked out of place amid the weathered wood trim and old furniture. Lena was puzzled by the setup, asking why we needed to touch a display to come in. We hadn't needed to before.

“It's like Doug,” said Will. “Solly's apartment building has a doorman to watch over it, right? But we don't have Doug in my house so we're using this little guy right here.” He rested his hand on the console.

She'd loved Doorman Doug, of course, who brought her puzzle books that featured the Mario Brothers, with a few of their yellowing pages scrawled over long ago by his now-teenage sons. Lena did not prefer the Mario Brothers. They were strangers to her.

But she liked Will's explanation and named the alarm console New Doug.

ON OUR FOURTH
afternoon back in Maine, while Will was off at the library, Lena wanted a nap; I was tired too so I lay down beside her on the double bed in Will's guest room, which he'd given her for our time here. The walls, covered in antique wallpaper of faded but regal-looking lions, were festooned with her taped-up decorations, drawings she'd done of fairies and princesses, photos of Kay, Faneesha, Solly, herself standing with both Lindas beside her snow effigy, its head already half-melted.

I dozed off not long after she did and was only woken by a wrong smell. It was familiar, but still I took a minute to put a name to it: smoke. And it was too warm in the room, I realized—sweat had beaded on my forehead and under my arms.

Had I left something on the stove, maybe a kettle? I left Lena sleeping and started down the stairs.

But there was smoke at the bottom, enough of it to hide the view below, and a block of hot air hit me. I turned around again to get Lena—and where was my phone? Downstairs, damn it, somewhere past the smoke, I'd left it charging down there. Will's landline was on the first floor too.

I shook her awake and bundled her into a thick sweater and we ran to the bedroom where Will and I slept, which had French doors that opened onto a balcony. I wrenched the doors open and stepped out onto the rickety wooden platform, which hung over the back of the house. The view was of the large and unkempt yard, brown grass mostly covered in thin patches of ice and crusts of snow. At the back of it were trees, over which rooftops were faintly visible, but not close enough to yell at.

Most of the neighbors were probably at work, I thought, since it was the middle of a weekday.

“Honey, I think we have to climb down,” I said.

“It's too slippery!” cried Lena, her voice squeaking. She touched the ice along the wooden rail.

But Lena's a much better climber than I am, a climber who shimmies up to the canopy of trees and freely climbs rock faces I'd never try, and we got out safely, she first, me after, though I fell the last couple of feet. I twisted my ankle, scraped my elbows a bit. We went around to the front yard and still saw no fire, just smoke leaking out the crack at the bottom of the front door. We ran next door, knocking and waiting, and just as the neighbor's door opened we watched the roof cave in.

THE HOUSE ISN'T
a total loss. A fire engine pulled up not long after the neighbor called 911, siren shrieking, and we stood by shivering as the firemen plied the hoses, stood with our eyes smarting as smoke billowed out of a broken front window.

I picked up Lena and held her on my hip the whole time—she's old for holding like that, but still light at forty-some pounds. She didn't cry. She was openmouthed but not outwardly frightened.

Other than the section of roof that collapsed, only the kitchen and living room are badly damaged. Mostly they're waterlogged. Will's homeowner's insurance will cover the repairs, but those repairs will take a while. It was an electrical fire, the cops told us when we met with them at the station. There's no evidence of arson, they said.

I assumed it was Ned, somehow this too was Ned's doing. But the firemen shrugged and said the house is old, its wiring is pre-code. One of them brought me an informational brochure, nodding helpfully as though the handout would fully explain everything.

On the front it has a picture of a fifties-style couple in their kitchen—she beside the stove, he sitting straight-backed at the table, wearing a suit and tie, with a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs in front of him. The man and woman are both slim and attractive, and smile at each other in a satisfied fashion. But sticking through the open door behind their backs, as though to peer in and wave, are plump, decorative tongues of flame, apparently unseen.

Each year, household wiring and lighting cause an estimated average of 32,000 home fires in the United States. On average, these fires result in 950 injuries and 220 deaths. They cause more than $670 million in property damage.

Even the insurance forensics guys who came to inspect the house shook their heads as though the fire had been inevitable—we'd been asking for it by being so brash as to live in the house at all.

So it's back to The Wind and Pines, where Don has set us up with two adjoining rooms close to the lobby. He keeps the security system updated since the kidnapping: he gave himself a crash course in the software after it happened. So we're still surveilled, and the homeowners' insurance is paying for our rooms until the repairs are done.

There are other motels in driving distance, of course, but Don is Will's friend and Lena's so fond of him, and besides the Lindas are still here, the sole holdouts of the group, still setting out on their beachcombing walks every morning, still not ready to part ways from each other and go home.

In the end, coming back here, it seems we didn't have much choice.

WE ALL ATE
in the motel café tonight, Will and Don and the Lindas and Lena and I. Somehow it felt like we were trying too hard to have a regular meal. No one from town was there; the café's first emptiness had returned.

Don and I were left alone together after dinner, when the Lindas went to show Lena some video clips of kittens who were friends with tortoises; Will headed back to our rooms to unpack. We'd maybe had a couple too many glasses of wine, Don and I. Or at least I had. Don was drinking whiskey.

“At first, when it began,” he said, “I
did
worry. I knew there were antagonists who might also be attracted, antagonists like your husband. We're a magnet for them.”

“You mean—a magnet? How?” I asked.

“Some people, historically, have heard the voice when—let's say when danger is already near. But after a while, this year, I relaxed my vigilance because no one showed up. No one to worry about. And then they did. I'm sorry I wasn't better prepared, Anna.”

“You did your best,” I said.

We sat in silence, likely both wondering if that was true.

“Kay sent you some emails,” said Don after a minute. “Didn't she?”

“She was so upset. And with her diagnosis—I didn't know what to make of them,” I said.

“You can credit them. She knew,” said Don softly.

I met his gaze for a moment, but there was something too plain or too frank there and I had to look away.

“She
knows
,” I corrected, a little halfhearted.

“If you pay attention to the culture,” said Don, “you can see these threads of recognition. There are interferences and smokescreens all over, but the threads are perceptible if you know where to find them. Kay was right. And she's sick, yes. She suffers from an illness of long standing. She's struggled very hard against it. But she also has rare insight. These years are decisive, Anna. We're in the midst of a great acceleration and a great implosion. These years are our last chance.”

I sat there sipping my wine and wondering if Don
was
, finally, a crank. I think like that when bold pronouncements are made; I wonder if both sides are nothing but cranks, with one simply more powerful than the other. Ned's Bible-thumping friends think they're right and all others are wrong—their powerful fear of other groups that turns to hatred and plays into the hands of the profiteers. But the profiteers themselves, with their millions of tentacles sunk deep into every crack in the earth, don't give a shit about being right. They're powerful. When you have enough power, right or wrong is for kids. Then there's Don, with just us, this small crowd of overeducated, confused liberals who also believe the other side is dead wrong, his small stable of adherents to the Hearing Voices Movement.

“No,” Don said into the silence.

I guess I'd spoken out loud, though I could have sworn I hadn't. But I was drunk enough not to worry about it.

I probably still am.

And I did know what he was talking about, I knew what he meant by
last chance
. He meant what Kay had written to me in her rambling and half-coherent email. He meant the world that had evolved over millions of years, the mass of living things through which all forms of intelligence cycle, through which a billion variations move and express themselves, the ark of creation over eras and eons. He meant the spirit and expression of all creatures and all people, their cultures and tongues and arts and musics, from the vaunted to the unknown; he meant what was organic and alive, the broad, branching tree of evolution that was history and biology and all kinds of astonishing bodies full of ancient knowledge.

He meant that it was on its way out.

THE PUSH IN FRONT
of the subway train, all four tires going out on a fast road, the house fire while we were fast asleep—they seem too multiple for sheer coincidence, but they don't add up to an understandable pattern. Also, after the subway push someone had grabbed me and pulled me back. That was the first attempt, if I want to see it that way. The second: our tires went out on the Interstate, but in the end we hit no other cars—not the car so close on our left, not the dinged-up, rusting gray guardrail on the right. And the third: Will's house burning. But I woke up and I smelled the smoke, and ten minutes later Lena and I were standing safely outside in the snow, watching an empty building burn.

Will barely believed in the fire when I called him at work. He's seemed to be in a mild state of shock ever since, a man who's been pushed too far: many of his dear old books were destroyed, all the books on his living room shelves.

I want to tell him:
Really, Will. You don't have to be in this with me. I'm grateful. And I don't know the difference anymore between gratitude and love. But I'm willing to cut you loose.

I know he wouldn't go.

I wonder what's more important, the fact that all these events occurred in the first place or the fact that they were only close calls, that in each case none of us have succumbed.

So far.

Since the fire I'm obsessed with when the next “accident” will occur, when the new onslaught will begin.

The subway episode was ten days ago. The car accident was less than a week. The fire was the day before yesterday. They fall closer together now.

I lie awake thinking of Lena, of what will become of her if something happens to me, or if she is also a target. She was there two out of three times, after all. I harbor wild thoughts, such as: Maybe I
should
have fallen in front of the subway train, because at least then I was alone. At least she might be safe right now. But I fear what would become of her if I die, so there's cold comfort there.

I lie awake worrying about Ned having custody. It's Solly I'd want to raise her, I guess, but since Ned and I aren't even divorced I'm pretty sure there's no way to legally exclude him. If he wanted guardianship, regardless of his craven reasons, he would get it. And I lie awake berating myself for my lack of leverage. I've brought this down on our heads, but I cast bitterness in Ned's direction too. I blame myself but I also know hatred.

I never knew it before him.

I TOLD WILL
I was going to turn in with Lena last night, that I was exhausted—because I was—and then I lay in bed wearing Lena's earphones, which are large and shiny plastic discs in the shape of monkey faces. I thought of what Don had said to me, what Kay had written, of how I'd seen a city crumble beneath a cloud of dust.

Lena rolled away from me as I prepared to say Goodbye to Stress, and before long fell asleep clutching her duck.

The images didn't feel like a dream. I was aware of the room as I lay there, the shape of the TV cabinet, the bathroom door slightly ajar, the mirror on the dresser showing glints in the dark. I lay in an indoor twilight holding those dim motel-room shapes in front of me as I began to sink under. Did I keep my eyes open?