The Summer We Lost Alice (26 page)

"I exist," Ethan said. "It appears to cause him stress."

"Maybe you'd want to exist somewheres else. Just a suggestion."

"Suggest whatever you want. Of course, this is Kansas. You'll probably want to steer clear of evolution and gay marriage."

"You must think you're a real comedian," Sammy said.

"You must think you're a real cop."

Sammy glared at Ethan silently for a few moments.

"Whatever," he said at last. "Thing is, he's
gonna be okay, they think."

"Good," Ethan said.

"Doc says you saved his life, gettin' him here so fast. I'm obliged." The words came with effort.

Ethan shrugged. "He'd have done the same for me."

"What makes you think so?" Sammy said.

A nurse motioned Sammy over. Ethan breathed a sig
h of relief. He made a mental note to talk to his therapist about his authority issues.

He heard the hospital door hiss. Heather walked in. She registered the bloody stain on his shirt and the way he was picking at the dried blood in his nose and knew that he'd suffered an episode.

"What was it this time?" she asked.

"I saw the witch.
Or the witch's daughter. Guess what? She seems like a sweet old lady."

"Hm.
Where is she now?"

"In Morse's room.
He asked for her. We had a nice long conversation first. Well, it was more of a monologue. Then Sammy arrived and gave me what-for. Thank God you're here. Take me away—"

"Wait. The witch got here before the sheriff?"

"She's not a witch, Heather. She's an herbalist or something. Into the whole natural foods, holistic cures thing. Like her mother."

"Witch or not, she arrived at the hospital before Sammy?"

"She beat him by a few minutes, yeah."

"I called the sheriff right after you left, while I was walking to the car. So how'd she hear about it and get here first?"

Ethan pulled at his nose. A few flecks of dried blood stuck to his fingertips. He felt stupid for ever bringing up the idea of witches. He was annoyed with Alice for planting the idea in his head and annoyed with Heather for perpetuating the fantasy.

"I'm thinking she was watching the whole thing in her magic pool,
then hopped onto her broomstick—"

"Spare me the
snark, please. How'd she know? Did you call her? 'Cause I sure as heck didn't."

They were still mulling the question over
—Sammy could have been detained for any number of reasons—when they saw the deputy hurry in and buttonhole the sheriff. He gestured toward Ethan and Heather. Sammy shook his head. They strode out under Ethan’s and Heather's quizzical gazes.

"What was that about?"

"Let's go," Ethan said, rising.

"Where?"

"Wherever they're off to like a pair of bats out of hell."

FLO CUT the meat off a bone-in ham and plopped it into the crock pot. The bone went into the kitchen trash. She diced carrots and celery and onion and added them to the pot along with the beans that she'd soaked overnight. She salt and peppered everything and set the pot on "high" to cook.

She lay down for her nap, awoke an hour later, fixed a small bowl of cottage cheese, and turned on the television to watch her stories. She dozed off now and again and woke to find that some new television family had stepped in to finish up the tragedy begun by another. But it didn't matter. Although the story lines shuffled together in her mind, it all worked as well as it needed to. The hours passed.

Flo turned off the television and luxuriated in the last minutes she had to herself before the kids came home from school. The aroma of fresh soup drifted down the hallway. It was a comfort knowing that dinner was taken care of. How many dinners had she cooked in her life? She tried to do the math in her head. Say, three hundred fifty a year, thirty-five hundred in ten years, fourteen thousand in forty years. Lord! Fourteen thousand dinners. Add in all the lunches, all the breakfasts—no wonder she was tired.

The impending arrival of the children made the minutes precious, the way twilight had been when she was young and playtime was drawing to a close. How important everything became when its time was running out! The humble grain of sand became a thing of fascination if it was one of the last to tumble through the hourglass. Environmentalists frothed at the mouth to save the last of a species of worm. The last cowboy rode off to glorious anonymity. The last movie to play at
Meddersville's theater—a slight and not very funny comedy—packed the house. Never mind being first. If you want to count for something, be the last of your kind.

So these minutes of solitude, cheap when they stretched before her in plenty, soared in value after three o'clock. Soon now the children's noisy footsteps, their laughter and complaints
, would fill the silence. Flo luxuriated in the quiet the way she had done at the ocean on her one trip west. She had sat on the rocks and filled her ears with silence while waiting for the next crashing roar of water against stone.

But what if the children never came? What if the evil took them as it had taken Alice, and all Flo had left
was a house of worthless, endless silences?

The notion worried her. She looked at the clock on the mantel. They should be home by now. No, not "should." They
could
be home now, but it wasn't time to start worrying. Not yet.

There—that was them, that noise in the kitchen, someone tugging at the back screen door. It was latched, as usual.
Listen to them,
she thought.
Why are they banging it like that? They know better. They're supposed to come around to the front.

A thought struck her.
What if someone's after them?
"Oh my God," she said. She leaped to her feet and hurried down the hallway toward the kitchen. "I'm coming!" she called. "I'm coming!" Her mind hit her with a theater of images that blinded her and made her stumble—an unshaven stranger with a knife slashing at the children, their blood flowing, the looks of terror on their faces. She thought of yelling, "I've got a gun!" but couldn't figure if that would make things better or worse.

In the kitchen, something crashed to the floor. Someone was in the house! He was ransacking the place. She should run, but what if he had the children?

"I've called the police!" Flo yelled. She swung open the kitchen door and stepped back, out of reach of whoever was inside. The door opened for the briefest moment, banged against the wall and swung back. In that moment, Flo saw that the back door was open, the screen door shut. A hole big enough to admit a full-grown man gaped in the screen. It had been torn by brute force, ripped inward.

"Brittany! Matt!" she called. No one answered.

The front door clicked open. The kids' voices floated down the hallway, bickering over some childish affront. She hurried down the hall and called to them, freezing them in their tracks. They stared at her dumbly. The look on her face and the tone in her voice commanded their attention. Flo prayed it would command their obedience as well.

"Get out of the house," she said. "Go next door to the Clements'. Tell them to call the sheriff. Tell them there's someone in the house."

The children's eyes widened. Brittany grabbed Matthew's arm. For once he didn't shove her away.

"Do as I say!" Flo hissed at them.
"Now!"

The kids turned tail and ran. Flo followed them to the door, watched them run across the lawn to the next door neighbor's. She turned to look down the hallway. Her heart pounded in her chest. She knew what she should do. She should flee the house herself, but something deep inside her kicked in—call it cussedness—and she was determined to face this intruder head-on. She was tired of nebulous feelings and portents and seeing things that couldn't be there. She wanted clarity. By God she was going to get it, even if it came in the form of a madman with a hatchet.

"The police are on their way!" she said as she marched down the hallway. "You'd better run, you S.O.B., because when I get my hands on you, you'll be wishing for the sheriff to come and pull me off!"

She stiff-armed the swinging door into the kitchen and held it open. She stood in the doorway and surveyed the room.

Trash was strewn across the floor. The metal trashcan with the swinging lid lay on its side, lid off, vomiting garbage like a fallen drunk. In the corner, a huge dog sat chewing noisily on the ham bone. His feet and snout were filthy. Flo drew in a quick breath. The dog looked up, looked her straight in the eyes. Slowly it unwound its long legs and achieved purchase on the slick floor. Head down, lolling, it sidled toward her. She stood her ground. The dog seemed abashed. He walked with his tail between his legs, as though he knew he'd been caught doing something wrong and anticipated a beating.

The dog lay down at Flo's feet
. He gazed up at her with sad, apologetic eyes. His tail gave a tentative wag, swishing on the kitchen floor. Flo thought of the ham fat and the other garbage she'd tossed into the trash can. How the scent of ham and bean soup must have reached out and grabbed the poor mutt by the nostrils! He was, after all, just an animal following his instincts, and he seemed properly remorseful for what he'd done. One other fact seized her heart, emboldening her—the dog was the spitting image of Boo.

Flo knelt and extended her hand, palm down. The dog sniffed it and
then gave it a lick. Flo ventured to scratch the dog under the chin. Her hand went over the massive snout, the brows, behind the ears. The dog seemed as relieved as Flo when no violence ensued. He leaned his considerable weight into her. As she examined him, minor differences between him and Boo began to emerge. White spots that were or weren't there. Something about the shape of the head. He was the same breed—or the same strain of mutt—but no, it wasn't the same dog. Of course. It couldn't be. But the look in his eyes! The way he leaned against her. So familiar.

He didn't act like a stray dog. He acted like he owned the place.

Just like Boo.

"It's you, isn't it?" she said. "As sure as I'm born, it's big old dumb Boo."

At the sound of his name, the dog thumped his tail on the floor.

Far away, a police siren screamed and drew near.

* * *

Ethan and Heather arrived hard on the sheriff
’s and the deputy's heels. Sammy told them to wait in their car. Even as he drew his gun and cautiously approached the house, Ethan was dogging his footsteps. The front door stood wide open. Sammy struck a pose beside the door. He was opening his mouth to yell something when Aunt Flo appeared from the kitchen, wringing her hands.

"Flo," Sammy said. "The Clements called—"

"It's nothing, Sammy. Just a nervous old woman."

"Where are the children?"

"Next door. Hello, Ethan."

Sammy shot Ethan a look. "I told you to wait in
your car."

"You didn't say how long. What's the problem, Aunt Flo?"

"Nothing. Just my nerves, what with the Proost boy and all."

Sammy silently mouthed some words
. He gestured toward the kitchen.

"What?" Flo said. "You'll have to speak up."

He mouthed the words again, exaggerating his lip movements. He pointed once more toward the kitchen.

"He's saying, 'Is he in there?'" Ethan said.

"Is who in where?"

"Anyone.
Is there anyone in the kitchen?"

Sammy spoke to Flo softly. "The Clements said there was an intruder. Is he in there?" He nodded his head up and down,
then wagged it from side to side. Flo's head followed Sammy's up and down and side to side, her face blank as a balloon.

She leaned toward Ethan. "What's he doing, Ethan?" she asked. "Why is he bobbing his head like that?"

"He wants you to nod 'yes' or shake your head 'no' if the intruder is in the kitchen."

"But I've already said there isn't any intruder, and the children are next door. What's the matter, Sammy, have you gone deaf?"

The kitchen door banged open and the deputy walked through. He was leading the dog by a length of clothesline cord looped around its neck.

"Found this dog in the kitchen, Sammy.
Ripped right through the screen door. Made a helluva mess."

"We'll take him to the shelter," Sammy said, "unless you know whose he is. I don't recognize him."

"I've never seen him before, and I figure I know every dog in town," the deputy said.

Ethan noticed Flo's crestfallen look. He also noticed the dog's uncanny resemblance to Boo and put one-and-one together. This was the dog she'd spoken about earlier. It had come back, and now that it was here, Flo didn't want to give it up. Explaining
why
, however, was a problem.

"Do you have to take him?" Flo said. "I
... I hate to think of him in the pound."

"If they don't have a tag, we have to take '
em in. State law."