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It’s just you left. This is for everything that matters.None of this is unsurvivable. None of this is finished. The shrink was right. The goddamn Corner was right. You’re the only obstacle.
She sat up. Wiped her face with her sleeve.
They look at you and think they know you. But they don’t see you. They can’t. They think they’re better. Know better. But there’s no “better.” There’s just people, making choices. Coping with the hand they’ve been dealt. And you’re going to choose to use your advantages. Choose to hire a good fucking lawyer. You’re going to choose to fight. And you are not going to let anyone make you question your own mind. Because if you’d done that, if you’d done it when you saw that mountain lion, if you’d done it when you saw the Corner, you’d be dead.
She took her phone from where the sergeant had left it on the coffee table. There was only one voicemail, left by someone from the state. “Per our letter contacting you regarding the two minorchildren…assessment…screening…contactus at…”
It was too late to call them. She pulled on snow boots and a coat.Despite her determination to do something, to fight, she hesitated as she reached for the door.
He could be out there.
She peered out into the semidarkness through the window in the entry, but the reflection of indoor light on the glass made it difficult to see outside. She turned off every light and waited. There was no movement outside. No new footprints in the snow.
The sergeant is right. The Corner probably wouldn’t come back. It’s too risky.
She slowly made her way down the driveway and emptied the mailbox. As she walked to the house, cradling the accumulated envelopes, magazines, and slick junk mail, her good eye caught something out of place in the pasture to her left. Her heartbeat surged until she understood what it was. A doe and fawn stood stock-still in the snow, soft ears swiveled toward her.
The fawn was small for this time of year. A late-born arrival trying to survive its first winter. Which was already a difficult one.
After the deer regarded her for a beat, some invisible current in the air caused them to run. They moved simultaneously as though there were a tether between mother and child. She watched their white tails fluff against brown backs, their grace as they leapt through the snow, past the graveyard, and vanished down the path.
See? Even now, things are beautiful.
“Good luck,” she said aloud to the deer.
She frowned, overtaken by the sense she’d forgotten something, as though she’d gone into a room and couldn’t recall why. She tried to grab at the tickling thread that said,Remember? Remember?but it kept dancing away from her until she thought,Stop it, stop it. You’re torturing yourself thinking you’ve forgotten things. Are forgetting things.
She went inside and locked the doors. Double-checked that allthe downstairs windows were latched. Only then did she sift through the mail. She read the letter she’d been looking for once, then again.
“You have been reported…care and protection of the minor children…assess if there is need for escalation…”
She tucked it under her arm. Brought the letter, her phone, and the bag of hospital prescriptions upstairs and set them on the bathroom counter. Checked to make sure all the upstairs windows were locked.
No one in the house, she reassured herself.No one in the house but you.
Without the judgmental eyes of the police hovering over her, the safe was simple to open. The gold coins, her husband’s ring, and the gun sat in a line.
She ran her fingers over each item, as if she might absorb their power.
All these things you’re storing for safety, security, in case of emergency? All of them are cold metal. Nothing soft, nothing warm at all.
One of the coins sat askew, and she straightened the stack. The gun’s holster had a metal clip so that it could be attached to pants or a belt. The sergeant had set the holster with the clip facing down, tilting it at an odd angle that had caused the gun to slide halfway out of the holster. She took both items from the safe. The gun looked ridiculous in her jittery cupped palms. She thought of the easy, competent way the sergeant had held it, his practiced click of the magazine, how small it had seemed. The grip was uncomfortably large for her. The gun wasn’t metal at all, she realized, but molded polymer, grip rough but without any rubbery give that might make it easier for her to hold. She fiddled with the magazine release, annoyed at how inept she was compared with the officer.
She shakily managed to remove the slide and magazine and calmed as she stepped into the familiar role of inspecting the mechanics. Though the outside was resin, the innards were metal. Inher hands, disassembly was self-explanatory. She squinted closely at the exposed springs, screws, and pins. It was a simple machine. Pulling the trigger lifted a bar that struck the bullet and caused it to fire.
Methodically, she reassembled the gun, fingers competent and calm. Dissecting it had relaxed her. It made the gun seem less a live thing, a little less an unpredictable animal crouching in wait and more a simple bit of elegant engineering, albeit designed for horrific purpose. She slid the gun securely into the nylon holster, set it down, and took her husband’s wedding band out of the safe. The ring was too large to stay even on her thumb, but she set it on the counter anyway. She locked the safe, the gold eagles from her father glinting before they vanished.
All your worrying about money, all that surreptitious signing of your husband’s photographs, yet isn’t it interesting how money’s the least comforting thing now?
She rummaged through bathroom drawers. The only Band-Aids she could find were ones she’d bought for the children, decorated with the happy face of SpongeBob SquarePants.
That’s nice, though, the colors, the reminder of the kids.
She wrapped one bright Band-Aid around her husband’s platinum band and put the ring back on. Had to wrap another around the first until the ring at last clung snugly to her middle finger, clacking reassuringly against her own wedding band. She rubbed the platinum shine of it with the pad of her thumb. Pressed the primary colors of the toothy cartoon sponge.
See? A little softness. Not so cold. Not so alone.
She gave a wry grin, imagining the gun wrapped the same way, softened by cartoon characters like the ring. Pictured the sergeant’s frowning disapproval if he’d pulled the weapon out of the safe to find it decorated with stickers like the Trapper Keepers and lunchboxes of her childhood. Wondered why she was sure even a tiny bit of color would, in fact, make her less edgy around the cold matte blackness of the thing.
