“Go have your story, Connor Jr.,” she said. “Good night.”
Out in the hall she heard a sound she didn’t recognize: a rattling-rasping click-and-clack. A muted bang. She waited for Connor Jr. to say good night back to her, but he never did, and at last it came to her that there was something different about the silence on the other end of the line. When she lowered her phone she discovered it was dead, had lost the last of its charge. It was just a paperweight now.
The raspy click-clack-bang came once more.
Harper stepped into the front hall but held up, two yards from the door, listening to the stillness.
“Hello?” she asked.
The door opened four inches before the chain caught it with another loud rattly bang. Jakob peered through the open space into the hallway.
“Harper,” he said. “Hey, wanna let me in? I want to talk.”
13
She stood just beyond the entrance to the den, looking down the hall at the piece of Jakob she could see through the gap between door and frame. He had a four-day growth on his long, hollow-eyed face. They had talked, the way people do, about who would play them in the movie version of their lives (why anyone would want to make a movie about an elementary school nurse and a man who answered phones for the Public Works Department was another question). She had thought Jason Patric, or maybe young Johnny Depp for him, someone dark and wiry who looked like he could do a handstand and who might occasionally write poetry. Right now he looked like Jason Patric or Johnny Depp in a movie about heroin addiction. His face was damp with sweat, and his eyes glittered with a fever brightness. (Casting Harper had been easier—Julie Andrews, obviously, Julie Andrews at twenty-eight, not because they looked anything alike, but because Harper wouldn’t consider anyone else for the part. If they couldn’t get Julie Andrews at twenty-eight, then they’d just have to call the movie off.)
He had not come home on his bike. Beyond him, idling alongside the curb, was one of the town trucks, a pumpkin-colored 2.5-ton Freightliner with a big snow-wing plow on the front, battered and blackened from hard use. They had kept the plows running day and night, clearing wreckage out of the roads. There was always a car burning somewhere that had to be moved.
She started down the hallway, hugging herself. The air coming through the open slot of the door was cool and smelled of fall, that spicy-sweet odor of apples and crushed autumn leaves and distant smoke. Always smoke.
“You should’ve called,” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming over. I was going to sleep soon. I probably wouldn’t have heard you.”
“I would’ve got in somehow. Kicked a window in.”
“I’m glad you didn’t. There’s no oil in the boiler. It’s hard enough keeping this house warm without windows bashed in. It’s getting cold out there.”
“You aren’t kidding. Want to let me in?”
She didn’t much care to answer that question, not even to herself.
Harper wished he had come during the day. She could readily imagine unthreading the chain for him on a bright, sunny afternoon. But with the October darkness behind him, and the October chill coming through the gap between door and frame, it was impossible not to think about the last time they’d talked, and how he had made coming home sound like a threat.
She pushed out a deep breath and said, “How are you?”
“Better. A lot better, Harp. I’m sorry I freaked you out.” He gave her a hangdog look from beneath his long, almost girlish eyelashes.
“What about the spore? You were worried you were infected. Have you seen any other marks on you?”
“No. Nope. I panicked. I lost it. No excuses. I’m all right—except for an incurable case of shame. You’ve got the Dragonscale, but I’m the one who has been acting like—like—” He looked away, back toward his Freightliner, then said, “Shit. Should I go? Come back tomorrow? I just—wanted to talk about stuff. I was overcome with a sudden late-night desire to convince my wife I’m not a hysterical piece of shit.”
“I want to talk, too. I think we need to.”
“Right?” he said. “About the baby? If we’re going to do this thing—if we’re going to have this kid—we’re going to need a plan. Next March is a long way off. You want to unlock this gun, though? I’m cold.”
“Hang on,” she said. She pushed the door shut and put her hand on the chain. She slid it down the slot, to the open hole, then caught herself, playing back what he had just said. She had misheard him, she thought. Her ears had played a trick on her.
“Jakob,” she said, holding the chain in place. “Did you say something about a gun?”
“What? No. No. I don’t—would you let me in? I’m freezing my narrow little ass off out here.”
She looked through the peephole. He stood very close to it, so she could only see his right ear, part of his face.
“Jakob,” she said. “You’re scaring me a little. Will you show me your hands?”
“Okay. I think you’re the one being paranoid now, but okay. Now watch. Here are my hands.” He took a step back from the door and held out his hands to either side of his body.
His left foot shot up and into the door. The chain flew loose. The door smashed her in the face and drove her stumbling back and down onto her ass.
His right hand came up with the gun, a small revolver, pulling it from one deep pocket of his track pants. He did not point it at her. He stepped in through the door and elbowed it shut behind him.
“I want things to be nice,” he said. He held his free hand up, palm out, in a placating gesture.
She got up on all fours and started to scramble away, trying to stand.
“Stop,” he said.
She didn’t stop. She thought she could get around the corner and into the kitchen, make it down the stairs to the basement and out the back door. When she stood, though, he kicked the back of her left leg, behind the knee, and she went down again.
“Babygirl, stop,” he said. “Don’t.”
She rolled onto her side. He stood over her with the gun, giving her a perplexed look.
“Stop,” he repeated. “I don’t want it to be like this. I want things to be like we talked about. I want things to be nice.”
She began to crawl again. When he took a step toward her, she grabbed at the side table, the one with the driftwood lamp on it, and twisted it, trying to throw it at him. He batted it aside, hardly glanced at it, his gaze fixed on her.
“Please,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you. The thought makes me sick.”
He reached out with his left hand, offering to help her up. When she didn’t take it, he bent forward and grabbed her upper arm and dragged her to her feet. She struggled to pull loose but he yanked her off balance so she fell against him, into his chest. Then he wrapped her in an embrace, holding her against him.
“Please,” he said, rocking back and forth with her. “Please. I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. We have a right to be scared. We’ve both got this thing and we’re dying.” The gun was there, against the small of her back. Her shirt was hiked up and she could feel cold metal against her spine. “I want it to be like we talked about. I want it to be nice. I want it to be good and easy. I don’t want to go out desperate and scared and crying, and I don’t want you to die that way, either. I adore you too much for that.”
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “We don’t know if you’re sick. I don’t want to pass it to you.”
“I know it. I know I have it. I know I’m going to die. We both are. It’s just a matter of how.”
He loosened his grip on her. He was kissing her—sweetly, devoutly. He kissed her hair. He kissed her forehead. When she shut her eyes, he kissed her eyelids, each one, and she shivered.
“You shouldn’t kiss me,” she whispered.
“How am I supposed to keep from kissing you? It was the sweetest thing I ever had.”