Mira hung ten paces behind Francesca, watching as her sister’s shadow lengthened between them. At the bottom of the stairs, Francesca turned right toward their father’s voice in the parlor. Mira needed a moment; she needed to find Ben, to whisper directions to meet her somewhere. It wouldn’t be easy: they’d have visitors coming and going at their own house now, at all hours and for days, dropping by to touch their shoulders. She and Francesca would be expected to greet them and accept their Saran-wrapped packages of concern. Mira would have to nod at the injustice of Connie’s leave-taking, as though she had boarded a flight for spring break, and as though Mira herself had no relation to the event.
Mira searched the dining room, still stuffed with bodies. No Ben. She looked for him among the parlor bustle, and was relieved to see her father and Francesca waylaid by a circle of biddies from St. Theresa’s. She ducked out fast before they could spot her, cutting through the den and onto the back porch, past her father’s Rotary Club pals smoking cigars and watching the Red Sox on TV. She leaned over each of the grizzled men, accepting cheek kisses while shoving each one off a little. When she finally stepped down the porch into the yard, she exhaled and looked up at the sky. On the other side of the fence, the old rottweiler, Lupo, panted hard, his wet teeth visible through the slats. Lupo was bad to the core; Mira’s uncle blamed Lupo for the cat’s bad eye, had sworn many times to take a shotgun to the beast himself.
Mira heard her mother’s voice in her head.
Touch it, Mira.
Mira stepped toward the fence and stretched her finger through the slat.
“I wouldn’t pat that thing.”
Mira whirled around, dress floating around her legs, Lupo howling. Louis Gentry was perched on the highest rung of staging set up in the Villelas’ backyard. Her uncle had planned to paint his house that coming summer; Ben was going to help. More money for something special he was saving up for, he’d told Mira.
Mira set her chin low. “I wasn’t going to pet it.”
“Sure looked like it. And I’m not sure this family could handle another freak accident.” Louis cocked his head toward the house. “Looking to get air?”
“I was leaving. Have you seen Ben?”
“I did. Hey, do you hate these things as much as I do?”
“I hate them when they’re waking my flesh and blood, if that’s what you mean,” Mira said sharply, rubbing her arms. She smelled the ocean and a worse smell, dog mess from next door, probably.
“I didn’t mean to be crude. You know I cared about Connie.”
“Um, none of you guys cared about Connie. You cared about what you got off Connie—that would be more accurate.”
Louis gave her a look of hard disappointment. “Now that isn’t fair. You know, this whole thing gets me thinking about how fragile life is.” Louis leaped off the staging like a cat and walked toward her. “Say it was you instead of Connie who got hurt up there.”
Mira had known Louis nearly half her life, but something in his eyes now looked manic and empty at once. “It wasn’t.”
He came closer, staring right into Mira’s face. She could feel his breath. “I never could have gotten over it.”
Mira stepped backward. “You said you saw Ben. Where is he?”
Louis laughed to the side, his hand on the back of his neck.
“What are you laughing at?” Mira demanded.
“Yeah, I saw Ben. I saw him leaving. With Gina Tramondozzi.”
“You’re lying.”
Louis shook his head. “It’s nothing new. He hooks up with Gina T. every time he gets lonely. They go way back. She’s, like, your body double or something. A bad one, but you take what you can get. Not me, of course. I’m discriminating in my tastes.”
He said it so surely, so effortlessly. Mira’s eyes went dark.
“See, you can’t tease a guy, hooking up every once in a while, when you feel like it. Growing guy like Ben Lattanzi’s got needs,” Louis said.
Mira felt her sureness disassemble and fall away. “You don’t know Ben’s needs.” She faltered.
“I know Ben’s human. And Gina’s a warm body. It’s hard to resist when it’s right there in front of you, just asking to be taken,” he said, the corner of his lip flicking up.
“He would never,” she said, her voice tightening to a squeak.
“The thing about urges is, eventually you gotta give in, or they’ll keep coming back.” Louis stood over her, lifting a hank of hair from her eyes. “And back. And back.”
Mira spun away from Louis and staggered to the front of the house, filmy-eyed, her gaze gone dead, her mother’s voice in her head.
It’s quiet here, Mira.
*
By mid-May, the cherry tree on the Cillos’ front lawn began to bud, then bloom. By the end of the same week, its petals blanketed the fallow lawn. Mira sat under the tree sometimes, cradling a new kitten gifted by one of Mr. Cillo’s associates, and initially, Louis used the cat as an occasion to stop and talk. Mira whispered one-word answers and refused to lift her eyes from her lap, where the kitten lay curled in a tight C. He brought the cat a toy purchased from Claws and Paws, a wand with blue and purple feathers on the end that looked like a ravaged feather duster, which Mira accepted without protest or thanks.
When the grocery delivery van pulled up one day, Francesca poked her head inside the passenger side window, her foot kicking up playfully behind her. She laughed and dug cash out of her purse, which she shoved through the window, jamming it back into her bag when it was refused. Francesca moved to the back and slid boxes out through the doors, stacking them on the curb. Mira didn’t budge from her spot under the bare tree, as if watching her sister stockpiling for an apocalypse was unremarkable.
Francesca moved the boxes into the house. Mira took mental inventory. Twelve canisters of Maxwell House instant coffee. Overgrown cylinders of sugar, salt, and pepper. Canned tuna, salmon, chicken, and turkey. Mega-packages of Charmin, Kleenex, Bounty, and napkins, in multiples. Barber pole–striped shaving cream cans in a beer box. A mountain of hamburger trapped under an arc of plastic wrap. Powdered milk. Black licorice nips in a plastic barrel. Racks of short ribs laminated in plastic. Envelopes of Red Cap pipe tobacco packed upright in a slant-cut box.