The Last September: A Novel

I waved my hand, dismissing the germs from decades of smashed flies. “She’s fine,” I said. “It’s keeping her busy.”


He nodded in the way of nonparents, disapproving but ceding to my greater involvement. Sarah waved the flyswatter, laughing at its plastic springiness as if it were a miracle of modern invention.

“Here,” Daniel said, bending over a stack of boxes in a corner. “I think some of these might be empty.”

I walked over to the wheelbarrow and tested its weight. Maybe if Sarah saw me carrying it, she could be tempted out of the garage. It felt light enough to carry, so I balanced it carefully—hoisting it over the lawn mower and rakes and lobster pots—and deposited it on the driveway. Sarah bopped over, still clutching the flyswatter but willing to investigate the new loot. As she sifted through the toys, one-handed, I heard a car turn in from the road. It was Ladd, driving the old dented blue truck.

“Crab,” Sarah said, holding up a plastic mold.

“Ladd,” Daniel called, from the back of the garage. “Dinner’s at seven.”

“Thanks,” Ladd said. He slammed the car door shut and ran a hand through his hair, looking at me and then at Sarah. She picked up the crab and held it up in the air, showing it to Ladd—the newcomer—and toddled toward him.

“Crab,” she said, proud of the word, announcing the correctness of it. Ladd stood, frozen, as if it were Godzilla coming toward him instead of a toddler. He looked pained. He looked guilty.

Sarah’s little head bopped on toward Ladd—her head that still smelled like a baby’s, with her father’s curls. In my mind an image formed, those same curls stained and matted by blood.

I could kill him. Had Ladd said that when I told him about Deirdre? Or had I? An amalgam of memories burst at the same time, like a water balloon or something squeezed too tight.

“Sarah,” I called. I pitched forward with quick steps and scooped her up, then stepped back, away from Ladd. Finally he had to look at me, a startled glance. Are you crazy.

Sarah dropped the crab and closed one hand into my hair. The flyswatter bobbed, grazing my nose, but I didn’t move to push it away. I gave up on speaking and headed toward the house. It took a great amount of effort to walk quickly, Sarah bouncing awkwardly on my hip rather than breaking into a flat-out run. Lightfoot wasn’t running behind me. She must already have gone into the house when I wasn’t looking.

“Brett,” Daniel called. I didn’t turn back to see him but could tell from the sound of his voice he’d returned to the open air. “Are you all right?”

My voice wouldn’t answer. I lifted one hand as I walked, hoping it looked nonchalant, fine, Yes, I am all right. But I had one target, the front door.

Time did a funny sort of leap. It’s not exactly that I couldn’t remember reaching the house and going up the stairs. Just that it happened in very thick fog, my vision dull and murky, as if I swam to the house, and through it, rather than walking. Sarah and I hit the bed the same moment the bedroom door slammed shut. My breath returned only at that moment, sucking through my lungs in great, insistent relief, like an asthmatic reunited with her inhaler.

WHEN EMILY DICKINSON WAS a girl—when she first fell in love with Sue—she lived out in the world with the rest of Amherst. She went to parties, she worked in her garden. She loved to take long walks in the hills above town—so much so that her father bought her a Newfoundland for protection. “My shaggy ally,” she called him. His name was Carlo, after a dog in Jane Eyre, her favorite novel.