The Last September: A Novel

“No,” I said. “I want them here first.” Maxine dialed obediently, awkwardly, as Sarah struggled in her grip, reaching her arms out to me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, my sweet. But Mommy has to take a shower.”

Maxine jutted her chin toward her bathroom. “There’s an emergency,” I heard her say as I turned on the hot water to full blast. I wondered how they would hear her over Sarah’s crying. In the next room, I could only just make out her explanation as tears started to grip her voice: “I’m not sure. But it’s bad. It’s very bad. My friend is covered in blood.”

She hung up and came into the bathroom as I rasped a loofah over my bloodstained knees and feet. The stream of hot water scalded my back. Charlie’s blood poured off me, eddying in spirals before fading and disappearing into the drain. I dropped the sponge and pulled the shower curtain aside.

“Lock the door,” I told her, and she pressed in the doorknob’s button—a flimsy apparatus designed for avoiding embarrassing intrusions, not keeping out murderers. I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around myself. Finally, I took my sobbing daughter from Maxine and sat down against the wall. The Spanish tile felt cool and soothing on my parboiled back. Sarah’s cries subsided into wounded hiccups. Finally in my arms, exhaustion took over. Her tired little eyelids blinked as warm water dripped off my shoulders and onto her face.

“Did you call them?” I asked Maxine, though I knew she had.

“They’re on their way.” She sat down next to me, and I saw tears standing in her eyes.

“Brett,” she said. “Please tell me what happened.”

“I can’t.”

Maxine nodded and placed one hand on my knee. We listened for a while to Sarah’s snuffling breaths, waiting for the police to arrive. Years ago, Charlie and I met with a family therapist for help in navigating his brother. At the time, Eli had been in one of his worst states—manic and unreachable. I asked the therapist what we should do if he seemed dangerous. “Just dial 911,” she had said, with a blithe wave of her hand. “They’ll be there before anything can happen.” Sitting in Maxine’s bathroom, I could feel the minutes tick away, and I wondered how many times someone could have killed Charlie—could have killed any of us—in the time it took for the police to appear.

“Will they ring the bell, do you think?” I asked, after a few minutes.

“I guess so.” The words were barely out of her mouth when the doorbell rang.

“God,” I said. “How do we know it’s them?”

“I’ll go to the front window and look down,” she said. She stood up and unlocked the bathroom door, then turned back toward me, obviously afraid to go alone.

“We’ll come with you,” I said. Maxine handed me the plaid flannel robe from a hook on the door. I tied it around Sarah and me. From the upstairs hall window, we looked down at her front door. A police cruiser parked in the driveway, its lights blinking.

“What can I do for you?” Maxine whispered as we turned to go downstairs.

Nothing, of course. But instead of brushing the request aside, I did the oddest thing. I lifted my free hand and touched Maxine’s cheek. As my palm pressed against her skin, I noticed a small, rust-colored smear staining the back of my wrist.

I said, “Tell Charlie I love him.”

Relief fell across her face like color returning after a shock. “I will,” she promised. “Of course I will.”

Underneath Maxine’s robe, Sarah’s head rested—almost asleep—on my shoulder. I closed my eyes, existing for a moment in the warm breath against my neck. And then I pictured Maxine: standing on our deck, her hair tousling in the autumn breeze. Charlie perched on his rickety ladder, the unblemished hammer in his hands.

“Brett loves you,” Maxine would say.