The Last September: A Novel

At about 5 a.m. I slipped out of bed, placing a pillow beside Sarah. In addition to the crib, there was a simple table and chair in the room, pressed against the far wall. Yesterday I’d slid my computer onto the table, and now I opened it and turned it on. For a long time, I sat staring at the email Charlie had written. He didn’t have a computer, just borrowed mine once a day to go online. His fingers would have moved over these very keys, in his surprisingly fast hunt-and-peck. I could picture him, sitting in the chair in my makeshift study, maybe with a beer in one hand. He always drank from a glass, never a bottle, and would have perched the glass right next to the laptop, the way he always did, the way that drove me crazy. Maybe, remembering this and conscious that he was trying to make amends, he would have stopped for a moment and pushed it away toward the stack of books I’d left there, one of them still open, the words I’d underlined so angrily, “Sue, you can go or stay.”


My books. The day I’d gone back to collect my things, I’d only thought about what we’d need to get us through a few days or a week. Clothes and baby equipment. But I’d left all my books behind. Although my old life hovered so close in the past, it was impossible to imagine I’d ever return to any part of it. It only hit me now: I needed my books. Once today began—the sun rising in earnest—I would have to go and get them. Bob Moss may have taken back my keys, but I knew where Charlie had hidden a spare.

Sarah kicked her feet out of the covers, the first sign of approaching wakefulness. I turned back to the computer, like I was a machine myself, programmed to respond one way. Dear Charlie, I wrote again, the same words, the only ones I could think of. It’s okay. Eli can stay as long as he likes. Just please don’t wait for him. Come over to Maxine’s right away. Spend the night with Sarah and me. We miss you so much.

BY EARLY AFTERNOON, DANIEL was working in his office, the door shut. When I asked Mrs. Duffy to watch Sarah, she accepted the vague word errands. As I walked out to the car, Lightfoot trotted after me and hopped in. But when we arrived at our destination, wheels crunching over the seashell driveway, I realized it had been insensitive, thoughtless, to let the dog come along. At the sight of the Moss house, she started trembling and crawled in the back to cower underneath the seats. I rolled down the windows and left her there. Hopefully the cross breeze would keep her from overheating; if not, she could gather up her courage and jump out.

No birds except gulls, flying above. I walked around the house, across the lawn. The swallows must have started their journey south this past week. I wondered if the police officers and detectives had stopped to appreciate the staging, tiny birds practicing their formations, wonderful swoops and swells. From around the rails of the deck, the police tape had been removed, but I could see that the boards where Charlie’s body had lain were gone, either collected as evidence or simply removed for replacement. I knelt down and looked under the deck. Even the dirt looked new, its top layer swept away.

I sat down and lay back. The grass felt wrong, sharp, too groomed. My eyelids fluttered closed, and I stretched out my legs. The sounds I could hear included the waves, the wind, a cardinal’s trill. A car drove by, too fast. The sound of a squirrel’s tiny feet skittered across the rail, then stopped. I lifted my head to confirm: one-eyed Wally, already thinner and more scraggly, as if we’d been grooming as well as feeding him.

“Hey, Wally,” I said.

He twitched his tail, waiting for a nut or bread crust. I wished I had something for him. It felt right, somehow, returning to this, the seminal moment and place, around which everything would always revolve, and around which everything always had revolved, whether or not I’d known it. It felt wrong—that I wasn’t cowering, trembling, like Lightfoot.

He’s not dangerous, Charlie always said. It was just that the only way to get him the help he needed was to provoke him into danger.