“I’m not looking,” she said, not turning to face him. Her long auburn hair was woven into a braid that coursed down the slope of her back. “I’m waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” he said, coming up behind her. He touched the back of her head and peered out the window with her. Instantly, David’s eyes were drawn to Deke Carmody’s house—or, more appropriately, what remained of the house farther up the block. It had been approximately eight months since the fire and Deke’s death, yet that smoldering black framework served as a constant and horrible reminder. On occasion, David still suffered nightmares about Deke, where he followed Deke through a house that was on fire all around them, choking on thick, black columns of smoke while pillars of white flame boiled out of the walls. In the nightmare, Deke was always a few steps ahead of him, his broad back covered in huge, weeping blisters, while the elastic band of his underwear burned. Whenever Deke would turn to look at David, which was blessedly infrequent in these dreams, the man’s flesh had melted from his skull. Deke’s eye sockets smoked. When Deke tried to speak, his larynx dropped from his throat and swung back and forth like a pendulum on fire.
“I’m waiting for the bird to come back,” Ellie said, pulling him back into the present.
“What bird?”
“There,” she said, pressing a finger to the windowpane.
It took David a moment to see what she was pointing at, but when he saw it, he smiled to himself. There was a wide hedgerow directly beneath Ellie’s bedroom window. Tucked between some boughs was a bird’s nest. Inside the nest were three pale eggs streaked with dark spots.
“Wow,” he said. “Look at that.”
“The mother hasn’t come back,” Ellie said. Her tone was grave, which always made her sound older than her years. “I’m worried she’s abandoned them.”
“She’s probably out foraging for food,” he said. “I bet she’ll be back tonight.”
“She didn’t come back last night,” said Ellie. “Or the night before that.”
“Maybe she came when you were asleep.”
She turned, studied his face. A vertical line formed between her eyebrows. “I wasn’t,” she said, quite matter-of-factly. “I was awake.”
“Well, come on,” he said. “Dinnertime.” He paused in the doorway, then turned back. “Did you do something to upset your mother today?”
Ellie climbed down off the chair. “Nope,” she said.
“You’re sure? Mom seems angry.”
“She’s been like that since she came home from work yesterday.”
Had she? David hadn’t noticed.
In the living room, David switched on the stereo and inserted a Dave Brubeck album into the disc player. Once the music started, he adjusted the volume, then joined Ellie and Kathy in the kitchen.
“I’m feeling some wine,” he said, going to the breakfront. He selected a bottle of cheap merlot. “You want some?”
“Sure,” said Ellie.
“Ha,” David said, retrieving two wineglasses from the shelf.
“No, thanks,” Kathy said.
“Have some anyway,” David said.
Kathy hardly spoke a word throughout dinner. David was thankful that Ellie was there to keep the conversation going. David did his best to keep things lively and ask questions of Ellie about summer vacation and her friends, but he kept glancing at Kathy across from him at the table. There were dark grooves beneath Kathy’s eyes. Her mouth looked tight and drawn. Once, when she caught him staring at her, she didn’t smile or even acknowledge him; she merely kept staring at him until it was he who looked away, an inexplicable feeling of shame causing his face to grow hot, as if he’d been caught spying on her doing something in private.
After dinner, Ellie went out back to play in the yard before it was fully dark. She said she wanted to look for more birds, in the event that those three abandoned eggs might need a surrogate.
“Where does she come up with this stuff?” he said, dumping the dirty paper plates into the trash. Kathy remained at the table. When he looked over his shoulder at her, he saw that she was refilling her wineglass.
He came up behind her, rubbed her back. “Tell me,” he said. “What’d I do? If I’m going to sleep in the doghouse tonight, I’d at least like to know what I did that put me there.”
She slid a hand up her shoulder and rested it atop one of his. “It isn’t you,” she said. Her voice was flat.
“Then tell me,” he said. He pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “What’s wrong?”
“Three of the women in my office have gotten sick,” Kathy said. She held the wineglass up in front of her face and stared at the bloodred wine as if she could discern some prophetic insight from it. “Two are already dead.”
“Oh God . . .”
“And eleven patients.”
“Jesus. Dead? Eleven? Was it—”
“Yes.” She practically spat the word at him, exasperated. “What else would it be? Of course it’s . . .” She didn’t need to say it. Instead, she fluttered a hand at him.
“Are you worried you might be sick, too?”