Bird box

She imagines Gary at the top of the cellar stairs. Her broken, bleeding body crumpled at the bottom.

You like reading in the cellar, DO YOU?? Then die down there with your child.

Behind her, she hears all the housemates are in the living room. Cheryl is talking to Felix. Gary is talking to Don.

Malorie turns toward their voices and approaches the living room.

She is going to tell them all.

When she enters the room, her body feels like it’s made of ice. Melting. Like pieces of herself fall away and sink under the unbearable pressure of what’s to come.

Cheryl and Olympia are on the couch. Felix waits by the phone. Don is in the easy chair. Gary stands, facing the blanketed windows.

As she opens her mouth, Gary slowly looks over his shoulder and meets her eyes.

“Malorie,” he says sharply, “is something on your mind?”

Suddenly, clearly, Malorie realizes that everyone is staring at her. Waiting for her to speak.

“Yes, Gary,” she says. “There is.”

“What is it?” Don asks.

The words are stuck in her throat. They climb up like the legs of a millipede, reaching for her lips, looking to get out at last.

“Does anyone remember Gary’s—”

She stops. She and the housemates turn toward the blankets.

The birds are cooing.

“It’s Tom,” Felix says desperately. “It must be!”

Gary looks into Malorie’s eyes again. There is a knock at the front door.

The housemates move fast. Felix rushes to the front door. Malorie and Gary remain.

He knows he knows he knows he knows he knows.

When Tom calls out, Malorie is trembling with fear.

He knows.

Then, having heard Tom’s voice, Gary leaves her and heads to the foyer.

Once the questions have been asked and the housemates have their eyes closed, Malorie hears the front door open. The cool air rushes in, and with it the reality of how close Malorie just came to confronting Gary without Tom in the house.

Dogs paws on the foyer tile. Boots. Something smacks against the doorframe. The front door closes quickly. There’s the sound of the broomsticks scratching the walls. Tom speaks. And his voice is deliverance.

“My plan was to call you guys from my house. But the fucking phone was out.”

“Tom,” Felix says, manic but weak. “I knew you guys would do it. I knew it!”

When Malorie opens her eyes, she doesn’t think about Gary. She doesn’t see the perfectly manicured letters that wait in his briefcase.

She sees only that Tom and Jules are home again.

“We raided a grocery store,” Tom says. The words sound impossible. “Someone had been there before. But we got a lot of good stuff.”

He looks tired, but he looks good.

“The dogs worked,” he says. “They led us.” He is proud and happy. “But I got something from my house that I hope will help us even more.”

Felix helps him with his duffel bag. Tom unzips it and removes something. Then he lets it fall to the foyer floor.

It’s a phone book.

“We’re going to call every number in here,” he says. “Every single one. And somebody is going to answer.”

It’s only a phone book, but Tom has turned it into a beacon.

“Now,” Tom says. “Let’s eat.”

The others excitedly prepare the dining room. Olympia gets the utensils. Felix fills glasses with water from the buckets.

Tom is back.

Jules is back.

“Malorie!” Olympia calls. “It’s canned crabmeat!”

Malorie, caught somewhere between two worlds, enters the kitchen and begins helping with dinner.

thirty-six

Someone is following them.

There is no use asking herself how much farther they have to go. She doesn’t know when she will hear the recorded voice that tells her she’s arrived. She doesn’t know if it still exists. Now, she only paddles, she only perseveres.

An hour ago, they passed what sounded like lions engaged in battle. There were roars. Birds of prey screech threats from the sky. Things growl and snort from the woods. The river’s current is moving faster. She remembers the tent Tom and Jules found in the street outside their house. Could there be something like that, so astonishingly out of place, here, on the river? Could they crash into it . . . now?

Out here, she knows, anything imagined is possible.

But right now, it is something much more concrete that worries her.

Someone is following them. Yes, the Boy heard it, too.

A phantom echo. A second rowing, in step with her own.

Who would do it? And if they meant to harm her and the children, why didn’t they do it when she was passed out?

Is it someone escaping their home as well?

“Boy,” she says quietly, “tell me what you can about them.”

The Boy is listening.

“I don’t know, Mommy.”

He sounds ashamed.

“Are they still there?”

“I don’t know!”

“Listen.”

Malorie considers stopping. Turning. Facing the noise she hears behind them.

The recording will be playing on a loop. You’ll hear it. It’s loud. Clear. And when you do, that’s when you’ll have to open your eyes.