6
He purchased a couple of cloth shopping bags to put his groceries in – HARPS and HOMETOWN FRESH printed on them – and they sag almost to the floor as he looks at the empty living room and kitchen. The bedroom door is open and he can see that’s empty too, but he calls her name anyway, thinking she might be in the bathroom. Except that door is also open and if she was in there she’d close it, even with him gone. He knows this.
He isn’t scared, exactly. It’s more like … what? Is he hurt? Disappointed?
I guess I am, he thinks. Stupid, but there it is. She reconsidered her options, that’s all. You knew it could happen. Or you should have.
He goes into the kitchen, puts the bags on the counter, sees their breakfast dishes in the drainer. He sits down to think about what he should do next and sees a paper towel anchored by the sugar bowl. On it she’s written two words: OUT BACK.
Okay, he thinks, and lets out a long breath. Just out back.
Billy puts away the stuff that needs to go in the fridge, then goes out the front door and around the house, once more using the umbrella. Alice has moved the barbecue out of the puddle. She’s scrubbing away at the grill, her back to him. She must have raided the Jensens’ front closet again, because the green raincoat she’s wearing has to belong to Don. It goes all the way down to her calves.
‘Alice?’
She yells and jumps and almost knocks the grill over. He reaches out to steady her.
‘Scare a person, why don’t you?’ she says, then whoops in a big breath.
‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to creep up on you.’
‘Well …’ Whoop! ‘… you did.’
‘Give me the first line of “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”’ Only half-joking.
‘I don’t …’ Whoop! ‘… remember it.’
‘If you go down to the woods today …’ He raises his hands and wiggles his fingers in a come-on gesture.
‘If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise. Did you get some stuff?’
‘I did.’
‘Pork chops?’
‘Yes. At first I thought you were gone.’
‘Well I’m not. I don’t suppose you got any Scrubbies, did you? Because this is the last one from upstairs, and it’s pretty well done-in.’
‘Scrubbies weren’t on the list. I didn’t know you were going on a cleaning binge in the rain.’
She closes the lid on the barbecue and looks at him with a hopeful expression. ‘Want to watch some more Blacklist?’
‘Yes,’ he says, so that’s what they do. Three more episodes. Between the second and third, she goes to the window and says, ‘It’s stopping. The sun’s almost out. I think we can barbecue tonight. Did you remember the salad?’
This is going to work, Billy thinks. It shouldn’t, it’s crazy, but it’s going to work for as long as it has to.
7
The sun comes out that afternoon, but slowly, as if it doesn’t really want to. Alice grills the chops, and although they’re a little burned outside and a little pink in the middle （‘I’m not much of a cook, sorry,’ she says）， Billy eats all of his and then gnaws the bone. It’s good, but the salad is better. He doesn’t realize how starved he’s been for greens until he starts in on them.
They go upstairs and watch some more Blacklist, but she’s restless, moving from the couch to the seat-sprung easy chair that must be Don Jensen’s roost when he’s home, then back to the couch again. Billy reminds himself that she’s seen all these episodes before, probably with her mother and sister. He’s getting a little bored with it himself now that he’s figured out Red Reddington’s schtick.
‘You ought to leave some money,’ she says when they turn the TV off and get ready to go back downstairs. ‘For the Netflix.’
Billy says he will, although he guesses that thanks to their windfall, Don and Bev don’t exactly need financial help.
She tells him it’s his turn for the bed, and after a night on the couch he doesn’t argue the point. He’s asleep almost at once, but some deep part of his brain must have already trained itself to listen for her panic attacks, because he comes wide awake at quarter past two, hearing her whoop for breath.
He’s left the door ajar in case of this. He reaches it, then stops with his hand on the knob. She’s singing, very softly.
‘If you go down to the woods today …’
She goes through the first verse twice. Her gasps for breath come further apart, then stop. Billy goes back to bed.