They both looked so relieved. They looked so grateful.
* * *
*
Moments later, at three a.m., Charlie and Dara had climbed that same staircase to the third floor.
No one can know about Derek and Marie, Dara kept saying. No one.
It would draw suspicion. It would complicate things. It might make Marie look guilty. It might make them all look guilty.
Swiftly, they’d gathered Marie’s belongings—a fistful of tank tops, a dark knot of tights, a mound of elastics, a pair of tangled, torn underwear that made Dara gasp—and thrown them into a garbage bag.
They’d folded the futon upon itself, and unplugged the windup Cinderella record player, wrapping its extension cord around it, stuffing it under the futon frame.
She had so little.
They took the sheets, the pillowcase with them.
Later, Dara would run them through the washing machine three times, putting her hands on them, scalding, after. Looking for any signs of him. A hair, a stain.
On her hands and knees, Dara scrubbed the shoe prints, which were everywhere.
Downstairs, Marie was throwing up in the powder room. Throwing up until the vomit came up red, sticky.
I can’t, she whispered when they told her she was coming home with them.
Too bad, Dara said, grabbing her coat, shoving one of the garbage bags in her hands.
* * *
*
As they’d turned down Sycamore, their breath fogging the old car, Marie covered her face in her hands.
At first, she wouldn’t go inside, her head tilting up like a child at a haunted house. Then, Dara shoving her across the threshold, she wouldn’t go upstairs. Finally, she disappeared soundlessly into the den, their father’s old domain.
In the bathroom, Dara examined Charlie’s face, neck, arms, body, for any marks from the struggle. A bruise was blossoming on his upper arm, but that was all.
For the next three hours, Dara and Charlie sat at the kitchen table, thinking it all through with cigarettes and instant coffee, waiting for dawn.
Once, Dara squinted through the den door crack to see Marie curled in their father’s recliner, sunk in some impossible sleep, her face so innocent and pure it nearly made Dara scream. And then it nearly made her cry.
“It was an accident,” Charlie kept saying, his neck clammy with sweat, his hands doing that trembling thing. There was something intent and feverish about him. Something punch-drunk, as their father used to say, beerily recalling getting his clock cleaned in his hockey days until he couldn’t count his fingers.
“It was an accident,” Dara repeated. Over and over again. “We found him there. We don’t know how it happened. But it did.”
* * *
*
They couldn’t bring Marie to the studio.
Dara had tried, coaxing her to the bathtub, pushing her head under the running spout. Trying to clean her up, get her straight. But Marie wasn’t making sense yet, her teeth chattering, talking ceaselessly about the Fire Eater at the carnival who swallowed a neon tube and lit up like a glowworm. （That was the Sword Swallower, she told Marie. You always get everything wrong. You always ruin everything.）
Marie was not okay. Marie, could she even be trusted?
Charlie told Dara to stay home with her sister. He would make the discovery, call the police.
Marie could not be trusted.
* * *
*
Charlie returned to the studio at six a.m. At seven, he called Dara at the house. She could hear police radios buzzing in the background.
Dara, something happened, he said. The police are here. They think our contractor fell down the stairs. . . .
Charlie’s voice was shaking.
He was very convincing.
Oh my god, Dara said, even though no one could hear her but Charlie. Oh my god.
* * *
*
Now it was nearly noon and Dara had spent all morning with the paramedics and the police, then with Benny and Gaspar, who exchanged glances when Charlie told them the news. Both were surprised and Gaspar took his hat off, crossing himself. We didn’t know him well, Benny said vaguely. But it is very sad.
Charlie had done everything right, posting the signs, calling the parents of students scheduled later in the day. Saying the right things. （Still, they came. Charlie told them not to come, but they came. Half grim curiosity, half Nutcracker panic.）
Charlie was sharp and focused with the police, with everyone. It was only Dara who saw his shaky hands, the tremor in his wrist, the spasm at his neck.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was wondering: Is he okay? Would he be okay after what he’d done? But there wasn’t any time.
* * *
*
And when you arrived, you saw him at the foot of the stairs?”