Well. I should’ve known that wouldn’t last.
TWENTY-FIVE
On the sixth day of Marie, the weather continues its warming, and the snow begins a quick retreat. We make one last snowman in front of the house, Finch and Marie and me, and we fetch two black chunks of charred wood from the stove, let them cool, then press them to his face for eyes. We add a stick for his nose.
By late afternoon most of the snow in the yard has melted, and only the snowman remains, a five-foot white statue in a sea of slush and mud. We are finishing lunch, and Finch is reading her book to us aloud, a novel about people finding a spring that allows them to live forever, and I almost miss it, the noise.
A low hum. An engine, something coming. Someone driving up the road.
“Finch.”
She ignores me and keeps reading.
“Finch!”
She stops and looks at me.
“Root beer.”
Her fork clatters on the plate and she darts for the root cellar. As she lifts the trapdoor, I clear the plates and stack them on the counter and then grab the Gerber knife from the shelf above the woodstove. All of this in a matter of seconds.
“Cooper? What is it? What’s going on?” Marie rises from the table, confused.
Finch clambers down the rickety steps to the cellar.
I grab Marie’s hand. “Tell them you’re alone. You own the place; you’re spending some time here. Vacation or something. You got snowed in but you’re fine. Just don’t say a word about us, no matter what.”
A glint of bewilderment in her eyes. But also fear. Maybe she is mad, too, and I don’t blame her but I can’t explain anything to her now. There’s no time. I squeeze her palm in mine. “Please.”
I ease onto the steps. Tug the trapdoor, and it whines as it closes overhead. When I’m in, I pull at the ropes that are connected to the bottom of the rug, two pieces that slide through knots in the floor, a contraption I set up long ago, and the rug slips back into place, hiding the door. Above, silence in the house but the engine grows louder, closer. Marie is still at the table, her feet twitching ever so slightly, I can see: a sliver of space between floorboards. Her slender ankles, navy-blue tights, the slippers she has worn all week, red moccasins with a little white bow.
She will tell them she’s alone. She will she will she will. I pull Finch close, tuck her head beneath my chin. “It’s okay,” I whisper into her scalp. “It’s gonna be okay.” If she were looking at me, she’d know I was lying because she always knows, somehow. The way she knows I’m always troubled—“disconcerted,” maybe, is a better word—on January 28th （my birthday）。 The way I’m always sad on the third of June （the day of the accident）。 That startling ability of hers to read people, that’s from Cindy. Cindy could look at someone and see right into them, deep into the recesses of their heart, and just know things. Once, we were at dinner, and she leaned over and told me, “That man hurts his wife.” She didn’t know them, didn’t even know their names. But a few weeks later, we read about an arrest in the paper, and there it was, a mug shot of his mean face on the first page. I recognized him right away.
Outside, the engine grows loud and then it’s quiet. One door slams and then another. Two of them. Voices: deep, muffled. Men. West side of the house, next to Marie’s car. Then footsteps, heavy on the porch. Stomp, stomp, kicking off the snow. Knocking at the door, knuckle to wood. Marie is still sitting at the table, her slippered feet in the same spot. From the root cellar I will her to move. Come on, Marie. You can’t just sit there. Get up!
And she does. Slides the chair back, clears her throat, unlocks the door. I can’t see but I imagine her peering out. “Yes?”
“Afternoon. I’m Sheriff Simmons, and this is Manny, my deputy. How are you doing today, ma’am?”
In the cellar, the heavy, pungent smell of dirt. Potatoes from the store, the stubby carrots from our garden. Butternuts from Scotland in the corner. A wooden crate of apples.
“Fine, thank you.” She clears her throat again. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“You mind if we come in?”
“I’d rather you didn’t.” Pause. “With the mud. Your boots.”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
Shuffling overhead, door moaning as it opens, cold air pouring into the house the way it does, and drifting right down through the floorboards to us. Finch shivers and tucks in closer.
“If you don’t mind,” Marie says, “I’d prefer that you stay on the rug there. I like to keep the place tidy.”