Above The Thunder Part 25

She made a face of disgust. "G.o.d, no. This isn't my thing." She took a sip of her drink. "I've just had some revelations."

"Oh? With whom?"

She smiled, drew her lips in. "I mean, I have figured things out. Figured out certain things."

He nodded, and she said, "This is it. This is all there is. One moment to the next." She looked over at him. "Well, you already live that way. I had this vision of carting around a suitcase that's heavy, but only half full."

Jack leaned in, cupped his hand over his ear; the music was getting louder. "I said, it's stupid to think that you always need to have extra s.p.a.ce for what might come."

Jack shook his head. "Heard only about half of that."

Nearly shouting now, she said, "I don't have to worry about the next thing until the next thing comes. Until it does, there is a song by s.h.a.ggy to dance to." The DJ announced the songs and singers before he played the track. Over the course of the evening, Anna discovered she liked some of this-hip-hop? urban rap?-music, liked s.h.a.ggy and Nelly and Mary J. Blige. And she was going to buy Eminem's CD for her and Flynn's music collection.

He took her hand and kissed it. "You know I love you," he said.

She nodded. "I do know that. And I know that my world is better because you're in it."

She lit a cigarette, nodded for another round of tequila. "This place, anyway, is kind of great. I've spent exactly five dollars all night, and I'm sloshed. People have been buying me drinks all night long."

He took a puff off her cigarette, then moved to a stool where he had a clear view of the staircase so he could see when Stuart came down. Finally, after an eternity, Jack saw him as he threaded his way through the throng, looking this way and that for him and Anna.

The three of them walked out into the early morning air, folded themselves into a taxi where Jack closed his eyes and dreamed of getting back to Maine, to his quiet and comfortable life with Anna and Flynn and that smelly dog. Stuart coming back to stay, to live with them in Maine, would make his life perfect. He reached for Stuart's hand, and Anna's, on the other side of him. Stuart's hand was lifeless and chilly, but he didn't pull away. Anna's hand was warm. Jack laid his head back, closed his eyes. "Even in reunion there is parting," he said, his dreams opening before his sleep.

"What's that?" Anna said.

"Nothing," Jack said. "It's just nothing."

THIRTEEN.

AFTER THE FIRST DEATH THERE IS NO OTHER.

Somebody was having a birch log fire. Anna had slept with her bedroom window cracked open and the scent of wood smoke was wafting in from somewhere. It was just after dawn, and the house this early was still quiet. She opened the curtains and looked out. Wintry. The sky heavy-looking with snow, the water at the sh.o.r.eline gray and marbled with white, like a cheap cut of meat. Still, gloomy as it was, Anna loved days like this, always had.

In the kitchen, she put the coffee on then stepped out on the back porch in her nightgown. The houses along the inlet were doglegged and hidden, but she saw the smoke rising from the stand of spruce to the west, which meant Violet's place. Anna hoped Violet would come to Jack's birthday party tonight; Violet didn't like crowds.

Jack had argued for a small gathering, but Anna's instincts and Stuart's good sense-they'd been back from San Francisco a week now, and he hadn't shown any signs of leaving, which was fine with her-led her to invite most of the town. There were people coming in from Boston, old friends of Jack and Stuart's, and Marvin, who hadn't been up to see Flynn in months. Anna hoped Flynn might open up to her father in ways she no longer did with Anna. When she and Jack and Stuart got back from California, Anna questioned Greta, who had come up to Maine and spent two days with Flynn, enough time to form an opinion. Did Flynn seem unusually quiet to her? Unusually withdrawn? Melancholy or disturbed?

"She's an unusual girl," Greta had said.

"Yes. What have you noticed?"

Greta shook her head. "Nothing in particular, I guess, other than she seems really detached."

Anna pressed her further.

"Well, it was like she didn't remember who I was," Greta said. "Like she was looking at me from the wrong side of a telescope. Or no, actually. The way you look at someone you know from a half a mile away. You're pretty sure it's who you think it is, but not positive until you get up close. Does that make sense?"

Anna nodded. "Do you think she'll be okay?" She paused. "Well, that's not a fair question."

Greta took her hand, squeezed it. "You worry too much. You're like a new mother."

Back upstairs, Anna looked out over the water from her bedroom balcony, sipped her coffee. She took a deep breath, inhaled the scents of brine and wood smoke and the wet canvas from the old tent Flynn had gotten out one afternoon six weeks ago then left in a moldering heap by the wood shed. Anna had The White Glove Maids coming later this afternoon, and Stuart was going to help with the cooking-just basic things, since she had the bakery in town doing a cake and sweets, the town liquor store providing the booze, and the Shimmer Deli putting together party plates of sliced meats and cheeses. She'd hired four or five college kids to take care of the serving, music, and bartending. In fact, Anna had delegated so well, that this might be the first party she'd ever thrown she could actually enjoy.

Anna filled the tub for her bath and got some towels out of the hall closet next to Flynn's room. She put her ear to Flynn's door. There were strange sounds: Pacing, thumping, the sound of moving furniture. Anna walked away, went in to have her bath. She added the salts and oil, felt a pang of nostalgia. She supposed the days of Flynn keeping her company while she bathed were over. As recently as two months ago, Flynn came in when she heard the bath running and stretched out on Anna's bed, chattered through the open door. She'd go through Anna's closet, try on clothes and jewelry, or rummage through her makeup drawer.

Anna rapped lightly on Flynn's door. Maybe what they needed, the two of them, was to go out for Belgian waffles at Sugar Loaf, Flynn's favorite. It was in the next town, a twenty-minute drive on the highway. But there was time, especially with the extra help Anna had hired. The day was already gorgeous, bright but chilly, perfect for a huge breakfast. Maybe Flynn would want to shop, too. She might want something new to wear for the party.

"Flynnie? I have a great idea," she said. The door was half ajar, and it swayed open under the pressure of Anna's hand. The room was dark with the pulled blinds, not a crack of light from anywhere. Anna squinted at the bed, but the rumpled lumps were just blankets and pillows. She turned on the bedside lamp.

In the corner, Flynn was sitting atop a pile of household goods from the shed-a tower of wood and fabric, old draperies and tarps. "What are you doing?" Anna felt something sink inside her. "What are you doing, Flynn? What is all this?"

Flynn looked down at her, pale and wide-eyed. "It's a meditation tower," she said.

"Why?" How-and when-did she get all this stuff in here?

"Because I didn't want to sit on the floor."

Anna opened the blinds, studied the pile of junk, lumber from bookshelves Hugh had started but never finished, the baby gate they used for Poppy when she became too interested in the stairs, old tabletops, quilts. Anna touched one at eye level. She herself had pieced this, Poppy's baby quilt. And here was a huge bag of knitting, yellow baby yarn, twenty-five skeins of it-Anna remembered buying this, too-she was going to make Poppy a blanket, something for the bed Hugh made when Poppy outgrew the crib. Anna quit the project after about fifteen rows. "I had no idea all of this stuff was still around," Anna said, looking up at Flynn and smiling, as though it was perfectly natural to have her granddaughter nesting like a bower bird in a stack of old lumber and discarded hobbies. Flynn looked down at her impa.s.sively.

"I was thinking the two of us could go get some breakfast at Sugar Loaf. We haven't been there in a while," Anna said.

"I'm not very hungry."

"You might be, once you get up and get moving. Why don't you bathe and dress and meet me downstairs in an hour?"

But by the time Flynn emerged a little over an hour later, Anna was already involved in supervising the maids who arrived at ten instead of four-a scheduling mix-up-and polishing the silver. She pulled out the sheets for the guest beds that needed to be laundered. You never knew who might have to stay the night, too drunk to drive.

Flynn found her grandmother in the kitchen scrubbing the floors with strong-smelling soap. "I thought we were going to get breakfast."

"Well, I waited, but didn't think you were coming. I'm in the middle of things now. You'll have to fix something for yourself. But don't eat anywhere where the cleaning people are or have been."

Flynn sighed, went in and fixed herself a sandwich and took it outside, past the maids, to the front porch. It was cold out here-why had Anna said it was a nice day? Everything felt cold to her now, her hands and feet, her bed. She balanced the sandwich on her knee, watched the way the jelly glinted in the light, and took a sip of what she thought was Kool-Aid but which turned out to be margarita mix-Jack was always putting his margarita mix in the wrong pitcher. She wished Stuart would leave. She knew what jealousy was; she wasn't jealous, but she also wanted Jack to herself for a while. She overheard Stuart talking to his friend on the phone, heard them arguing, which meant he was probably going to live here forever.

Two weeks ago when she was rooting around in the shed, she found an old record player with her mother's name printed on it in red nail polish. Three alb.u.ms, the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar, The Best of Bread, and Mac Davis's Greatest Hits. For two weeks the soundtrack from Jesus Christ Superstar had been in her head, though she only played it a couple of times. It was terrible, the line that stuck-We beseech thee...hear us-and she felt so sick, sick in a way she couldn't describe, except that it was like something in her head was rubbing away at the skin deep inside her like a blister. The song played over and over in her head, and she thought constantly about what it was like to be dead. She was sure she was going to die, and despite what she told her grandma that day on the train tracks, she was afraid. It felt like everything in her future was rushing toward her, and everything that had already happened was pushing from behind, so that she was stuck in the narrow s.p.a.ce between the two, barely able to breathe, living every single minute of her life all at once. She couldn't ever relax. Even in bed, she felt strained, as if the parts of her body were all boxers and competing for a place on the mattress-if her legs relaxed, her neck craned up, if her head sunk into the pillow, her back arched. The winning parts sent the losing parts off the bed. She couldn't let go, couldn't just let herself drift away. Sometimes she lay at the water's edge in the cool sand and imagined that she was already dead. Sometimes she wished very hard that it was so.

Everything hurt. Her head, her knuckles, every strand of hair. She curled up on the chaise longue in the sun, wrapped herself in a quilt and closed her eyes. She smelled the salt in the air, the fishy water and imagined herself floating, floating away to the middle of the ocean. She squeezed her eyes shut tight against the sun, covered her head with a sweater that smelled of dust and damp. She didn't know why she felt like this, why nothing sounded like fun and nothing mattered. Being alive felt like being dead.

She listened to the crash of the waves against the sh.o.r.e, heard the whistle of the midday train from a few miles away and fell into a light sleep, a dream of her mother waiting for her in a train station after a long trip where she was crammed in a seat with three other people, one very old woman and two men. There was a terrible smell, like too many hot bodies, and a half-full c.o.ke bottle on the floor full of blue-winged flies. The light inside the train got darker and darker. People began to moan and complain. Flynn looked up at the conductor, who was in almost all of her dreams lately. He caught Flynn's eye in the rearview mirror and smiled. His teeth were black and looked like they'd been put in upside down and in the wrong places. She saw tiny faces in them. Just last night he'd sung Spanish songs to her, love songs, and turned the leaves on the trees into parrots to make her laugh. Now this.

Anna didn't know there were so many people in the town-all of whom now seemed to be a.s.sembling in her living room in brightly colored clumps. Violet was here, in a typical strange outfit of three skirts, a Shetland sweater, and army boots, and Elmer Thibbodeux III, who went by Tripp, the pharmacist whose father and grandfather owned the drugstore that was now in his hands. Each generation of Thibbodeux druggists, in Anna's view, looked more like used car salesmen. Tripp was hugely fat, an epicurean with delicate hands and a penchant for seaweed facials at the-inferior- salon in the center of town. He didn't care who knew about his skin vanity, the a.s.sortment of lotions and unguents in his bathroom (on the sly he dated the facialist's mother, who of course broadcast the quant.i.ties of money spent on skin-care treatments). The only visible difference, as far as Anna could tell, between a small town like this one now and fifty years ago lay in what people were willing to reveal; Tripp's father, if he'd had such preferences, would never let it be known that he had forty kinds of body lotion.

"Hey, hey," the tall man in the corner yelled, as he had every time a new guest walked in. He was somebody's nephew; Anna couldn't remember whose. He was about fifty, well over six and a half feet, and held a pizza box in his lap. He was, Anna guessed, a borderline case, with an I.Q. of about sixty or seventy. "I'm Asa, but people call me Toot, and I'm a palindrome," he said, looking up at a group of gay men who had just come in.

"Oh yeah?" one of them said. "Are you out of the closet yet?"

Asa looked up with his slightly crossed eyes, his chin slick with saliva. "I brought pizza. Is this a potluck? I jerk off too much. Huh."

Anna watched her living room fill. The party hadn't been underway long enough for the locals to mix with the gay crowd, who were showing up in astonishing numbers; Anna had no idea Jack had so many friends. Gay people liked parties. Was that too much of a stereotype? The gifts they brought, too, were mounding toward the ceiling. Jack himself was gorgeous tonight in a tuxedo he'd brought from the city, an Armani sharkskin left over from his other life as a rich investments partner. The tux was newly retailored for him and made his thinness not less noticeable, but intentional-looking somehow. With padding and reseaming the tailor had expertly restructured the jacket so Jack's slight camel's hump was nearly invisible. His spa.r.s.e blond hair was combed and gelled so it shone. He looked, Anna thought, like a Renaissance angel; his straight, columnar body designed to receive the lights of heaven. He'd never looked better or healthier in the time she'd known him. Jack stood in a group of men, some of whom, inexplicably, were in costume. Anna counted three Marilyn Monroes, one Roy Rogers, and a very good Judy Garland-a handsome young man who had Judy down to the thick fringe of lashes and the sleepy, half-lidded languor of intoxication. His hips were as narrow as a girl's in the gold lame gown. He was the one who'd brought what looked like a huge painting. It was wrapped in Christmas paper printed with demonic-looking elves. He'd left a red imprint of lips on Jack's cheek.

Anna circulated through the crowd toward the bar, a little anxious that Marvin and Greta hadn't shown up yet. Greta had said she was getting an early start out of Boston; Anna had antic.i.p.ated that she'd be here before noon. Maybe there were last-minute arrangements with Lily. Marvin, too, now that she thought about it, was overdue.

Anna handed her martini gla.s.s to the bartender. Stuart was sitting in the bar area like a weary businessman with a high debt-ratio; he looked harangued, anxious. "Are you supposed to be Gene Kelly?" Anna asked, nodding at the raincoat he was wearing.

"Excuse me?" Stuart said.

"Your raincoat."

"Oh, no," Stuart said. "I'm not in costume." He realized how ridiculous he must look, wearing this coat b.u.t.toned up and belted like the town pervert. Then again, he was standing next to a crowd of Judy Garlands and Marilyn Monroes, the nostalgic reenactment of the Marilyns they'd all been on the Gay Pride float two years ago. Jack was at the height of both his beauty and his infidelity then, though Stuart didn't know the latter part till later. If he didn't lose his nerve, he planned to present the coat to Jack when he opened his gifts. Most of the men here-well, all-knew of Jack's extracurricular love life. Stuart counted at least five in the group who had indisputably slept with Jack at one time or another. It was important that it be a public presentation; he'd already considered and dismissed the idea of giving it to Jack in private. The most recent additions were the instructions from the tampon box Jack had modified for Flynn, the stark outline he had colored in and embellished with smiles and jewelry. This technically didn't belong in the coat that doc.u.mented their life together, but it showed a newly formed side of Jack-compa.s.sion-that had begun to creep into their relationship. Not that they were officially together. Stuart didn't know. But at this moment, being with Jack was what he wanted. David had threatened and cajoled and issued ultimatums, so Stuart stopped calling and stopped taking David's calls. He just couldn't be back in Boston right now. One of the graduate students agreed to teach his cla.s.ses for him.

He swallowed down the last of his whiskey, hoped his nervous perspiration wasn't ruining the dried flowers in the sleeves and soaking through the pages of The Song of Solomon pasted all around the collar. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he feedeth among the lilies.

Two hours into the party the left side of the room had made forays toward the right, the path smoothed by alcohol, perhaps, but still, the Y2K doomsdayist Albert Cyr, who had a bunker full of canned food and bottled water, was speaking to one of the Marilyns as though they were lifelong friends, and Violet was dancing with the man dressed as Judy Garland to "I Believe in Miracles." Jack had been opening gifts for an hour and the end was nowhere in sight.

"Anna, look," Jack called to her. "Robert Mitchum's entire body of work." He held up the DVDs. "Anna will make me watch these upstairs, no doubt."

"Just the second time through. A little Mitchum goes a long way."

"I'd settle for a long Mitchum going a little way."

Anna sat on the ottoman next to Jack so she could look through the loot. Cashmere socks, three Armani shirts, an original Edward Weston photograph, CDs, a hand-carved spice rack and a family-size bottle of Vitabath body lotion and shower gel. "I didn't get near this haul when I turned fifty," Anna said.

"f.a.gs know early on the importance of good gifts," Jack said. "You never know how long the riches will hold out. Don't you agree?" Jack said, to no one in particular. "Today an investments broker, tomorrow a viewer of daytime television and wearer of watch alarms. We're all just this side of selling Amway."

Judy Garland muscled over the huge gift-what could only be a picture or painting of some sort. Anna looked down at his feet, turned inward in the red heels. "Ready for the Mona Lisa?"

"What the h.e.l.l is this?" Jack asked, tearing at the wrapping paper. "Oh," he said, and Anna saw an expression on his face-a recent addition to his repertoire-which she had begun to love, love to an aching degree for its authenticity. It was a look of great intensity that suggested transparency, as though he saw right to the beating heart of things. His eyes widened and crossed just the tiniest bit before dropping down and looking away. There was usually a smile that went with it. "Oh," he said again. Finally, he turned the photograph around. It was a black and white of Jack himself dressed in nothing more than a chef's hat. In his hand was a pair of barbecue tongs clenching a hamburger bun in a strategic location. He was standing at a grill, gazing full into the camera with a cheese-ball grin, surrounded by men and women with blank looks, as though there was nothing unusual going on. They were looking at the grill with open buns in their hands. Jack was breathtaking; Anna had no idea. It was clearly a staged photo meant to be comedy, Anna guessed, but people were studying it now with the solemnity that seemed more fitting for the Edward Weston print. She didn't understand the silence at first-surely a group like this wasn't offended-until Anna felt Violet come up beside her. "Huh. That's some body. Who's he?"

Anna glanced at her, then at the group around Jack who were avoiding looking at one another or the photograph.

Jack himself broke the silence. "Do you remember this, Stuart?" Jack asked. "The redneck handbook Curtis put together."

Stuart smiled, nodded. How could he forget? That was just before everything changed. He looked down at the photo of Jack, then at Jack in the flesh. It didn't look like the same man, though for his money he loved Jack's face better as it was now. Jack was tiring, Stuart saw, a certain tightness around his mouth, tension in the tilt of his head.

Stuart was nervous despite the three martinis he'd hoped would take the edge off his panic. "I have something for you," he said, getting down from the barstool. He took off the coat and laid it flat on the ottoman in front of Jack. "Ever since I've known you, you were the most exciting thing ever, like this great whirl of energy that I never wanted to be outside of. I couldn't imagine not being surrounded by you. This was the next best thing." He opened the coat, explained about the numbers from Jack's running jerseys-more for the benefit of others than for Jack-the flowers they picked together or their first date, feathers from the mourning doves that nested outside their bedroom window in California, but after a few minutes he felt people's attention beginning to wane. Stuart watched Jack's face in earnest, watched the memories come alive in his face as he touched the emblems of them. "Anyway, I give this to you with love and good wishes."

Jack looked up at him, and then away. "I am overcome. I am overwhelmed by this."

"It's just a token of our time together. A sc.r.a.pbook."

"It's a work of art." He wrapped it around his shoulders. "I'll cherish this forever."

Stuart smiled. Jack kissed him, then kissed him in a way that made the other half of the room stare. Stuart pulled away, but Jack folded him close again, kissed him on the forehead, the mouth, left cheek, then right. "That is my genuflection," Jack whispered in his ear, "I worship you."

By the time Marvin showed up at about ten-thirty, Anna realized she hadn't seen Flynn for hours. She greeted Marvin at the door. A young woman-young young woman, nineteen maybe-stood beside him holding a giant box.

"You're way late," she said, irritation rushing in where worry had been. More than any other person in her life, past or present, Marvin had a way of knocking her off an even keel; just when their relationship seemed to be steady and workable, he pulled a stunt like this, showing up three hours late with a woman young enough to be his daughter.

"Good to see you," he said, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. He smelled of the cold air and tobacco. "This is JoBeth." The woman peeked over the top of the box.

"This is my mother-in-law, Anna." He stepped in and dropped his luggage, took the gift from the girl. "Oh, I need to tell you. Greta called as I was leaving. Her daughter is sick, so she won't be coming in tonight. She said maybe tomorrow. She'll call you later." Disappointment and panic-she didn't know why exactly-sank through her. Something was wrong. Something felt really wrong. She would call Greta at the first possible moment.

Anna left Marvin at the door and escorted JoBeth into the living room where the party was louder, drunker, and more surreal than ever: Judy Garland, with Violet's red skirt on his head, held the giant photo of Jack overhead and had a conga line forming behind him. The line snaked around the living room to the music of Donna Summer. Jack and Stuart were still in their mushy moment, everything but the cartoon hearts above their heads. She was suddenly feeling ungenerous and tired. "There's still a lot of food left if you're hungry, and drinks, of course." To Anna's left Albert Cyr was holding Y2K doomsday court with Violet, whose visible skirt-the red one still being used as a head dress-was now a librarian brown plaid. Asa was still at his station in the corner. His hands were moving beneath the pizza box in his lap. Tripp, the druggist, who had been inspecting Jack's gifts, turned and swatted Asa on the shoulder. He was Tripp's nephew, Anna remembered. "Get your hands off your imagination, boy," Tripp said. "On top of the pizza box, where I can see them."

"I'm a palindrome," Asa said, when JoBeth swept by. Anna watched as the girl turned and bent toward him, puzzled.

Anna waited for Marvin to sidle up beside her. "I have to tell you, I'm a little irritated. You might have called to tell me you were running late, and that you were bringing a date, which by the way is disrespectful."

"Why? To whom?"

"To me. To your daughter, the reason you're supposedly here. The reason you were supposed to be here this morning, as you promised."

Anna watched Marvin's date make her way to the bar. She was exquisite, really, and she had Poppy's coloring and build, though the girl had b.o.o.bs-augments, Anna decided-and wasn't quite as tall. "And what happened to the lovely Christine?"

Marvin sighed. "What happened. What always happens? Lovers are like pantyhose. Sooner or later they all run." He put his arm around Anna's shoulders. "Come on, Anna."

She didn't dare look at him. "Anna," he said again, in a tone that was patient and cajoling at the same time. Her body had always been traitorous in the presence of Marvin. She could be trembling with rage, but the minute he stood near or touched her, it was like brandy in the back of her throat, a warm and smoky fire. "Take your hand off me," she said finally.

He exhaled dramatically. "Where is my daughter?"

"She's probably hiding out somewhere. She's not much into crowds these days. I'll go find her."

"No. Wait a little while. Don't force her into this group. I'll see her after the party ends. I want you to see what I made Jack. It's something I've had high offers for. A buyer offered me a thousand for it, but I decided to give it to Jack." Anna watched as Marvin reached around JoBeth to get the oversized box, encircled her waist for an instant. He walked over to Jack, who was glowing. Stuart, too, had transformed into something wonderful-looking. Anna had never thought much of Stuart's looks-he looked to her like an old-egg baby, the short limbs, long trunk, and flat forehead women sometimes produced when they bore children in mature maternity-but now she realized that he was a handsome man. Or maybe it was the attractiveness that comes from being in love. The dancers were moving to the corners now, Petula Clarke singing "Downtown." Jack lifted a bust of clay and bronze out of the box. The side facing her was Clinton whose features Marvin distorted to look like a goat's. Half the face was bronzed, the other ordinary clay. She didn't need to see the other side to know it was a serial killer. She'd imagined he would have moved past this by now.

Anna turned away, toward the back door somebody had left open. The air streaming in smelled of the sea and of the damp cedar fencing her garden. Something else, too. Figs. The musky intimate smell of figs, though she was surely imagining that. She walked outside. It was getting very cold. Tomorrow she and Flynn would drive north, stop at a chowder place for lunch, shop for warm school clothes-Flynn was growing so quickly-and walk the beaches in the afternoon. She walked to the porch at the front of the house. Flynn wasn't here, but had been; she'd made herself a little nest on the chaise: rumpled quilt, a scattering of record alb.u.ms printed with Poppy's name in her childish handwriting, a nearly full gla.s.s of Kool-Aid, and-in the path of the porch light-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's book about dying.

Anna sat. Something wasn't right. She pressed the blanket to her face, inhaled her granddaughter's scent. It smelled a little sweaty, sour with illness or fear. An animal moved at the corner of her vision. She turned, but saw it was just the wind, not a living creature, moving the leaves and shrubbery. There was something else. A presence, a feeling of being observed. Anna walked to the edge of the porch, squinted into the darkness. An insect brushed against her cheek. She smelled roses and lime shaving cream. Anna rarely thought of s.e.x, even more rarely wanted it, but there was something about the night, with its wintry air and the emotions swimming around in her-nostalgia, anger, and, inexplicably, fear-that made her want it now. With no one in particular, without any special tenderness, or, G.o.d forbid, false expressions of love, just a healthy strong man who could reawaken her body's responses. Once again, she heard something rustling in the bushes beside the house. "Marvin?" she called, but there was no one there.

Flynn sat on the railroad tracks waiting for the midnight train. She felt like she was still stuck in a dream, only half aware of what she was about to do. This was best, she knew, because she had seen the future last night in her dreams and it wasn't something she wanted to be a part of: Jack would die soon, so would her grandmother. Last night and early into this morning, she saw the rest of her life. She would marry and live in France, but it would be an unhappy marriage. She would be an artist creating things in blue gla.s.s, but even this would not make her happy. She would have a son, but not a daughter, and, most terrifying of all, she would develop a disease in her forties that would slowly paralyze her and confine her to a wheelchair long before she would actually die. She would be completely alone, her son turned against her by her ex-husband, under the care of a nurse who didn't treat her very well because she didn't have to; Flynn couldn't speak but even if she could, no one was there to listen. There were wonderful things before this happened, but not so many to compel her to stay. She knew what would happen after she did it: they would be angry with her, just as in the dream last night her mother was angry when she saw Flynn and said, what are you doing here, you're not supposed to be here, and they would put her with the angels for a while, make her sit among them but not be able to experience the joy they had, the place where every living thing had a voice. Her mother was dead, Flynn was sure of this. She'd been dreaming it for weeks.

The angels had come to her last night and showed her things, warned her that time was no better healer of wounds than mercy. They told her in the world of spirits time was measured only by completion, interruption, and violence. She would be sent back, and her next life would be harder but more rewarding. The punishment for what she was about to do was that she had to be in her father's group again, as his mother, which was far worse than being his daughter. He was moving in the wrong direction, toward the dark and not the light, and he had many more lifetimes to learn his lessons. His had been a soul greatly admired: he'd lived twice as a beggar, which was greatly esteemed because it taught people charity and compa.s.sion. Before that, when he was new, he was one of the extremely rare beings formed from two separate places: the realm of the angelic and the realm of the human-divine. Sometimes, though, the angels got jealous-they were imperfect, too-and they did bad things. In her dream last night, she saw and understood everything.

Before bodies, souls had colors. Her father had the blue of the angels swirling through the yellow-white of the human-divine. The angelic part of him sang along with the blue flowers, the bluebells and violets, a silvery wet sound in the key of C. Perfect C was what the angels were pitched to. An important task of angels was to escort all souls to the birth tunnel, one on each side, their bodies acting like skin to protect the new being from the dirt and darkness of the human world. There was a small s.p.a.ce, a gap, where they had to be extra careful, and that was the border between these two places. This was the place of nowhere. The time of nothing. The place where no heavenly bodies could rule, and no bodies that were human could stay. Underground creatures dwelled here and were hateful.

With Marvin, one of the jealous angels moved just a fraction of an inch, and darkness rushed in. That angel had received the worst possible punishment: it was torn from the angelic realm and forced to become a human spirit. And, even worse, Flynn learned in her dream, the spirit wouldn't be blessed with forgetfulness, it would always remember in a vague yearning way the blue and white happiness of the angels' special place. That's how bad it was to do something unkind and unloving to another being, Flynn was told by a man in her dream. Angels feared one thing and that was becoming human: the worst possible situation for them was to be encased in small s.p.a.ces like human bodies that demanded to be fed and satisfied. The angel had been Anna, and now she, too, was bound to Marvin. The three of them, Flynn saw in her dream, would be back in the same group, with Marvin and Anna as husband and wife, and Flynn as Marvin's mother. Poppy would be a mentally ill mail carrier who poisoned all the neighborhood dogs. She, a he, in the next lifetime, would go to jail for doing terrible things to children where he-she-would be murdered after ten years. A terrible war was coming and Flynn was to be a soldier in charge of a settlement camp after the fighting ended. Her life would be lonely and she would be blamed and hated for a food shortage and for enforcing laws-who could bear children, and who couldn't; executing people who committed hate crimes-that were designed for the continuation and improvement of the species. In the world to come, only kindness mattered. She would be shot to death eventually, but Flynn would do good in that future lifetime, fulfill her purpose.