climb. But in your haste to save the jet, you pulled back too fast and too hard. Yes, you are climbing. But it is only a slingshot effect. You pulled the triple-seven heavy out of its dive so quickly that you asked more of the metal than it could handle: You sheared off the wings. You are now in the front of a long tube, not a plane, that is going up but in a moment will reach the top of its arc and then fall headfirst into the earth. Into that bay. And behind you the passengers scream once again. They, too, have seen the wings ripped off, and this time they are screaming in horror at the imminence of their death.
And then you wake up.
You always wake up before your plane augers in.
You listen to Emily’s breathing beside you, her hair on her pillow wild like Venus’s when she was born in Botticelli’s painting. You feel your head pounding, and you know instantly that Ethan is with you. You turn toward the doorway, and there he is, beckoning you with one finger. It’s time. You climb from beneath the sheets, careful not to untuck them because Emily sleeps best when the sheets are tight, but tonight this is not merely because you are such a considerate husband. It is because you can’t risk her waking when you do what you have to do. This can’t continue. This can’t go on for you or Emily or your beautiful daughters. This can’t go on for Ethan or Ashley. God, poor, poor Ashley. You are all in pain. You are all unhappy.
Together with Ethan you go downstairs. You peer into the den, and there are Sandra and Ashley playing with Hallie’s and Garnet’s American Girl dolls on the floor. Sandra looks up at you and shakes her head no, but Ethan takes you by the elbow and pulls you along into the kitchen. There you fall onto your hands and your knees and reach underneath the oven, finding the blade of the knife with your fingertips. You pull it along the linoleum floor and then grasp the pearl handle in your palm.
“Let’s take the back stairs,” Ethan suggests, and you agree. You know why. It is because he does not want you to see Sandra again when you pass the den. He does not want you to be dissuaded from this hard, hard task by her disapproving eyes and, perhaps, her desperate entreaties. But there really is no danger of that. Not tonight. She is not connected to you the way Ethan and Ashley are. You don’t feel as profoundly what she feels; you don’t know as precisely what she thinks.
Still, you move gingerly up the back stairs and then as silently as you can along the second-floor corridor and up to the third floor. To Hallie’s and Garnet’s rooms. You hold your breath for long moments as you walk, the knife wrapped tightly in your fingers. The pain in your head and your side is excruciating. You will begin in Garnet’s room, for no other reason than it is nearer to the top of the stairs. You will place your left hand on her sleeping mouth so she cannot scream when she is awoken by the knife, moving in your right hand like a jackhammer. You will stab her in the chest and the abdomen. Then you will move to Hallie’s room.
You wonder: Are you dreaming now? Still? Perhaps at this moment you are in fact in bed beside Emily.
It was raining earlier tonight. No longer.
You gaze into Garnet’s room, and the idea that you might still be asleep becomes more pronounced when you see that she isn’t in bed. She should be. It’s the middle of the night. And so you go to Hallie’s room, presuming you will simply begin with her. Begin. Not stab. Did you want a euphemism? Is the actuality of slaughtering your twin girls really becoming too much for you?
Just in case, Ethan wraps his wet arm around your shoulder and guides you to Hallie’s room. And there you see your daughters together. At some point, for some reason, Garnet has gone to Hallie’s bedroom to sleep. So be it. Besides, there is a symmetry to handling it this way: They were born within moments of each other, and they will die within moments of each other. Born together, dead together. You cross to the far side of Hallie’s bed and stare down at them. You try not to view them as beautiful children, though you are their father and so the idea that they are is inescapable. But so is Ashley. So are all the children who died or were made orphans or lost a parent when you crashed Flight 1611 into Lake Champlain.
You are contemplating precisely how to begin, the knife at your side, when you hear your name.
“Chip?”
You look up. There in the doorframe is Emily. She is lit by the hall light behind her, but she has not turned on Hallie’s bedroom light. Her hand is near the wall switch. If she does, she will see the knife. You hold your breath.
“Chip?” she whispers again, her voice a little more urgent this time. She clearly has no plans to risk waking the children by turning on the light. You press the knife against your side, shielding it from her view. You join her and wrap your free hand around her waist. You pull her against you.
“I was watching them sleep,” you murmur, the words catching strangely in your throat. You look for Ethan, but he’s gone.
“Come back to bed,” she says.
“Yes, of course,” you agree, and together you return to your bedroom. There you slip the knife between the mattress and the box spring when you tuck back in the sheets. And you are thorough when you tuck them back in, because Emily likes a tight bed.
Chapter Fourteen
When the girls are at school and Emily is at work, while you are painting the entry foyer, you are surprised by a visitor. It is Hewitt Dunmore. He is wearing a red check flannel jacket and leans on his cane on the front steps of your house in much the same way he did when you visited him at his home in St. Johnsbury. Behind him, in the trees at the edge of the meadow beyond the greenhouse, you notice that the wisps of green shadowing the tree branches have become actual buds. Alabaster white clouds float against the blue sky like islands.
“This is a surprise,” you tell him, extending your hand.
“I was going to call, but since I am apologizing, I thought I should do it in person. Seemed like the right thing to do.”
“Apologize?”
He peers over your shoulder at the masking tape protecting the trim in the front hallway and surveys the way you have already coated one wall with a shade of paint called sunset coral. “Looks like you’re making some changes,” he says, ignoring your question. “Good for you.”
“I guess.” You shrug, not wanting him to feel insulted by the ways you are redoing virtually every room in this house that once belonged to his family. “But that’s only because we have little girls and-”
He waves you off. “The paper was tired. The paint was tired. Makes sense to spruce up the old place.”
“Would you like to come in?”
“I’ll just stay a minute,” he agrees, and together you walk carefully over the newspaper along the floor in the hall and around the paintbrush and roller and the open can of sunset coral paint. You sit in your kitchen now, just as you did once before in his, though this visit feels more companionable. He drapes his flannel jacket on the back of the chair and hooks his cane over an armrest. Behind his shoulder, in the dining room, you gaze at those disturbing, nearly dead sunflowers.
“I want to tell you I’m sorry.”
“So you said. What for?”
“For my parents’ strangeness. For the things my mother left around the house. And, yes, for their burying my brother in the basement,” he says, and you have the sense by the forcefulness of his response that he has rehearsed these words.
“You knew?”
“About my brother? I did not know for a fact. But I suspected.”
“Did you know about the knife and the-”
“No. That was a surprise. I would have told you about those things if I’d known, since you have children. But Sawyer’s body? I figured it was long gone by now-you know, deteriorated-assuming anyone even wanted to break down that blasted door. Still, I should have told you. But I needed the money from the house. It’s just that simple. I have health issues, I don’t have much of a retirement nest egg. And so, well, I looked the other way. Told myself my parents hadn’t really buried Sawyer there, and, if they did, it wasn’t a big deal. And here’s the last thing: If I had known your girls were twins, I would never have sold you the old place. I swear it.”
You think about all that he has just shared with you, unsure where to begin. “So, your parents never told
