I reached up and touched my bump. It was virtually gone, but I could feel a wide swath of caked blood arcing out from it across my forehead.
'It bled during the night,' I said.
'Does it hurt?'
I shook my head, probing the wound with my fingertips. 'It feels like it's almost gone.'
She nodded but didn't say anything.
'Think if it'd hit me in the eye,' I said.
Sarah examined my forehead, but with a distracted expression on her face. I could tell she was thinking of something else.
'You ought to tell Jacob you're going back to the plane,' she said. 'Maybe have him come with you.'
'Why?'
'It just seems smart. Last thing we need is for him or Lou to drive by and see your car sitting next to the park. They'll start thinking something's going on, that you're trying to trick them.'
'They wouldn't see the car. I'll be there and back before either of them is even out of bed.'
'It's just being careful, Hank. That's what we have to be from now on. We have to be thinking ahead all the time.'
I considered that for a moment, then nodded halfheartedly. Sarah watched me closely, as if waiting for me to argue. When I didn't, she gave my leg a squeeze beneath the covers.
'We aren't going to tell him about putting the money back, though,' she said. 'You'll have to hide it under your jacket and go into the plane by yourself.'
'You're saying he'd go back and steal it?'
'Maybe. Jacob's human. It'd be a perfectly natural thing to do. Or tell Lou about it. I know Lou would do it.' She brushed at her hair with her hand. Wet, it looked darker than it actually was, almost brown. 'This way we don't have to worry about it. We can just know it's there, and that if it's there, we're safe.'
She rubbed my foot. 'Okay?'
I nodded. 'Okay.'
Smiling, she slid up the bed toward me, leaned forward, and kissed me on my nose. I could smell her shampoo, something lemony. I kissed her back on the mouth.
I GOT UP to shower, and Sarah, wearing a dark green maternity dress, disappeared downstairs to fix us breakfast.
I turned on the water to let it heat up, then went to the mirror and inspected my forehead. In its exact center was a small hole, no bigger than an acne scar. Dried blood spiraled out from it, highlighting it like the target on a bull's-eye.
I stared at myself until the mirror began to fog over, cleaning some of the blood away with my thumb, then stripped out of my pajamas. I felt bloated, hazy, as if my body knew that it was New Year's Day and thus automatically assumed that I was hung over.
As I was preparing to climb into the shower, I noticed there were no towels in the bathroom. When I opened the door to go get one, I found Sarah crouched with her back to me by the bed, the duffel bag resting beside her on the floor, packets of money spread out across the carpet.
She looked up as I came into the room, glancing over her shoulder with what seemed like a guilty smile. Seeing it appear on her face, I felt a flicker of suspicion move through my body, like a shiver. I knew immediately that it was unwarranted, knew that it was merely my surprise at finding her in the bedroom with the money when I thought she was downstairs in the kitchen, and I instantly felt as if I'd wronged her somehow, falsely accusing her of a misdeed.
'I need a towel,' I said. I stood perfectly still in the doorway -- naked, and feeling foolish because of it. I'd never liked walking around undressed, not even in front of Sarah. My body -- its physical presence, the space it took up, the color of its skin -- embarrassed me. Sarah was just the opposite. On especially hot summer days, she liked to lounge bare skinned around the house.
'Oh, Hank,' she said, 'I'm sorry. I meant to get you one.' She didn't stand up.
She was holding a packet of money in each hand. I started to take a step toward the hall but then stopped. 'What're you doing?' I asked.
She nodded toward the duffel bag. 'I wanted to make sure it wasn't in order.'
'In order?'
'If it was from a bank robbery, the serial numbers might've been in order. We couldn't spend it then.'
'Are they?'
She shook her head. 'It's all old.'
I stared down at the packets spread out across the floor. They were organized very neatly, stacked into piles of five. 'You want me to help put it back?' I asked.
'No,' she said. 'I'm counting it.'
'Counting it?'
She nodded.
'But we already did that. Jacob and Lou and I counted it last night.'
She gave me a little shrug. 'I wanted to do it too,' she said. 'It didn't seem real unless I did it myself.'
When I got out of the shower, Sarah was back downstairs. I could hear her banging things together in the kitchen. I crouched by the bed and checked beneath it, moving one of the empty suitcases aside. The duffel bag was there, safe, pushed up against the wall, looking exactly as I'd left it the night before.
I slid the suitcase back into place, dressed quickly, and hurried downstairs for breakfast.
AFTER we finished eating, I called Jacob and told him that we had to go back to the plane.
'Back to the plane?' he asked. He sounded groggy, barely awake.
'We have to make sure we didn't leave anything behind,' I said. I was in the kitchen. Sarah was at the table, knitting a sweater for the baby and listening to our conversation. The money I'd counted out the night before was stacked beside her.
'What could we've left behind?' Jacob asked.
I could picture him in my mind, lying on the bed in his little apartment, still dressed in the clothes he'd worn last night, fat, unshaven, the covers wadded into a dirty knot at his feet, the shades pulled, the room smelling stalely of beer.
'We weren't careful,' I said. 'We have to go back and look things over.'
'You think you left something?'
'Lou left his beer can.'
My brother's voice took on a tired, exasperated tone. 'His beer can?'
'And I moved the pilot. We have to put him back like he was.'
Jacob sighed into the phone.
'I think I might've bled a little onto the plane's floor, too.'
'Bled?'
'From my forehead. They can tell things from blood. It's worse than fingerprints.'
'Jesus, Hank, nobody's going to notice a couple drops of blood.'
'We can't take the chance.'
'I'm not going to walk all the way--'
'We're going back,' I said loudly. 'We're not going to fuck this up because you're too lazy to do it right.' My voice came out even angrier than I'd intended it to, and it had an immediate effect on both my listeners. Sarah glanced up, a startled look on her face. Jacob fell into silence.
I smiled reassuringly at Sarah, and she went back to her knitting. 'I'll pick you up,' I said to Jacob. 'And after we're through we can stop by the cemetery.'
He made a low groaning sound, which solidified slowly into speech. 'All right,' he said.
'In an hour.'
