That must be their mother. Miranda’s hand flutters a little in their direction, then drops again. The man is working on Sharon, and her heavy, limp arm lands across Miranda’s feet. How are arms that heavy?
The two children are shouting at each other now. Both are wearing tan slacks and dark blue shirts, so they look much alike, but one of them is taller, bigger, and more robust. When that one pushes the smaller child away from the body, Miranda sees long golden pigtails on the smaller child. A little girl. The short hair of the larger one makes her think it’s a boy.
He pushes the little girl again, then grabs the arm of his mother, tugging at her as if this might force her to get up. It’s a terrible sight. The woman is as boneless and limp as Sharon was when she fell. Dead. The little girl takes a step back, her cries stop, and the long tails of golden hair gleam as she tilts back her head to look into the sky.
“No,” Miranda whispers, knowing what’s going to happen. That is the magic of eyes and eyesight. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this is an entire story unfolding in front of her.
The neighbor has tilted Sharon’s head, preparing to breathe for her, but stops when Miranda groans. Her hand is out toward the girl, so he looks at the children on the sidewalk.
The boy doesn’t seem to have noticed his sister or her silence. She’s still for a moment, face to the sky, but it doesn’t last. She crumples in just the way Sharon did. The man from next door, who has been focused on Sharon, sees it too. Quite suddenly, he stands and looks around at all the others on the street, then at the sky.
“Shit!” he says, then jolts to his feet and shoves Miranda toward the door. “Get inside! Get inside!”
“What?” Miranda asks rather lamely. “I don’t understand.”
This man she’s never met before pushes her harder, through the door and into the foyer. He reaches for her door, but before he slams it closed on her, he says, “It’s only women. Don’t you see? The ones on the ground are women.”
Charlotte
“Charlie! Get in the damn house! Stop what you’re doing and go!”
Charlotte drops the crate filled with dog toys, shocked at her mother’s tone. Tabitha never yells. She especially never yells at Charlotte. There’s no need to yell. Charlotte has always been a compliant girl.
Tabitha is running toward the house, another oddity. “Go!” she yells again, this time louder.
Charlotte whirls and runs for the side door, tripping a little over the scattered dog toys. Her mother joins her in the kitchen within seconds, slamming and locking the door behind her. Her face is set into lines that Charlotte has never seen before. Panic, fear, something like that.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, her feet shifting back and forth on the floor, not clear what she should be afraid of, but very sure there’s something that needs fearing.
Her mother hurries around the lower floor, touching every window to be sure it’s closed and locked. Of course they are. It’s summer and as hot as hades outside. The cool, conditioned air should have made that obvious. Tabitha lowers the shades on every window as she passes, taking away the bright light of an early Virginia summer.
“Mom!” Charlotte cries, growing ever more fearful when her mother doesn’t answer. This frantic woman isn’t like her mother. Her mother is a rock, unflappable, and entirely confident about everything. She doesn’t panic.
At the last window, Tabitha sags against it, pushing out deep breaths. That frightens Charlotte too. When her mother looks up, the fear must finally register, because she pushes away from the window and enfolds Charlotte in a hug. “It’s okay, Charlie. It’s okay.”
“What’s okay? What’s going on?” she asks, dissolving into tears.
Letting Charlotte out of the hug, she grabs her daughter by her upper arms and searches her face. “Are you feeling alright?” she asks, her tone urgent.
Confused, Charlotte says, “Yes. I mean, I’m scared.”
“You haven’t seen the news then?”
“What news? You mean TV? No, I was listening to music. Then I did chores.”
She waves her hand in the general direction of the kitchen door at the other end of the large open area. The crate of dog toys was a part of those chores. The dog always drags out all his toys during the course of a day. It’s her job to collect them from the fenced part of the yard and bring them back inside so he can do it all over again.
Tabitha breathes in deeply through her nose, squeezes her eyes closed, then hugs Charlotte very tightly again. This time, she lets her go quickly, which is good, because the hug is far, far too tight.
Her mother glances at the dark television on the wall in the living room, then shakes her head. “Come into the kitchen. I have some news.”
The last time her mother had taken that tone when wanting to share news, it had been when Charlotte’s grandmother died. Charlotte begins to cry.
“Oh, honey. Sweetie,” Tabitha murmurs, putting an arm around her and guiding her to the kitchen. “I’m so sorry I scared you like that. So sorry. It’s okay. I’ll explain. You don’t have to cry.”
That doesn’t work, of course. It takes a few minutes, a glass of iced lemonade, and more reassuring words before Charlotte’s tears and sniffles stop. “What’s happening, Mom? Why did you come home like that? Why aren’t you at the store?”
Tabitha settles down on the stool next to Charlotte’s at the bar set into the kitchen island. This is where they eat breakfast and sometimes, lunch. It’s where they eat ice cream after coming home from movie nights. It’s where they have many of the important talks in life.
“Charlie, honey, something has happened,” she pauses,
