Or if it would do any good.
We passed Vinnie’s place. There were no lights on. We didn’t stop.
“I need to call the station one more time,” she said as I pulled in front of the cabin.
“Go on in. I’m gonna check on the family down the road. They should be here by now.”
I watched her get out and go inside my cabin. Then I closed my eyes and swore at myself a few times. I put the truck back in gear and drove up the road to the fifth cabin. The lights were on. There was a minivan parked outside. I got out and knocked on the front door.
The father answered. He might have been ten years younger than me. Maybe only five. But he had a couple of young kids. The boy looked about eight years old, the little girl about four. They were sitting with their mother by the wood stove.
“Listen,” I said. “I know you reserved this place, but you didn’t have to come up here. I can’t imagine this is what you had in mind.”
“It’s good to get away from everything, Mr. McKnight. No matter where you go.”
“Call me Alex. Please.”
“Hey, why is it so cold?” the boy asked.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I thought I ordered warm weather for you guys.”
“Don’t be sorry,” the boy said. “We love it!”
“Yeah,” the little girl said. “Is it going to snow tonight?”
“Yeah, snow in July!” the boy said. “How cool would that be?”
I ended up staying there for a little while, getting to know the family. I told them all about Paradise, what they could go out and do the next day, starting with a trip up to the Shipwreck Museum. The boy showed me the remote control car he had brought up with him. The girl showed me her stuffed animals. When they were all settled in, I thanked the man again, wished them all a good night. I told them to come down to the first cabin if they needed anything.
When I was back outside, it hit me.
It could still happen.
I could have something like this. A wife, two kids, all of us happy to go away together, no matter what the weather was. As long as we were together.
It was something I had given up on long ago. Something that had passed me by, something I tried not to think about. But tonight anything seemed possible. Anything. Even this.
It wasn’t too late.
God, Alex. Listen to you.
I got back in my truck. On the way back to my cabin, I practiced a few versions of my apology. I’m just so worried about you. I hate the thought of you being in harm’s way. Sometimes I want to say things to you and they just come out all sideways.
Yeah, something like that, Alex. That’ll do it. Too bad there aren’t any twenty-four-hour florists in Paradise.
The last normal thought in my head, before everything slows down.
Trees.
More trees.
Fog.
I round the corner. The red glow of a vehicle’s taillights. One glimpse and then they’re gone.
Vinnie out, doing what?
But no, his truck is still grounded. It’s not Vinnie.
Somebody else? Who could be here?
The cabin. Front door open. Light streaming out onto the ground, like something spilled.
The door can’t be open. It does not make sense.
Stop the truck. Get out and move. Running now. Natalie. What on God’s earth is going on? Natalie.
Through the open door. Squinting in the sudden bright light.
Phone on the floor. Cord curled around a table leg.
Natalie. Where are you?
Push the table away. Glass breaking. Water on the floor.
Something else. The bright color of it. The shock like something plugged into my spine.
The red. The blood.
Her face, her eyes open. Staring up at me.
My sweatshirt on her chest now. She had put it on again. I was going to give it to her. I was. It’s dark now, stained and wet. Holes in the fabric.
One of them here.
Another here.
One more. Ruined.
Natalie.
On my knees, holding her. Lifting her from the floor, from the blood. Her arms hang. Her hair. Hanging to the floor.
Natalie, please.
Grabbing for the phone, trying to remember how it works, which numbers to press. Somehow I have to keep her off the floor. I can’t drop her. I can’t let go.
Natalie. Hang on.
But there’s nothing there. Nobody to hear me. Her eyes do not move.
The warmth of her gone, her life, herself. She is gone.
She is gone.
Chapter Thirteen
A sheriff’s deputy, first on the scene. An ambulance. Natalie taken from me, pried out of my arms. Then three state police cars. Red lights spinning in the fog.
Questions. Voices. Did you hear anything?
No.
Did you see anything?
Lights.
What kind of lights?
A car. A truck.
You can’t be more specific?
No.
Did anybody follow you home?
No.
We know this isn’t easy, Alex.
No.
No, you don’t know.
The sun comes up. The earth keeps spinning, for whatever reason. Time is obliterated. An hour passes or a minute or a day. There’s no reference point anymore, because nothing ever changes. Everything is pain. Pain is all there is or ever will be. Pain so real it makes its own fog. I can’t see anything else.
More questions.
I’m in the next cabin up the road. I can’t be in my own place. A crime scene now. As if I could ever go back there anyway. I’m in the second cabin, the one my father built by himself, the summer after the first. The summer of the second cabin, the summer before the third cabin. Before the fourth then the fifth then the sixth and then he died. He’s dead.
Name other dead people, Alex. Strange, strange thoughts coming to me now. I can’t stop them. Go ahead,
