Her hours on the phone with friends and her mother. Her long walks with her German shepherd, Scout, in the woods, just the two of them, watching the leaves turn and fall as October rolled into November. And then the snow, beautiful snow.
'Up and at 'em!' she shouted from the top of the steps at seven fifteen that morning. 'Breakfast in ten minutes, be there or be square!'
From down the hall, a chorus of groans and from little Barclay's room a simple exclamation of 'No school! No way!'
She peeked into her daughter's room and said, 'School. Way. It's first grade. First grade is totally awesome. It is waaaay better than kindergarten, trust me on this one, Barclay. Now get yourself dressed and come down and eat your breakfast, got it?'
'Oh, okay,' Barclay said, sliding from the bed and padding into her bathroom in her pink nightie.
One down, Alice said to herself, moving along the hall to eight-year-old Margaret's room. Margaret was up, dressed, and sitting at her dressing table brushing her long blond hair.
'Morning, Margaret. Nice to see you up and dressed so early.'
'Mother, do you think I've gotten prettier over the summer or uglier?' She leaned into the mirror and made a face at herself.
'What do you think?'
'Uglier.'
'Wrong answer. You're the prettiest little girl in the whole world. And don't ever forget it.' She pulled the door closed and went to check on Trevor.
Trevor was also dressed but not combing his hair because he didn't have any. He'd shaved it all off at the beginning of summer vacation. He had watched the war movie Jarhead so many times this summer he knew almost every line of dialogue by heart. He even had the U.S. Marine's distinctive patois down pat. Trevor Milne had literally metamorphosed himself into the Jake Gyllenhaal character, Swofford, and when he saw his mother standing in his doorway, he snapped to attention, saluted, and tooted 'Reveille' with his lips just like in the movie.
Finishing the song, he saluted again and remained standing at attention, eyes straight ahead. The top sheet on his bed had military corners stretched so tight you could bounce a quarter off it. This was one of the benefits: a twelve-year-old who not only made his own bed, but also shined his shoes every night and kept his room absolutely immaculate.
'Breakfast in five, Corporal. Be there.'
'Breakfast in five, sir!' Trevor said, snapping off a salute. 'Hoorah!'
'It's the first day of school, Trevor. Maybe lose the camo pants and combat boots? You know, maybe ease into them during the semester? Good idea?'
'Welcome to the suck,' he said, pausing for beat before adding, 'sir!'
'You got it, Marine,' she said, smiling as she pulled his door shut. It was amazing. She had actually gotten accustomed to being addressed as 'Sir' by her twelve-year-old son.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, she and Jay had escaped for their annual romantic getaway to the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. They'd left the kids with a babysitter, a seventeen-year-old day student at the Lawrenceville School just across the river. Trevor had clearly wrapped this poor girl, Annie, around his little finger. When she and Jay returned a full day earlier due to Jay's illness, they discovered that Trevor had moved every stick of furniture out of his room. Stored it all in the attic.
He had then covered the bare floor of his room with about an inch of sand he'd bought (having persuaded Annie to drive him to Home Depot) and pitched a pup tent in the middle of his room. Beside his tent was a Christmas tree stand with a sawed-off broomstick mounted in it. At the top, he'd hung an American flag. Models from Trevor's collection hung on fishing line from the ceiling, including B-1B bombers, B-52s, F-16 Fighting Falcons, and Black Hawk helicopters.
Trevor, of course, was first to appear in 'mess hall,' and Alice was happy to see he was wearing a pair of nicely pressed chinos and a starched khaki shirt. Not perfect, but better than camo. Margaret and Barclay followed shortly and seemed not only to have adjusted to the idea of school, but seemed almost giddy with excitement about it. Everybody wolfed down their breakfast, anxious to make the long trek down through the woods that led to the narrow rural road where the school bus would pick them up at the end of their driveway.
It was about a ten-minute hike, and Alice practically had to run to keep up with her children.
When they arrived at the road, the big yellow bus could be seen in the distance, cresting a hill about half a mile away.
'Armored personnel carrier at nine o'clock, sir,' Trevor said, completely serious.
'Hostile or friendly?' Alice asked.
Trevor smiled and said, 'Good question, Mom.'
The bus finally rolled to a stop just in front of them. Since they were the last house on the route, it was packed with raucous, laughing children. Many of them pressed their faces against the windows and a couple stuck their tongues out, presumably at Trevor because he was sticking his out at them.
'Okay, team,' she said, herding them toward the door. 'I want everyone to behave, pay attention in class, and try to avoid food fights. I've already got enough laundry to deal with, thank you.'
'Yes, Mother,' Margaret said, mommy's little angel. Barclay said the same thing, even using her older sister's inflection. Then she reached up for one last hug as the school-bus door hissed open.
'Off you go,' Alice said, looking up at the driver for the first time as the kids climbed aboard.
'Where's Mrs. Henderson?' she asked the dark-haired young man at the wheel.
'Called in sick. I'm the new substitute driver.'
'Sick? She's been driving this bus since I was in sixth grade. Never sick a day in her life.'
'Always a first time,' the youth said, pulling the lever that closed the door.
The bus lurched away and then began the long climb up Potter's Hill, the highest point in Washington's Crossing.
She watched the bus moving away with a growing sense of uneasiness. A mother's instincts. She had not liked the young driver. Not liked anything about him. Not the way he spoke to her, the way he was dressed (a little cap on his head), or the way he failed to say 'Good morning' the way Mrs. Henderson always did. Nor did she particularly care for the way he smiled at her as he pulled the door closed. There was something wrong with that smile, she thought, something dreadfully wrong.
She stood there, arms wrapped around herself, watching the bus accelerate up the steep hill, wondering if she was actually going crazy. Delusional? Paranoid?
No.
'Oh, my God!' she heard herself cry aloud.
Then she started running after the bus, screaming as loudly as she could for it to stop.
About a third of the way up the hill she simply ran out of breath. She'd been running as fast as she'd ever run in her life, but the hill was just too steep. The bus was nearing the top now, and she knew she'd never catch it. All she could do was stand there helplessly and watch it, praying she was only being silly, getting to be just as paranoid as everybody else in the country seemed to be lately.
When the bus reached the very top of the hill, red lights flashed and it seemed to pause for a moment.
The explosion sent shock waves rolling down the hill, staggering Alice Milne. She looked up to see a massive ball of fire and billowing black smoke where her children's yellow school bus had been just a split second earlier.
Alice Milne started running up the hill.
The blistering heat of the flaming bus seared her eyes as she reached the top of the hill and the roaring funeral pyre that was now reducing her children and her life to ashes.
FORTY-FIVE
