"I'm really, really sorry," she said, and her hands felt sticky
with blood. "God, I just wanted to *save you*."
#
Mimi was back in bed when they got home. Alan took a shower and scrubbed
at his feet, then padded silently around the shuttered bedroom, dressing
in the dark. Mimi made a sleepful noise.
"I'm making dinner," he said. "Want some?"
"Can you bring it up here?" she said.
"Yeah, sure," he said.
"I just can't face --" She waved a hand at the door, then let it flop
back down to the bed.
"It's all right, babe," he said.
He and Brad ate dinner in silence in the kitchen, boiled hot dogs with
cheese and sliced baby tomatoes from the garden and lemonade from
scratch. Bradley ate seven. Mimi had three bites out of the one that he
brought up to her room, and when he went up to collect her plate, she
was asleep and had the covers wrapped snugly around her. He took a spare
sheet and a blanket out of the linen closet and brought it downstairs
and made up the living room sofa. In moments, he was sleeping.
This night, he was keenly aware of what had roused him from sleep. It
was a scream, at the back of the house. A scared, drunken scream that
was half a roar.
He was at the back door in a moment, still scrubbing at his eyes with
his fists, and Bennett was there already.
He opened the door and hit the switch that turned on the garden lights,
the back porch lights, the garage lights in the coach house.
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