The Rapture Index

by Molly Reid

“Do you think we should be more worried?” I ask, nodding to where Jeremy sits in the sand. “Should we take him to someone?”

Henry shoves in the last of his hot dog. “Uh uh,” he grunts, shaking his head, ketchup squeezing out the side of his mouth.

“When I went over, he was drawing those crosses again,” I say, looking through the basket for napkins. “When I asked him to come join us, he put up his finger, like he was deep in the middle of something and couldn’t be bothered.”

Henry was the one to organize this picnic at the beach, saying we needed to spend some QT as a family. He insists on these outings every few months - so that we can check in with each other, inspect for damage, melancholy, make sure everything’s intact.

Henry wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing a ketchup shadow up the side of his cheek. “He’s a kid. Kids get caught up in stuff. He’s just trying to figure out who he is, become an individual.”

I hate when he says things like that, like he knows everything about raising a child, surprised I haven’t read the manual. “But why religion? He certainly didn’t get that from us. Where did he even have access to it? It scares me, to think he won’t think. He needs to be able to think. What about college?”

Henry looks at me like I’m being silly. I haven’t told him about the cat paw. A week ago Jeremy ran in from the yard holding the severed paw of Mrs. Greenwood’s tabby. Coyotes had been coming down from the hills into the canyon’s surrounding neighborhoods, getting into trash and taking pets. The Flahertys down the street had lost their shih tzu the week before.

Jeremy held out the paw like a find, a cool leaf or rock. Without thinking, I grabbed it from him. It was still soft, the tabby’s unmistakable brown and black striped fur, her white paw. Where it had been separated from the cat, blood had dried a crusty rust, a knob of bone jutting from the dirty fur. I wrapped it in a garbage bag and shoved it in the trash bin behind the house. I didn’t tell Mrs. Greenwood, whose cat had been missing for weeks. I didn’t tell Henry. When I asked Jeremy where he’d found the paw, he shrugged.

“In the backyard.”

“Why did you pick it up?” I asked him.

“God told me to.”

Oh no, I thought. Here we go. At some level I’d been dreading a moment like this ever since Jeremy was born. A good boy, sweet and considerate and smart. His teachers love him, friends are always amazed how well-behaved he is, just like a little adult. Picked out his own clothes since he was four: brown or gray slacks (at five he learned to iron them so the crease shows), button-down shirt, always tucked in - the same outfit he still wears, at eleven. Always in the accelerated reading group in school, he has taken from our shelves and read Moby Dick, The Sun Also Rises, even some of Henry’s thick medical texts. But it isn’t like he’s socially awkward either; he plays well with other kids, goes to camp every summer, won some kind of ribbon last time for being a team player, or a helpful camper. Maybe I should have been more involved, paid more attention. Maybe we should have had another child.

“What do you mean God told you to?” I asked. “Are you hearing voices?”

Jeremy shook his head. “Just God’s.”

————————-

“It’s going to rain,” Henry says. I look up and as if on cue, it starts to come down, cold fat drops. We’re both in short sleeves and shorts. Thunder cracks directly overhead.

“Come on Jeremy, let’s go,” I call, and when he doesn’t respond I run over, grabbing his hand, pulling him to his feet. He giggles, for some reason he loves being pulled at, tugged. The crosses are still there, oversized dollar store crucifixes carved in the sand, but he’s also drawn some kind of animal, lines curving toward the water. Maybe it’ll be art he’ll get into next, I think, something I could understand, something we could share.

“Could be the end,” Jeremy says on our way to the car.

“It’s not the end of the world, Jeremy, it’s a thunder shower.” I try not to sound annoyed.

“I know,” he says, grabbing my hand, “I know the difference.”

I look at him and smile. “I’m sorry.” I hold his hand up to my nose and sniff. He smells different today, pungent. “Your dad been giving you beef jerky again?”

He shakes his head and climbs in the backseat of the car while I put the picnic basket in the trunk. Henry’s picking up the last of our stuff, throwing away paper plates and soda cans, when there’s a heavy metallic sound, a ringing thud. Looking up, I have the urge to laugh: the awkward twist of Henry’s body, his shrill yelp. Because he’s clumsy and slips often, sometimes on dry carpet - as steady as his hands might be with other’s bones, at home his body lurches and crashes - I’ve learned not to make a big deal out of his falls. But when he doesn’t get up, I run back to the picnic table.

His forehead is bleeding and his eyes are closed, I don’t think he’s breathing. I panic, putting my mouth on his and forcing breath into him. I begin pumping his chest, trying to remember from a CPR class I’d taken in college, was it four beats, breathe, repeat? But if Henry lost consciousness it was just for a moment; he puts out his hands, pushing against my shoulders and moaning, opening his eyes. When I ask if I should call an ambulance, he shakes his head.

At the hospital they run MRI and CT scans, but they don’t find anything permanent, just a surface wound that requires a couple stitches. Roy Mannette, a neurologist Henry had gone to school with, says Henry is fine.

“Well, you just missed the middle meningeal artery, no temporal bone fracturing,” he says, tapping his pencil’s chewed eraser on the scan of Henry’s brain: a flat etched shadow, weathered sand dollar. “Honestly Henry, you should thank your lucky stars. If you had hit your head that hard a little to the right, you’d probably be dead.” He winks at me. I’ve never liked Roy very much. Several times I’ve had to suffer through a boring dinner party trying to follow all the ways he’s saved someone’s life.

I let him kiss me once about a year ago. He snaked into a bathroom I was exiting, trapping me in, but I didn’t resist either. My body gets curious, sometimes acts on its own. But his lips were cold and thin, tongue inscribing succinct circles in my mouth. I’ve tried my best to avoid him ever since.

I reach out and put a hand on Henry’s knee. “Well that’s good news, right?”

He smiles, toothy like I’ve said something delightful, and then kisses me on the cheek.

“You should come over,” he says to Roy. “It’s been a while. Bring Penny, we’ll eat and drink - defy death.”

In the car on the way home, I ask Henry if he’s feeling OK. He stares out at the other cars we’re stopped beside in traffic. In the backseat Jeremy holds the image of Henry’s perfectly intact brain up to the window. The rain has stopped and the streets are already dry. On the radio a woman talks about the still-arid conditions around the Santa Monica hills.

“Yeah.” He rolls up the window and turns off the radio. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I try to listen but there isn’t anything, the engine perfectly silent.

“That music.”

“I don’t hear anything, Henry. Maybe it’s another car, bass.”

“No, it’s still there, like hmm, hm, hmmm, hm hm hm.”

I shake my head. “Something’s probably just loose in there, you knocked your head pretty good.”

Henry stares out the window. “It’s beautiful,” he whispers.

———————

A week after the accident, I’m in the back room framing a piece that just arrived from one of my favorite artists. It’s a large oil painting of an industrial plant. Bold phallic shapes and an absence of color, desolate and arrogant. I think of Henry, the humming that kept me awake last night - he’s been doing it in his sleep; every time I roll him over he stops, but only for a few minutes. There’s something different about him, an energy apparent in every thing he does, his body less disastrous, graceful even.

Our marriage has never been perfect. That was why when he proposed it made perfect sense. I’d already had my share of wild crazy sex, the soul’s quick swing from bliss to hatred. That kind of passion only got in the way of the self, always only left me with less time for me, my work. The gallery was my love affair: handling the things of the imagination, the spirit. And there were a couple artists along the way. A physical, animal exchange. I separated the two, my home and my career.

But lately I can’t stop staring at Henry, wanting him. I do stupid teenage things for attention; I tell him about some dumb compliment a buyer gave me at the gallery to make him jealous. I wear my expensive lacy bras and leave my blouse unbuttoned. I make sure to bend down in front of him in my tight jeans.

Henry claims to hear music in his head now, convinced it suddenly means he’s a musician. He’s bought a six-string guitar and banjo and spends all his free time practicing. He sounds awful but I still sit and listen, entranced with his fingers, unable to look away as they carefully press down on the strings, the tips blushing pink.

The phone rings and I look at the painting half-framed and chipped at the corner where I hadn’t even noticed I dropped it. I sigh and gently set the painting on the floor, covering the chipped end with some newspaper.

The caller is probably a buyer, but it might be Henry. He might need me. Hurrying to the phone, I trip over one of the cast-iron giraffes we’re getting ready to exhibit. The phone stops ringing and the automated message system starts its recitation. I take off my shoe and stay on the floor rubbing my ankle while my own voice greets someone with a breezy cheer that I barely recognize.

It is Jeremy’s teacher, Mrs. Sams. She’d like to set up an appointment with Henry and I. There is some “concern” regarding Jeremy’s recent behavior in class.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I say out loud. Mrs. Sams wishes me a good afternoon and I press my forehead to one of the giraffe’s long cool legs.

Before I call her back, I take a moment. I take a deep breath and visualize the industrial plant hanging in the north corner of the gallery, granite frame anchoring it to the immaculate wall, the smell of sulfur and smoke.

——————————

“Will you stop messing around on that thing for one minute and help me?” I yell from the living room.

The playing stops. “Be there in a second,” Henry calls, continuing to strum off-key. He’s been in his study all day practicing his new ukulele.

“Do you want me to break my back? Please.” I stand in the bedroom doorway holding one of the living room lamps I’d been trying to place.

“It feels like a triquetral,” Henry says, turning the instrument over in his hands. “Delicate, prone to fracture. You have to spend time, figure out its secrets, where it’s strong.”

“That’s touching, but I need help moving the couch right now.”

Henry looks up and plucks at the strings. “You’ve asked me to help you move the couch five times this week. What’s wrong with where it is this time?”

“I don’t know, there’s still something off. It’s making the room feel small and dark. It’s taking all the oxygen out.”

“The couch is taking out oxygen?”

“I don’t expect you to understand. Angle and color, placement. They affect us along very crucial pathways.”

Jeremy walks into Henry’s study and sits next to him on the folded-up futon. I’d almost forgotten he was home. He looks up at Henry, forehead wrinkled, lips set in a hard, worried line.

“Hey there Jerm,” Henry says, “I thought you were outside playing with the kids next door? I thought you were showing them your new football?”

After the phone call from Jeremy’s teacher, Henry bought Jeremy a football, even though he’d never expressed any interest. “He just needs to get outside more,” Henry said, “run around. This’ll pass, he just needs to make a pass,” and then he’d laughed, as if hitting his head had made him funny.

Lately Jeremy had been spending all his time in his room on the computer. He combed the internet, tracking current events for signs of the second coming. I would walk into his room at all times of the evening and there he would be at his computer, little sweet face intent, aglow. He contributed to a site called the Rapture Index, which apparently computed the end times using a mathematical equation. He’d search all the major news sources for hurricanes, volcanoes, powerful political leaders, abortion statistics. He brought these things up at the dinner table, or at breakfast, as if it all pointed clearly to one thing: the End of the World. We tried to dissuade him from this conclusion, tried to engage him in a Socratic method of inquiry, but his belief was unshakable.

Jeremy reaches up and touches Henry’s forehead, where the still-raw divot in his skin is slowly turning into a scar. “The mark of the beast,” Jeremy says sadly.

“Jeremy,” I warn. It feels like I’m always saying his name in this way, the kind of scolding lilt I swore I’d never use with my kids. And there’s that familiar odor again, I can’t place it, maybe not like beef jerky at all. “Jeremy, when’s the last time you took a bath? You don’t smell very good.”

“Six six six adds up to eighteen. It’s what’s on your forehead,” Jeremy says, tracing the mark with his finger.

“No son, that’s where I hit my head. It’s just healing.”

“Jeremy, not everything is a sign,” I say.

Jeremy looks at me with a patient, weary smile - the kind of smile a parent gives a child or a priest gives a sinner. I feel that smile in my gut, this child I’m no longer in control of. Maybe I never had been. He looks back to Henry. “Don’t worry dad, I’m working on it, I’ll fight for you.”

“Thanks, buddy,” he says. When I look at Henry he’s distracted, his concentration back to the ukulele, turning one of the silver knobs at the top of the neck. I get the feeling, not for the first time, that Henry’s accident might have done more damage than we realize.

“I’m going outside now,” Jeremy says, jumping up and leaving, gone.

“You have to be firmer with him,” I say to Henry. “He’s getting the message from you this is all alright, that his behavior is acceptable. You’re turning me into the strict cold parent.”

“Come on. He’s not really doing anything, I mean we can’t punish him for practicing his religion, it goes against everything this country stands for.” He grins and I smile back, though I don’t want to. Henry runs his thumb along the strings of the ukelele. “My / dog / has / flees,” he sings. “I think the last string is off.”

I take a deep breath and let it slowly out. “Fine. Just don’t forget Wednesday night we’re meeting with Jeremy’s teacher. I really think we should both go.”

“Sounds good,” Henry says, and there’s a long silent space, my breath burning in my chest.

I set the lamp down and drop to my knees in front of him. I want him with a fierceness that physically hurts, a violent prickling fever. And I hate feeling it, knowing he can see it, the control that gives him. I yank at his belt, the leather cutting into my hands, pulling it tight against his belly. The ukulele is knocked to the floor.

Henry pushes me away and leans over to pick up the instrument. He turns it in his hands, inspecting for damage. I sit back on my feet, arms limp, a scolded child. There’s a crack in the wood at the base of the neck that he probes with his fingers. “Damn,” he mutters.

I stand and pick up the lamp, backing away. “Be ready to go Wednesday at five, we’re meeting her at five thirty.” Henry gives me a strange look. “It’s not like you don’t have a dozen other instruments. I won’t be making dinner tonight,” I say, trying to regain my breath.

Henry puts the ukulele aside and stares at me. His gaze lingers on my bare shoulders. I wait, hovering in the doorway, the lamp becoming heavy in my hands.

“You’re not going to drop that, are you?” he asks.

—————————

The Santa Monica Mountains are on fire. The fires had started the previous day, suspected arson, dry conditions and Santa Ana winds preventing any kind of containment. It’s being fanned into the surrounding housing developments. Wind-whipped, the news keeps saying, The wind-whipped blaze has already destroyed several homes and hundreds of people are being asked to evacuate. But the images are hazy - a slow-moving orange burn blurred by smoke and distance - and I’m not worried yet. Fires spring up in the area every year but they never reach our home.

I continue rearranging the living room. There’s still something not quite right. The room’s objects are fine, I picked out all the furniture myself, but somehow over the last couple weeks the mood has shifted - sometimes all it takes is one misplaced thing. I pull the coffee table farther from the couch. I separate the long skinny candles on top of the mantle, placing them at opposite ends.

Jeremy is outside, I asked him to rake the lawn in preparation for company. We’re entertaining a small gathering of people tomorrow. Henry organized it: a concert. He certainly wasn’t ready yet, but I wasn’t going to say it. Things have been strained the last couple days, both of us very polite and serious, making sure we go to bed at separate times, making excuses about dinner - grabbed a snack late in the day, getting together with a friend.

I don’t really care whether the lawn has leaves or not, I like them, the crunch, a reminder of real falls. My childhood when all the leaves fell off the trees and flew around like bright wings. But I wanted to get Jeremy away from his computer. It’s Saturday and he’s eleven years old. Henry was right; he should be throwing a football or burning bugs with a magnifying glass or at the very least riding his bike through the streets. Anything but staring at a computer screen, contemplating fire and brimstone.

As I turn one of the floor lamps to face north, I consider my guilt: air quality is probably getting worse, the fires are closer.

I open the door and call for Jeremy. The lawn is swept clean, though leaves are still falling, faster than the ash. I call his name again. The air is heavy with smoke. Immediately I start coughing. The ash falls like sleepwalking shadows. The sun burns an angry orange dot through the smoke. The whole dirty apricot sky is too close to the ground.

I walk to the end of the street and then back up the other side, calling out for Jeremy. Nobody opens their doors, all curtains and shutters closed. Where is everyone?

When I reach the house, I pick up speed. I imagine dialing 9-1-1, what I might say: I’ve lost my child. I sent him to do yard work in this smoke and he disappeared. I cough, trying to fan the thickness from my face, but there’s nowhere else for it to go

Almost to the front door, I notice a big pile of leaves off to the side of the house, a flash of blue amid all the reds and yellows: Jeremy’s baseball cap. I expect the worst: images of him dead, mutilated, buried in the pile of leaves. But he’s alive, content as ever, lying in the middle of the leaves with his hands behind his head, looking up at the sky.

“Jeremy,” I say, breathless now, too surprised and relieved to yell, “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

Jeremy turns toward me and his eyes are the gold of found treasure, lashes catching flakes of ash. “The sun became as black as sackcloth and the moon became as blood.”

“Jeremy, come on, come inside, it’s not healthy out here.” I hold out my hand and he takes it.

“He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.”

I pull him up by the arm, probably harder than is necessary, into the house and close the front door behind us. I kneel down and brush the ash from his hair and face. “What am I going to do with you?” I ask him.

He giggles when I blow on his neck and he’s a normal little boy again. “Stop it, that tickles.”

I sigh, his face between my hands. “Jeremy, this is not the end of the world.”

———————–

Out the car window, the browns and yellows blur past. As Henry drives to the school, humming and tapping the steering wheel, I think about the paints that might be involved in this landscape: Peanut Butter and Honey. Muskrat Tea. Princess Hair.

When I was young, I’d tried a brief stint as a painter. Pale, droopy seascapes covered my dorm room walls. There’s a point though when you realize you aren’t progressing, you don’t have that thing you need to be a great artist, and when that happened I gave into it, decided I was better off nurturing others with talent. Sometimes, though, before work when Henry has gone and Jeremy’s off at school, I take out my shoebox of watercolors. I mix them together on the blank pages of an old photo album. The color combinations are what interest me. Without form, the colors are simple and uncomplicated, a kind of limitless magma into which I can imagine anything.

“A patient came in yesterday for a distal clavicle excision,” Henry says. “I had been the one, months ago, to diagnose the patient, to recommend the procedure. But right before the surgery, I kept rolling those words around in my head, and they didn’t make any sense. Distal clavicle excision. It kept sounding like one of those obscure electronica groups.” Henry chuckles and shakes his head.

“What happened? Did you cancel the operation?”

“No. It was fine. Once I got in there, I was fine. I mean, I still couldn’t name all the parts I was working on, but it didn’t seem to matter. The procedure went fine. He’s alive, he’ll have full clavicular rotation in no time.”

My heart starts thumping again in the panicky way it’s been doing lately. “Maybe you should take some time off?”

“No. I’m fine,” Henry says, suddenly impatient. “I was just saying, it was funny, that’s never happened to me before.” I study him, his profile, his smile. I want to touch his face, feel the gray-specked stubble there. He’s new. I don’t even know him. “But I think it happens all the time,” he continues to say, “to doctors at different points in their careers. I mean, I went through something traumatic. I died and came back to life.”

“I saved you.”

“You saved me.”

“How’s your head?” I ask, and now it’s OK to reach out and touch him, the mark on his forehead. The stitches are out and most of the redness is gone, just a faint shape. Jeremy was right, it did look vaguely like an eighteen on its side, though I think it looks more like a sideways figure-eight with a line underneath.

“Infinity underlined,” I say.

“It’s fine. Not even sore anymore.”

I put my hand down. “Are you still hearing things?”

“If by things you mean music, yes, it wakes me up, it’s all I can hear.”

“Maybe you should see someone.”

He doesn’t say anything and we drive in silence for a few blocks. I look out at the houses lining the street, generous sturdy constructions in shades of rain, some of which I occasionally entered for dinner parties, some a part of my childhood, where I furtively got drunk, lost control, lost my virginity, lost time. I make a mental note to call Roy and tell him about the music in Henry’s head.

At the stop sign, Henry pauses and runs the wiper blades over the ash that had begun to collect on the windshield. He turns to me. “Are you jealous?”

“What?”

“I’ve finally found something I’m really passionate about, I mean, I really believe I’ve been given this gift, and you act like I’m sick or something. Jeremy has found his thing, something that has nothing to do with you that makes him happy, and that upsets you, doesn’t it?” He slowly shakes his head. “It’s like all you’ve ever done is ask us to leave you alone, and now that we have, you can’t stand it.”

His face is red, his burgeoning scar glows against his flesh like a button, and when did he get this angry? “I never asked you to leave me alone,” I manage to say, reaching out and pressing gently on the scar. I lean over and put my mouth on his. It’s soft and wet and longing rushes through me.

Someone honks behind us and Henry turns his face. I wonder if he felt what I felt. Can that much desire be one-sided?

As we pull into the parking lot, I notice a dark funnel of smoke winding into the shadowy sky. “Look,” I say, trying to break the tension. I nod to it, a twisted arm pointing in our general direction. “The apocalypse.” We get out of the car, doors slamming shut in sync.

“Bring on the three-headed beast,” Henry says, and I’m relieved he isn’t angry anymore, or is at least pretending not to be. I link my arm through his and we walk into the school.

————————-

“Sorry for having you come out with these fires, this smoke,” Mrs. Sams says, waving her hands around the room as if the whole place is on fire. “I hope it’s not near your home?”

“Not yet,” I replied, “Thank God.”

Mrs. Sams frowns. “Are you religious, Mrs. Barker?”

I glance at Henry and he’s grinning. “No, not particularly.”

Mrs. Sams then turns to him. “So Jeremy, was he raised with religious ideas, the bible, youth group, that kind of thing?”

Henry shakes his head. “No. He’s a boy with his own ideas, his own spirituality, seeming not to be influenced by us in the slightest,” he says. “Thank God,” he adds, chuckling. I put my hand on Henry’s leg. He doesn’t move it.

Mrs. Sams frowns again, the outline of her lips puckering like dried paint. “I’ve noticed some very elaborate drawings on some of Jeremy’s homework, Jesus on the cross, angels, apocalyptic images.” Mrs. Sams opens the file folder in front of her and pulls a piece of paper out. “Like this one, for example.” She slides it across the desk and I hold it up so we can both see. At the bottom of a series of long-division equations , there’s a full-color depiction of a beast, some kind of lion-tiger-wolf, teeth bared, flames roiling out of its mouth, rearing up on hind legs. It’s breathtaking. As a piece of art, I can’t help admire it - color like a garish tattoo, just enough childish slant to make it interesting. It’s the sort of thing that’s really in at the moment, a return to childhood images, nursery tale combined with off-hue minimalism. And the exploration of religious iconography is always something people desire; it shows a constructive dissection, a playful interest in religion.

“Well?” Mrs. Sams asks. “What do you think?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know. It’s very interesting.”

“So he draws on his homework. I don’t know that I see the problem, Mrs. Sams,” Henry says, fingering the mark on his forehead.

“Well, Mr. Barker, the problem is that it’s gone further than that.” Mrs. Sams opens the folder again and this time takes out a ziplock plastic bag. “I found this on him yesterday.” She holds the plastic bag between two fingers and sets it in front of them.

Henry opens it and coughs. “Jesus, that’s awful,” he says, trying to re-seal the bag as quickly as possible. “What the hell is that?”

“It’s some kind of animal paw. It seems to have been separated from the animal for quite some time, as you can tell by the smell, Mr. Barker.”

Something feels like it’s vibrating up my throat. I wonder if I should just come clean, tell Henry that I knew about this, that I tried to stop it. But how did Jeremy even get the paw back? Was it a different paw? For all I knew, he’d been collecting them - there’s been a lot of coyote attacks in the neighborhood, who was keeping track of all those paws?

“I’d been noticing that smell for a while now,” Mrs. Sams says, “But I couldn’t figure out what it was. Then yesterday, during a spelling test, I happened to notice Jeremy rubbing that thing against his ear. I waited until the end of the day, requesting that he stay after class. When I asked for it, he handed it right over. But he said that God talked to him through it, and that he would need it back.” Mrs. Sams leans back and looks at us intently. I hate her smugness. She probably doesn’t have any kids of her own. It’s easy to judge from the outside. “So, Mr. and Mrs. Barker, I was wondering if this incident is symptomatic of a larger situation. Sanitation concerns aside, I think you’ll agree this is very disturbing behavior.”

I stand up, the room suddenly unbearably small. “We’ll take care of it. Thank you, Mrs. Sams, for bringing this to our attention.”

Henry shrugs and shakes Mrs. Sams’ hand. “It was nice to finally meet you, we’ll be in touch,” he says, and follows me out.

“Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?” he asks as we get back into the car.

“That woman was a bitch.”

“I think she’s just concerned.”

“Well, I think she could have handled it differently.”

“I’m guessing she was a little freaked out.”

“Why do you have that thing?”

Henry looks down at the ziplock bag in his lap. “I didn’t even notice.”

—————————

I’ve been trying to make Henry jealous all night, but he doesn’t seem to be paying any attention. Now Roy is drunk and keeps whispering in my ear, thinking my flirting is legitimate.

“I’ve always liked you,” he says now, much too close to my face, his breath sour, full of garlic and wine. He’s trapped me in the kitchen, blocking the door with his short, thick-chested frame.

“That’s sweet, Roy, I should be getting back out there,” I say, trying to step back and around him.

“I don’t think so,” he says, snaking his arm around my back, “Henry doesn’t need you quite yet. I think we should get to know each other a little more.”

A different time, I probably would have let him snake his arm further, kiss my neck. The cheap thrill of doing something like that with Henry and Jeremy in the other room. But the thought of it now makes me sick. I’m beginning to feel the smoke, like a drug or something falling on top of me, compressing my insides and at the same time making me feel swollen. My neck grows hot and my mouth fills with saliva. I cough, eyes stinging and welling.

“This smoke,” I say, waving my hand in front of my face.

“What’s going on in here?” Henry asks, suddenly in the doorway of the kitchen, glass of wine in his hand, gripping the stem like a hammer.

Roy moves back, grabbing a bottle of wine from the counter in one smooth motion. “Just getting some more wine. Penny’s out, and you know how she can get if she starts to sober up, like a baby without its tit. Excuse me,” he says, squeezing between both of us.

“Tell me you’re not having an affair with that guy.”

“I’m not having an affair.”

“Not right now.”

“Never. I only want you.” I reach out to put my hand around the back of his neck but he steps back.

“Just don’t.”

I let my hand fall to my side.

“I’m going to play my piece in five minutes,” he says, turning around and leaving me in the kitchen.

I force myself to take a couple deep breaths, swallowing back the burning in my throat. I can’t leave the kitchen. None of the people in the next room are my friends. They are all people Henry knows from work, a couple neighbors I don’t have anything in common with.

“Learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, know that he is near, at the gates,” Jeremy says, looking up at me. Where did he come from, how long had he been standing there? He never walks into a room anymore. He appears, he materializes. He is creeping me out.

“Jeremy, where did you come from?”

“It’s almost time, Mom.”

“OK honey, I’ll be in there in a minute.”

He looks at me with a peculiar expression, wrinkling his forehead and smiling. And then I notice he’s holding something at his side.

“Show me what’s in your hand,” I say, suddenly alarmed. He holds out the cat’s paw and I grab it from him. It’s still surprisingly soft. “Where did you get this?” I ask him.

“God told me where it was. In the drawer.”

“Go listen to your father play.”

Jeremy shrugs and leaves. I want to call him to me, put my arms around him, squeeze until the funny feeling in my chest goes away, squeeze the creepy out of him. Instead, I lean against the counter as piano notes drift in. It’s actually quite beautiful, a simple, bright melody that makes me think of kites soaring through a periwinkle sky, warm soft sand, clean white sidewalks.

I think about the time right after Henry and I were married, when I was four months pregnant with Jeremy - after the morning sickness ended, before I became a beach ball, when I was solid and blooming with life, we spent the day at the Santa Monica pier acting like kids. Henry stuffed himself with cotton candy and corn dogs, when I still thought that was cute. We rode on the carousel, making goofy faces at each other in the lit mirrors. On the Ferris Wheel, we kissed until we reached the top and then everything - every glittering, sea-glanced thing was ours.

I realize the music has stopped. In fact, there isn’t any sound. Walking into the living room, I hold my breath: no one. It’s as if I’d wished them out of existence. Relieved, I take a deep breath, the smoke hardly anything. Nothing but soothing silence. I sit down at the piano bench, picking up the glass of wine that was probably Henry’s, pristine but for the greasy stem, still full.

And just as suddenly, I feel uneasy. The room seems to swell, hot with absent bodies. “Hello?” I call out. Nothing.

I get up and inspect the other rooms. I run upstairs, looking in all the bedrooms. “Anybody here?” My voice goes out and comes right back, ricocheting off all the tight, impeccably placed surfaces.

I pick up the ukulele lying on our bed and pluck a string. The metallic note reverberates in my chest. I listen until it becomes a thin line of pitch I feel faintly in my shoulder blades.

And then I hear something else. Human sounds, muffled laughter.

I go to the window and there they all are on the front lawn. Henry has his guitar and Jeremy’s kicking up leaves and people are laughing and dancing. The smoke has finally broken.

I laugh. How silly, what did I think, that the world had ended?

I unlatch the window, to call out to them, let them know I’m coming, I’ll be right down. My fingers remain on the latch. I don’t open the window.

I realize I’m still holding the cat paw. It’s soft and comforting between my fingers, like the rabbit’s foot I used to keep as a girl for good luck. I turn it around bone-end up and inspect it. It really isn’t so bad, the gore has mostly dried out. And the smell, while definitely strong, is reassuring somehow, familiar. I bring it closer to my mouth.

“Hello?” I call into it. “Hello? Can anybody hear me?”