When he arrives to take her into town, the door is swinging and banging and there are large, sandy footprints leading into the house. He knows. That silence has only one cause. He runs into the house as if the beach wind blows him in.
"Mrs. Darmody?" He tries to call out. His voice can't match the urgency of the thoughts whirring in his skull. Shewenttothestore,awalk,outtobuymorepaint,tookTommyhomefromGillian's.Anything.Anythingbutthis.
But Richard Harrow cannot deny what he knows, and what he knows is death.
So it comes as a shock to him when he realizes that this death is like nothing he's seen before. It is all a tangle of white limbs and long hair and silk. Their faces look…peaceful. Not at all like the contorted demons young men turn into taken down by the bullet or yellow gas. It's this that makes him believe this might just be a nightmare, a new one he hasn't had before. It's because of this he finds himself, as he bends down on his knees, shaking her shoulder and whispering:
"Angela?"
She's freezing. He's never touched her before, and feels guilty. Richard gets up from the floor, goes to the disheveled bed and pulls the sheet away; letting it float over their bodies slowly, not touching them again. He shakes his head; tries to turn himself off, as if this was one of his own jobs, and goes to the telephone with feet like cement blocks. He begins to dial the number Jimmy gave him when his hand starts shaking, and all he can think about is how the only phone call he's made in his life was to inform Mr. Thompson that Mrs. Schroeder and the children were gone.
What?What!Speakup,Goddamnit,Ican'tunderstandawordyou'resaying.
This should not be the way one is told one's wife is dead, in his machine gun rattle. And anyway, what could Jimmy do from where he is on this fool's errand? Later he will tell himself this is not cowardice.
Then Richard has another idea and it does something bad in the pit of his stomach, not the least because it too involves a phone call. Maybe he could just get back in the car and go there, he thinks, but no. Angela and her friend have been alone all night long. He steels himself. As he hangs up and redials, he focuses on the pressure of the Colt under his jacket, wishing he had a third hand so he could touch it.
"Hello?"
The voice on the wire is like the music on a carousel, the kind of voice you want delivering terrible news.
"Hmm…Ms. Darmody?"
He doesn't know what he should refer to her as.
"Who is this?" she asks, a little harshly, and it occurs to Richard that he has never spoken in her presence.
"Richard. Harrow."
There isn't even a second's pause. Gillian's voice is cold.
"What's wrong?"
"You should come. To the…house."
He tries to say, Angela'sdead, but he keeps getting stuck at the A sound. His mind does not connect grief to the way his throat hurts. While he's twitching and swallowing, Gillian has already said:
"I'll be there soon."
The phone clicks. So do his teeth. Richard's brain tells his feet to take him back to the bedroom. He wants to wait with Angela and her guest until Gillian arrives. He makes it halfway across the room, wonders why the floor is tilting, and makes a desperate grab for a chair, his hands whiter than he remembers. The yellow curtain on the window moves in the light breeze. As he stares at it, it reminds him of the movement of wind through fields of corn, and he feels a little better.
IfIstayjustlikethis,maybenothingelsewillbreak.
He knows this is a long shot. He's already bitterly regretting that call.