PART 3

Eric had gone to work. That was good. Eric needed to work. He was happier when he was at work. And he would come home from work and they would be together. That would be good, too, because she needed him. As long as he was with her the danger out there, the uncertainty, would be kept at bay.

She wasn't teaching today, so she stayed home. That was good, too. She loved being at home where it was safe.

Because it was safe now. Everything was quiet, peaceful.

She felt good.

#

Because it had felt good. As she took the morning to clean and play with Sam and David, Annie reflected on this. It had felt good to take action, to make the change. It had been hard to do, burning those things, those pictures, but somewhere deep inside it had felt good to do it too, like there was a terrible pressure in her soul that only the flames could relieve.

David knocked something over. Annie smiled at him.

The rage within her was gone. She was calm.

It had been the right thing to do.

She wished she hadn't had to hit Eric, though. He was her husband and you weren't supposed to hit your husband. But it had happened so suddenly, like she wasn't thinking when she did it, and it had felt good, like all the anger and hate that was inside her was gone now because she had done it.

She noted that her right hand was trembling.

She closed it into a fist, and it stopped.

Sam giggled. He had a toy truck in his hands.

Annie swallowed, smiled lovingly at her two young sons. They were good boys; such little trouble. And now that Mary was home there would always be someone here to take care of them, even when she had to go out.

They would be safe.

She looked down at her fist. Her arm was tense and she tried to relax it.

It proved more difficult than she thought.

Everything is fine, she told herself.

* * *

The second son wondered if the rest of them felt like he did. There had been a time, not that long ago, when he had looked forward to going home, when it had been fun to play and fun to talk and fun to try new projects. He remembered having friends then, other boys he could do things with, who he knew were not so different from him.

But they were gone now, his friends, and now life and school and home were complicated.

Too complicated.

He remembered her.

She had been there, in high school, when he had started. He remembered how it had felt reassuring, knowing that she would be nearby. Even though he had tried never to show it it had still felt good, because she was pretty and popular and he knew, deep down inside, that he could go to her if he needed to, that she knew the way things were and that she would help him if he needed it. She was just that way.

His sister.

He had never really thought about all this before, not until now, when she had left so suddenly, and he remembered his last look at her, up in the garage apartment, when he had gone along with Ruthie and Matt in that stupid little game.

God, he thought. Mom threw her out and then we did.

What kind of family are we?

* * *

They had been, all those years ago, so different. One the rebellious, athletic tomboy, the other so emotional, so wanting to be popular, so petite and feminine. The first thought back now, to her sister. She remembered that birthday when she had given her the little locking diary, and remembered when they had fought over nothing important at all just before their parents had renewed their vows, and then had walked down the aisle in their torn bridesmaid dresses. She remembered later, the two of them laughing about it.

She remembered too, the older, once tomboyish sister did, how her younger sister had stood up for her at the school, in those terrible days when it had all started to go wrong, how she had stood up and told the rest of the school that Mary was more than just the girl who had trashed the gym in a fit of stupid rage. Mary is good, she had said. I know her and I love her. I trust her.

But the elder sister had betrayed that trust. She had lied and had not cared and had seen her younger sister as a rival and then as not even that, but as nothing at all. She had made promises to her sister and had not kept them, and even after she had been sent away and then had been sent back the older, rebellious sister had been unable to just go to the younger and tell her the truth: that she had been wrong, that she had betrayed her again and again and that it was unfair that their mother should play such favorites.

And then the day had come, and it had been her, the older sister, who had had to watch the younger go. It had been she who heard the words.

We are not growing, in this family. We are hiding from the world.

It was her, now, this older, more rebellious sister, who so wanted to just hold the one who was gone and weep in her arms.

* * *

In the old days, he had always been able to track her down.

This had been his responsibility. As the oldest son, it fell to him to protect the younger ones. From themselves, and from the dangers that the world presented. When she had almost made the mistake of irresponsible sex, it had been he who had figured it out, he who had stopped it.

That time, and other times. He had been able to make the tough choices, the difficult choices, even when she was angry with him for it and even when it turned out he was wrong. He had always tried to see past what she wanted to what she needed, because that was what his father and his mother had taught him to do.

He had always been able to find her.

But there was no finding her now. She, his sister, was gone, He had searched harder than the others that evening, roaming Glen Oak, going to the homes of her old boyfriends, even to the trailer where that strange man she had once befriended at Halloween lived. But there had been nothing, no sign at all, and the eldest brother could not shake the nagging feeling that it was his fault, his failure, that had led to this. He had agreed to expel her from the garage apartment after promising that they would stand together against their mother's harsh edict.

He remembered her last words to him, out there in the backyard, when he had gone to give in she had caught him in the lie.

"You really believe that?"

No.

He was, this eldest son, the one who doubted most. Perhaps this was because he wanted to become a physician. He had known where to look for information when the word "menopause" first came up, and he had been watching, sometimes without realizing it, and there was, deep in the back of his mind, a place that knew and that doubted and that he denied was there, because this could not be happening, not in the Camden family.

Never.