Bodies
She didn’t notice it at first.
Or maybe she did notice something, out of the corner of her eye—an irregular shape in the middle of the road—but she was late, she was checking traffic on her phone, she was trying to sip her coffee without burning her lips, and so when she did look up and see what was right in front of her, Cassie barely hit the brakes in time, tires screeching in protest as the car slammed to a stop.
She sat there, staring through the dirt-flecked windshield, for a long time. She glanced at the rearview mirror. No one behind her, no one coming the other way. Just her and her car and what appeared to be a body, lying motionless in the empty street.
Cassie opened the door and got out. It was a beautiful day, sunlight just hitting the houses, air sharp with the smell of freshly cut grass. She could almost believe she hadn’t seen anything, that maybe she was wrong. She walked around to the front of the car.
It was, in fact, a body. A middle-aged man with thinning hair, his neck twisted to one side. Cassie couldn’t tell if he was breathing from where she stood.
For most of her adult life, Cassie had assumed that if she ever found herself in a situation like this—urgent and unexpected, potentially life-or-death—she would be shocked into action. Now, though, she simply stood there, stricken with fear. She could feel her heartbeat tripping against her ribs. She glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone else might be coming, but the street was as empty as before.
She swallowed, then knelt down and put two fingers against the man’s neck. She didn’t feel a pulse. His skin was clammy, cool to the touch. Blood trickled from his lips and pooled on the pavement.
Cassie wondered if she should do CPR, or shake him, or run to the nearest house and beg for help. She felt like she had learned about this at some point, at work maybe—some kind of seminar or training on what to do in an emergency. But when she reached for the memory, it retreated from her mind. And every second that slipped by was another second someone might save this man’s life.
She stood up and dialed 911. When the dispatcher answered, Cassie said she had found a man on Auburn Avenue, not responsive, could they please send someone as quickly as possible? She hesitated for one more second, then hung up before they could reply. She got back in the car. She wondered if she should stay until the police arrived. It was the right thing to do, obviously, but then she would have to call Mark, tell him what was going on. And just like that she could see him, bald head shining in the fluorescent office light, lips thin with disappointment. She heard his voice, nasal and flat, saying he didn’t know how many second chances he could give.
Cassie twisted the keys in the ignition, felt the seat shake under her as the engine rumbled into life. She turned the steering wheel to the left. Then she drove around the body, casting one last glance in the rearview mirror before she pressed on the gas and watched the needle jump above the speed limit, already knowing it didn’t matter how fast she drove. She was going to be late.
*
She slid into her desk chair at 9:05 and hoped that Mark wouldn’t notice. A few days ago he’d called her into his office, told her that he’d noticed her tardiness the last few weeks and he wanted to give her a warning as a courtesy. Everyone ran late sometimes, obviously. He just didn’t want her to make it a habit. Because if the whole team suddenly started coming in late, things wouldn’t run very smoothly, would they? And normally Cassie was a great worker, she contributed a lot of value to the team. Was something going on?
No, Cassie had assured him. Nothing was going on.
She opened her email and started to go through the messages that had come in since Friday. But the more she read, the more it felt like trying to understand a language she’d only half-learned, her eyes moving over the words without processing their shape or meaning. Though she didn’t want to, she found herself thinking of the body. The unnatural bent of the man’s legs against the asphalt. The emptiness behind his eyes. Cassie closed her computer and stared at the cubicle wall.
After a minute or so, she half-stood to peer over the divider. Mark was on the phone, pacing back and forth behind the glass walls of his office while he spoke into his headset. Cassie pushed out her chair and headed for the break room before he could see.
This early the room was usually empty, so when she turned the corner to find Lisa, Claire, and James huddled by the refrigerator, she stopped short. James glanced at her, then turned his attention back to the others. Cassie didn’t make eye contact with any of them as she went to the Nespresso machine and put in one of the little purple pods.
“It was in the middle of the sidewalk,” James said. “Just like, lying there.”
“You’re kidding,” Claire said.
Cassie swallowed. The inside of her mouth was suddenly dry, her tongue stuck at the back of her throat. She focused on her breathing and willed herself to calm down. James could be talking about anything. A split trash bag, a dead bird. Anything. “I wish I was kidding,” James said.
Cassie slid a Styrofoam cup under the spout and pressed the button. The machine hissed and sputtered in the silence. “Cassie,” Lisa said.
Cassie let out a breath. She watched the coffee as it slowly filled the cup. When she couldn’t ignore Lisa any longer, she turned around with what she hoped was a neutral expression, the right level of mild curiosity.
Lisa motioned for her to come closer. She looked worried, but then again, Lisa always looked worried. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said. “James. Tell Cassie what you saw.”
James locked eyes with Cassie. He paused for effect. Then he said, “On the way to work this morning, I saw a dead body.”
Cassie opened her mouth, then closed it. She wondered if the others shared the panic that was spreading through her, the cold dread crystallizing in her chest. Because one body—that could be explained. A horrible explanation, maybe, but something that at least made sense: a question asked, then answered. But two? Two felt, inexplicably, much worse.
“Really?” she managed to say.
“Trust me,” James said. “I wouldn’t joke about something like this.”
“Who was it?” Claire said.
James shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone old, like in her eighties, maybe? She was probably homeless or something.”
“What did you do?” This was Lisa.
“I called the police. Obviously. But they took forever to show up, and I couldn’t just stand around waiting for them or I would have missed my train. So I left.”
“You left?”
Cassie felt a sharp prick of guilt, even though Claire wasn’t talking to her. Cassie had never liked James—he had a habit of pulling people into conversations that inevitably focused on him and his many pressing problems, like how hard he worked for the company without getting a promotion, or how he couldn’t find a boyfriend even though he had a good job and a great personality. She had thought, or maybe hoped, that when it came to making difficult choices, she and James would see things differently.
“What was I supposed to do?” James said now. “It’s not like I was going to save her life or anything. She was dead. And you know how Mark is about being on time.”
“I guess,” Claire said. She glanced at Cassie, clearly expecting her to weigh in. Behind her, the machine beeped. Cassie turned around and picked up the cup. She held it tight, letting the warmth spread through her palms as she searched for the best thing to say. “It does sound crazy,” she finally said. “And I guess—I mean, I don’t know what I’d do, either.”
“Can you at least call the police again?” Lisa said. “Like, to follow up?” And then the three of them were talking, debating if the police would even give out that kind of information and, if so, how much they would say. Cassie did think about telling them what she’d seen that morning; she thought about chiming in, saying, Actually, it’s the strangest thing—the same thing happened to me, too. But in the end, she decided against it. She had enough to worry about right now.
They were still talking as she slipped out of the break room and hurried back to her desk, where she busied herself with emails, actually reading them this time, and for the rest of the day she stayed at her desk, doing her best to push the morning out of her mind.
*
A week later, on the way to Ethan’s school, Cassie turned the corner to find a police car blocking the road. One officer directed traffic while the other set up cones in the street. Cassie rolled down her window and leaned out, waved at the officers until one came over.
“Did something happen at the school?”
“Sorry?”
“The school,” Cassie said again. “I’m dropping off my son, and I just wanted to make sure—”
“Oh,” said the officer. “No, this isn’t—the school is fine. We just have to close off these blocks for a while.” He glanced over his shoulder. He was red-faced, sweating, even though it couldn’t have been more than sixty degrees. “You’ll have to drive around.”
He looked over his shoulder again. Cassie followed his gaze but couldn’t see past the police car. Ethan was watching her, worried, so she gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile before she rolled up the window and drove away.
At work, she opened her web browser, hesitated, then typed in “bodies Claremont unexplained.” Sure enough, an article popped up, something from the local paper. She let the cursor hover over the link for a long second, then clicked.
“Hey, Cass. Can I talk to you for a moment?” Cassie jumped and closed out of the article. Mark grinned down at her from above the divider, teeth white and gleaming between his lips. Had he seen? He couldn’t have seen.
“Sure,” she said.
She followed Mark into his office. He closed the door—pointless, really, since everyone could see through the glass—and they both sat. Mark leaned back in his ergonomic chair and the chair leaned with him. Cassie felt herself sweating. She had put on deodorant that morning, but she clamped her arms tight against her sides, just in case.
“So,” Mark said. Cassie gripped the edge of the chair. She waited for him to bring up her tardiness, her lack of enthusiasm, her disappointing quarterly performance. She waited for him to say she was on probation or worse. “I was looking at your numbers from this past quarter. And I have to say—I’m really impressed.”
Cassie stared at him. Mark smiled again. This time he didn’t show his teeth.
“I mean, the amount of value you’ve created for the company in the past month alone—you keep this up, we could be looking at a promotion.”
Cassie blinked. She almost asked him to say it again. He hadn’t even told her what the job would be, hadn’t mentioned a pay raise or a new salary, but already she felt a buoyancy, a lightness, because she could see it: a life with money, or at least, a life with enough. Enough to hold onto the house that everyone said she’d been lucky to get when Andy divorced her, the house she’d sunk every last bit of her savings into because that was what you did, because owning property was the only way to get ahead. The house she’d refinanced but still couldn’t afford, with a monthly payment so high she couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it. She’d done what she could—she’d cashed the child support checks, she’d put groceries on credit cards. She’d canceled their subscriptions and taken money from her 401(k). She’d sold so much furniture it looked like they’d just moved in. But nothing had worked. Nothing had been enough.
“Really?” Cassie said. Her voice came out reedy and thin. “That’s—that’s great.”
“Isn’t it?” Mark said. His smile widened. “You’d be an assistant lead supervisor. And it would come with a salary bump, obviously. More PTO. All that jazz.”
“How much?” Cassie said, then instantly regretted it. Were you supposed to ask that? Or was it out of line?
“I should have more information in a few weeks,” Mark said. “I’m still working things out with the higher-ups. But I wanted to let you know that all the great work you’ve been doing hasn’t gone unnoticed.”
“Thank you,” Cassie said, and then again: “Thank you.” She sat there for a few more seconds before she realized the meeting had ended. She got up and left Mark’s office, trying not to grin.
On the way back she passed Lisa and Claire, sitting together at Lisa’s desk. This wasn’t unusual—Lisa and Claire talked all the time—but then she heard Lisa say, “No, I believe you. I saw one too. This morning. Right in the middle of the road. I almost crashed my car.”
And just like that, the lightness Cassie had felt after talking with Mark dried up and disappeared. Lisa caught her eye. Cassie slowed her pace, then stopped.
“Bodies,” she said, before Cassie could ask. “Both of us, on the way to work.” Lisa’s eyes widened. “Oh my gosh. You, too?”
Cassie hesitated maybe a second too long. “No. I mean, maybe, I had to take a detour this morning because the street was blocked off, but I didn’t see anything. It could have been something else.”
Up until now, Claire had stayed quiet, chewing on a thumbnail, her face bone-white. Now she said, “So it’s everyone, then.”
“Not necessarily,” Lisa said. “Not everyone. We can’t know for sure.”
Claire shook her head. “I don’t know. This feels bad. Like, really fucking bad.”
Lisa swallowed and nodded, but didn’t say anything else. Cassie didn’t know what to say either. So, after what felt like a polite period of silence, she started back toward her desk. She didn’t make it far before Lisa said, “Hey, Cassie?”
Cassie froze. Did Lisa know about last week? Did she know Cassie had simply called the police and left? She couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.
“We’re about to grab lunch. Did you want to come?”
“Oh,” Cassie said, weak with relief. “Thanks, but there’s something I have to finish up right now. Next time, maybe.”
She hurried back to her desk before they could insist. She didn’t want to keep talking about the bodies, and anyway, she didn’t see the point. It wasn’t like it would solve anything. They would just talk in circles, until everyone was more upset than they’d been when they started. And besides, she reasoned, she usually ate lunch by herself. She didn’t see why she should change that now.
*
That night, Cassie stayed up late, half-watching the news while she scrolled through articles on her phone. Bodies had started to appear in town—on streets, on sidewalks, in the parking lot of the Foothill Squares mall. No more than one or two at a time, the reporter on TV said, as if this made everything perfectly normal. The mayor had given a press conference that afternoon, and they reran the footage now, the mayor standing behind a podium, his hair oddly shiny in the afternoon sun, cameras clicking and flashing as he assured everyone that there was no cause for alarm and the city police had everything under control.
“What are you watching?”
She hadn’t heard Ethan come downstairs, but there he was, standing in the doorway, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with one hand. The light from the television flickered blue and white across his face. Cassie groped for the remote for what felt like forever before she finally found it and switched off the TV.
“Nothing,” Cassie said. She got up and went to him, drew him close, felt his thin chest rise and fall against her side. “It’s nothing.”
*
It was not nothing. As the week and then the month went on, the bodies kept appearing, more and more each day. No one knew where they were coming from, no one knew who they were. They had no clear cause of death or means of identification. They were simply there.
Before long the national news had picked up the story, reporters from CNN and MSNBC descending on city hall with their white vans to follow the mayor whenever he left the building, to look into the camera and deliver monologues about the shocking mystery engulfing this sleepy California town. Conspiracy theories started cropping up online, entire threads devoted to the question of the bodies. It was a failed alien invasion, it was a successful alien invasion, it was a social experiment secretly funded by the government. It was a test or a punishment, the beginning of the final judgment handed down by God. But for the city—for Cassie and her neighbors and everyone else—it was, more than anything, a problem. Municipal workers cleared the bodies every day, loading them into trucks and carting them off to God knows where, but it didn’t matter. The next day there would be more.
Cassie tried not to think about it. She dropped Ethan off earlier than usual, she built the extra traffic into her commute. And she told herself that, no matter what happened, this couldn’t go on forever. That she was sure of. One day, someday, it would have to end.
*
Then, on a clear and cloudless Tuesday in late October, she arrived at the office to find James, Claire, and Lisa still outside, standing in a semicircle by the double glass doors. Cassie’s heart dropped as she approached. She knew what she would find in front of them, and she wanted, badly, to be wrong.
The body lay sprawled across the threshold, blocking the doors. Whoever it was, he was young, the youngest Cassie had seen so far, not much older than thirty. The skin on his face was waxy, already turning a sickly bluish-gray.
“Should we move it?” Lisa was saying. “I mean, we have to move it. Right?”
No one answered. When Lisa spoke again, she sounded defeated, like she was talking to herself. “I guess I’m just wondering what we can do.”
“We shouldn’t have to do anything,” James said. “Maintenance or the janitor or whoever should have dealt with this already. This isn’t our problem.”
“It sure looks like our fucking problem,” Claire said.
“Thanks, Claire, that’s very helpful. Oh—hi, Cassie.”
They all turned to look at her. Cassie dragged her gaze away from the body and met their eyes. “Can we use another entrance?”
James shook his head. “They’re all like this. I checked.”
“We have to move it,” Lisa said again. “Otherwise how are we going to open the door?”
No one moved. Cassie looked at the man’s face—the parted lips, the sightless eyes. She wished, as she had for the last several weeks, that the body wasn’t there. She wished that it would simply disappear. She didn’t want to feel this way—she wanted to feel compassion for these people, whoever they had been—but the fact was, there were simply too many of them. At a certain point you had to stop, if not caring, then at least paying close attention, because otherwise how could you focus on anything else? And besides, she was only one person. She didn’t see what she, herself, could do.
“Fuck this.” Claire’s voice cut across Cassie’s thoughts. She was shaking her head, violently, even though no one had said anything. Finally she turned on her heel and walked toward the parking lot.
“Hey,” James called after her. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” Claire called back. “Somewhere else. Anywhere but here.”
“You’re quitting?” Cassie said. She didn’t mean to, it just came out. She didn’t know why she sounded so surprised.
Claire spun around. She had a wild look in her eye, the corner of her mouth turned up in amusement, or maybe disgust, like she couldn’t quite believe she’d found herself in their company. “Do you all really not see how fucked this is? All my friends, at work they’re at least talking about this. Their companies are offering mental health services or days off or making statements, and here we’re just standing around acting like nothing is wrong! Pretty soon you’ll be acting like it’s normal! Well, not me.”
“But what are you going to do?” Cassie said. For money, is what she had meant, but Claire said, “Go to the protests at city hall. Join one of the volunteer task forces, try to figure out what’s going on. I don’t know. But I have to do something.”
She walked away before they could say anything else. The heels of her boots clicked on the pavement, growing fainter with each step, until she got in her car and slammed the door. The engine growled as she backed out, revved briefly as she shifted gears and drove away. Once the sound had faded, James, Lisa, and Cassie stood there, not speaking, for a long time.
“Whatever,” James finally said. He caught Lisa’s eye, and then, when she looked away, Cassie’s. “Can one of you help me move this?”
Lisa stayed where she was. Cassie considered her options. Moving the body felt wrong somehow, like they were breaking an important rule, but what else could she do? Wait for someone else to come along? Walk away, like Claire? For all Cassie knew, Claire could afford to walk away. She was young, twenty-three or twenty-four. She didn’t have kids, she probably didn’t own a house. Maybe she had rich parents, or a wealthy uncle who could take her in. Cassie thought of her own father, living alone in his one-bedroom apartment, still working the checkout line at Vons because he couldn’t afford to retire. She thought of showing up on his doorstep with Ethan, suitcases in tow.
“I’ll help,” Cassie heard herself say. She went to the dead man and crouched down, slid her hands beneath his arms. James grabbed the legs, and together they stood, or tried to. The body was unbelievably heavy, like a sack of wet sand. They managed to drag it a few feet before they dropped it, panting, Cassie’s blouse sticking to her back and sides. Lisa covered her mouth, maybe to stop herself from throwing up. James wiped the sweat from his forehead and opened the door. And then, one by one, they went inside.
*
Mark called a teamwide meeting that same day. At ten o’clock, they all got up and shuffled into the main conference room, sat in swivel chairs around the polished wood table. The remote team watched them from tiny boxes in the TV on one wall. Mark sat at the head of the table and propped his chin on both hands. He seemed calm, loose, not nervous at all.
“Good morning,” he said. “Before we start, I just want to say—I know it’s been a difficult few weeks, with everything that’s been going on. And I want to commend each and every one of you for maintaining your focus. For working hard. For creating value for our stakeholders and our clients.”
At the mention of the bodies, the air in the room went taut, as if everyone had sucked in a breath at once. People stared at the table or the wall, no one willing to meet Mark’s eyes. Lisa still looked sick. Only James seemed like he hadn’t noticed. He leaned back in his chair, glancing down every so often, clearly texting, or at least reading something on his phone.
“And,” Mark went on, “credit where credit is due. I want to congratulate our very own Cassie Edwards for her performance this month. On Cassie’s accounts, user engagement is up sixty percent, and she’s been a great example of how to keep a level head and put work first, to excel no matter the circumstances. Let’s give her a hand!”
At the sound of her name, Cassie felt her face go warm—but then, as the rest of the team followed Mark’s lead and the room filled with the murmur of polite applause, she felt a small twist of satisfaction, or maybe relief. Not because of the promotion—Mark hadn’t brought that up since their meeting—but because, for the first time in weeks, something had happened that made sense, that followed logically from what had come before. She had worked hard; she had earned this recognition. Deserved it, even. And if she had earned this much, wasn’t a promotion the obvious next step?
Mark held up a hand. The applause died out. “Now,” he went on, “as great as all that is, this meeting is about looking forward. To next quarter, to next year. I want us to brainstorm strategies we can use to keep this growth going, any idea that might—”
“Are you serious?” Lisa’s voice came out pinched and strained, but still strong enough to stop him. For a long second, Mark didn’t do anything but stare straight ahead, mouth slightly open, like someone had switched him off. No one moved. Even James had gone still, was staring at Lisa instead of his phone.
Finally, Mark blinked. “Did you have a question, Lisa?”
“Do I have a question?” Lisa looked around the table with wild eyes. Her cheeks had turned pink, strands of her graying hair had come loose from her bun and started floating away from her head. “I’m sorry, but are we really going to sit here and ignore the fact that we couldn’t get into the building today because there were bodies blocking the doors? Or the fact that we’re all leaving an hour earlier because there are bodies in the street? I mean, it’s insane. Insane! This morning we had to move a fucking corpse out of the way just so we could get to this meeting, and you want to sit here talking about next quarter?” She met Cassie’s eyes then, her expression pleading, begging for support. Cassie looked away. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Lisa said. “With all of you?”
Nobody answered. Mark cleared his throat—a prim, delicate sound. “Lisa,” he said. “Can I talk to you in my office for a moment?”
As Lisa followed Mark through the door, Cassie caught James’s eye, trying to ask him, silently, what had just happened. But he must have misunderstood her glance, because he smirked at her, like they were both in on the same secret. Cassie didn’t smile back. She felt her stomach turn—actually turn, like something had rolled over in her insides—at the idea that James felt comfortable around her, that he might think they shared some kind of connection or, worse, that they saw the world the same way. Cassie dropped her gaze, pretended to look at something on her phone. She picked up her laptop and pushed out her chair. She didn’t look at James again as she left the room.
*
Lisa was gone by the end of the day. Cassie felt bad, but also, she had to admit, Lisa had done it to herself. There was no point dwelling on it. Cassie had other things to worry about, like when her promotion would go through and she could catch up on her missed payments, stop avoiding calls from the bank or wondering if she’d have to sell her house, not that anyone wanted to buy a house in a town full of dead bodies. Even so, after what Mark had said in the meeting, she kept waiting for him to call her over, to give her the good news. But he didn’t. He just stayed in his office, talking on the phone, for what seemed like the entire week. Finally, on Friday, Cassie sat down at her desk, stared at her blank computer screen for a full five minutes to steel herself, then got up and knocked on Mark’s door.
Mark looked up from his computer. He squinted at her for a few seconds, like he couldn’t quite place her, before he motioned for her to come in.
“Cassie!” he said as she closed the door. “What can I do for you?”
Cassie lowered herself into the chair across from him. She had rehearsed what she planned to say. She had run the numbers on how much traffic she’d generated, made a list of all the extra tasks she’d taken on. But now, faced with Mark and his unsettling smile, all that evaporated from her mind.
“I guess,” Cassie said, and then, “I mean, I just—I was wondering if there’s any update on that promotion you mentioned.” She said this as quickly as possible, as if getting the words out might make her feel better. It didn’t. She could feel the coffee and instant oatmeal she’d eaten for breakfast churning in her stomach. She wondered what would happen if she threw up on Mark’s desk. Would it make him feel bad for her? Would it make him give in?
“Oh!” Mark said. “Right. Thanks for reminding me.”
Cassie held her breath. She had prepared herself for disappointment, expected it almost, but now she could feel her heart lifting in spite of itself.
“I did ask if we could free up some money for a couple promotions,” Mark went on, “but the budget didn’t get approved. Accounting said it’s just not workable right now. I’m really sorry.”
He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded like he was talking to someone he barely knew—like her desperate request was an inconvenience, something to be brushed aside. Cassie stared, not at Mark, but past him, to some point in the distance she couldn’t imagine or see. She thought of the different ways she could respond, flipped through them one after another. She could tell Mark to go fuck himself. She could say he was a terrible boss and a worse person. She could push her chair out and leave, or she could pick the chair up and hurl it through the freakishly clean glass wall. But what would any of that accomplish? Nothing. She would just end up like Lisa and Claire: jobless, panicked, with no idea of what came next.
No. There was no point doing any of that. There was nothing to do but swallow, and nod, and say, “I understand,” so quietly she almost didn’t hear it herself, before getting up and walking out the door.
*
Cassie tried to pick Ethan up on time that afternoon. She really did. But the route from her office had become a maze of detours and dead ends, some streets littered with so many bodies that driving was impossible. By the time she got to the pickup zone, Ethan was alone, sitting on the curb with his backpack on his knees. He had one hand over his nose to shield it from the smell. The city couldn’t clear the corpses fast enough, and everywhere now the air was heavy with the stench of decomposing flesh. Cassie held her breath as she pulled up next to Ethan and he opened the passenger-side door.
They didn’t speak on the drive home. Ethan had been talking less and less these past few weeks, and Cassie knew she should say something, ask him about his day or if he was doing okay, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the promotion, and how Mark had fucked her, completely fucked her, and she couldn’t do anything about it at all.
She was still thinking about it when, as she turned off the car, Ethan said, “Hey, Mom?”
Cassie froze, one hand still on the keys. She slid them out of the ignition and put them in her pocket. “Yeah, honey?” she said. “What is it?”
He didn’t answer. She turned to face him. He held his hands in his lap, pushed the flat of one thumb across the nail of the other. His shoulders curved forward and his long brown hair fell across his forehead. Occasionally in the past year, Cassie had caught herself staring at her son and wondering when he’d grown up, how the baby she remembered could possibly be ten, almost eleven, years old. But other times, like now, he looked like what he was: a child, almost unbearably young, untouched by the wider world and only just now starting to understand that it scared him.
Cassie waited. Ethan kept worrying one thumb against the other. Finally he said, “When is it going to stop?”
When is what going to stop, she almost asked, then caught herself. They both knew what Ethan meant. It was pointless to pretend otherwise.
“I don’t know, honey,” she said, and then again, “I don’t know.”
Ethan looked at her. And in his eyes, she saw the same fear and uncertainty she had felt, back when all this started. “But if it doesn’t stop,” he said. “What are we going to do?”
Cassie swallowed and looked away, because what could she actually say? How could she tell her son that they couldn’t do anything? How could she be the one to tell him how little power they had—how the big decisions, the ones that shaped the world they lived in, were out of their control? “Well,” she finally said, sounding less confident than she’d hoped, “if that’s what happens, we’ll have to figure out how to live with it. That’s all.”
Ethan blinked. He pulled in his lower lip, like he wanted to argue but didn’t know how. Cassie sighed and turned to face him, and she softened her voice when she spoke again.
“Sometimes bad things happen, honey. They just do. But that doesn’t always mean it’s our job to fix them. If we could help, or do something to stop it, we would. Of course we would. But with something like this—”
She stopped. She realized, abruptly, that she had no idea how to finish her thought. She didn’t even know what something like this was. How could she–-how could anyone—decide the right thing to do? All at once, she felt the weight of the week drop onto her like a stone, crushing her, pressing her into the seat, until she felt like she might go right through the floor of the car and into the ground.
Ethan stayed where he was, waiting. Like all children, he expected an answer. But in the end, it was all she could do to put the keys in her pocket, and take a breath, and say, “It’s late. Let’s go inside.”
*
That night, Cassie stayed up late, trying to pick out a sitcom or a game show to take her mind off things, but she couldn’t focus. Eventually she gave up, turned off the television and scrolled through her phone instead. The news was the same, worse maybe, no sign that anything would get resolved, but still—she couldn’t stop.
She was reading the latest statement from the mayor when she heard it. She turned off her phone. She waited in the dark while the seconds stretched out, long enough for her to believe she had imagined it. Then it came again, soft and unmistakable: a scratching at the front door.
Cassie kept still, waiting for the sound to go away. It didn’t. She stood up, slowly, and padded to the kitchen. She slid a carving knife from the stand on the counter. She padded back to the front door, placed her free hand on the cold metal knob. She turned it as quietly as she could and edged open the door.
She didn’t see anything. The porch light filled the empty air with a soft orange glow. She pushed the door further, and then it stopped, bumped into something lying on the ground. Cassie looked down automatically, even though she knew what it would be.
The body of a woman lay in front of her, eyes closed, brown hair fanned out across the steps. She looked to be around Cassie’s age or maybe younger. Her skin was pale, her lips blue. Cassie shut her eyes before she could see anything more, before the image could burn itself into her mind. She was already closing the door when a small, faint voice said, “Help.”
Cassie opened her eyes. She stayed where she was with one hand on the door. It wasn’t real, she thought. It couldn’t be real. But when she dared to look again, the woman’s eyes were open, too—and, yes, she was breathing, her chest rising and falling beneath her shirt. The blue lips parted and she said it again: “Help.”
And, as Cassie stared down at this woman she didn’t know, she considered what would happen if she did as she asked: if she helped her up and brought her inside, if she called 911, if she asked her what she needed and took care of her until the ambulance came. Maybe the woman would get better. Maybe she would thank Cassie, maybe she would be the one to finally explain what was going on. Maybe they would even become friends and stay in each other’s lives. But then, Cassie thought, what if the hospital was full? What if Cassie was stuck taking care of her? What would happen if this stranger died on her watch, or she turned out to be dangerous, a threat, clinically insane?
No, Cassie thought. She couldn’t risk it. And besides, she had too much to do tomorrow. Ethan had a soccer game, she had to get groceries, she probably had to start looking for a new job if she ever wanted a raise. She simply couldn’t deal with this on top of everything else. Cassie shook her head—for the woman or for herself, she didn’t know—then took a step back. She turned off the porch light. She didn’t look down again as she closed the front door.
She would have to call the city in the morning, she thought later, as she lay in bed and waited for sleep to come. But they were so backed up these days. She couldn’t be sure when they would get around to it. For all she knew, the body might stay there all day, maybe even until next week. But that was fine. That was something she could deal with. She would just tell Ethan they had to use the back door for a while, for as long as they needed to. She would get the car from the driveway, pick him up behind the house. She would park on a different block and draw the blinds when they got home. She would do what she had to, to make sure he didn’t see.