I returned to the front porch and stood there for a few minutes. In the pitch dark the rain sounded like it was slacking a little, but it went on and on, and I couldn’t stop it. I suddenly remembered the bird. The poor bird. I had left it behind in the yard. And the whole point of this mission had been to not leave it alone, to assuage its fear.

As I stood there, about to step off the porch, lightning struck. A sound like high-tension wire snapping cracked through the air, and everything lit up like daylight, brighter than daylight, and in the flash I saw its target, my eyes widening.

The brass canary cage.

A shower of sparks exploded but immediately died in the downpour, the darkness all-enveloping once again, the lavender afterimage flashing in my vision. Damp smoke reached me, an electrical smell of something ruined. By this time my flashlight was flickering, but I jumped off the porch and ventured toward the smell until I reached the birdcage. In the beam of my flashlight I saw that the lightning had split the cage open and curled the bars back in a wicked, uneven pattern, blackening them, and somehow it was sitting upright. The canary lay on the bottom, perfect and dead. It looked like it was sleeping.

For a few minutes I stood in the rain, not knowing what to do. Finally, slinging the garbage bag of supplies over my shoulder, I picked up the cage, which was still warm, and continued on my way. I couldn’t tell if I was crying for all the rain.

I returned to Apartment 201 and locked the door behind me. Immediately I stripped down and changed into dry clothes. Afterward I lit some of the candles, trying to find some coziness in riding out the storm or feel somewhat festive about it, and I put them throughout the apartment, ending up in the kitchen. Outside the window, the rain and wind picked up again.

I had left the cage on the balcony, setting it as far away from the front door as possible. I was relieved, I told myself. I’d never been too attached to the bird, anyway.

Feebly I made lewd shadow puppets on the wall, desperate to regain some of my Jack Tripper humor. When I tried to summon Janet and Chrissy to tell them what was happening, though, I didn’t get a response. I called and called for them. I looked everywhere—the bathroom, the kitchen, their bedroom. But there was no answer. They were gone, their beds empty. I envisioned them out in the darkness, running with the dog.

A deep and sudden frailty swept through my legs, my knees, but I stayed strong. Carefully I lowered myself into a chair at the kitchen table. If I weakened now, I might die. The thought numbed me. It almost reassured me. From my chair I reached for the pan that held the now-gummy roux I had made an hour earlier. It had gone cold. I scraped it into my mouth, anyway, and waited for daylight.