“Ma.” His voice cracks and he stands as if still holding Lincoln’s blood-drained body. His shoulders heave but he doesn’t lower his arms.

Boo approaches him and gently presses Simon’s arms down to his sides.

“You’d better get goin, Simon.”

Simon looks at Boo.

“I’ll cover for you, Si. We’ll make it all right.”

Simon looks at Betty and Lincoln. Lincoln moves his head slightly and Betty whispers to him. The light from the kitchen makes it halfway into the living room before falling short. They are partially lit. Betty in her blue robe and Lincoln swaddled in his red-and-black jacket—this is the image Simon will take with him: Betty ministering to Lincoln’s wrecked body. That is what he will take with him in lieu of an explanation, instead of comfort or understanding for himself. He runs into the thickening night.

Boo and Betty hear the car start and the gravel spit from under the tires. The transmission kicks down twice along the highway and then fades out of earshot. They are alone with Lincoln for only a few minutes before he dies, Betty anchored to his lifeless body, her hands resting on his shoulder, the curve of his baby-smooth cheek, his hand. She doesn’t want to stop touching him. She thinks that maybe if she touches him he will come back. Her touch, perhaps, could spin time backward.

It doesn’t work. The medics rush in, all arc lights and language, a whole symphony of orders and ritual. Betty and Boo stand at the margins of the activity. It doesn’t last long. The ambulance driver tells Betty that he will have to take Lincoln’s body to the coroner’s for an examination. Standard, he says, searching her eyes for an answer.

Standard.

He repeats it a few times and looks at Boo, who nods. They take the body and leave.

35