Levy wandered through the house turning lights on and off as he went. Downstairs the rooms were silent, empty, clean. Upstairs the bedrooms were neat. The curtains in Leah’s room hung still, the ducks paralyzed on the fabric. He hadn’t eaten since last night sometime and he knew he should try, but the thought of food made him sick. If Rachel was there he could eat, at least some soup. Then he heard a car and he ran to the window, praying it was Rachel at last. It was Deb Fineman’s Continental.

He went back to the den and tried to read. The words blurred and he turned on the TV to fill the room with noise.

Face it, Luria had said to him. Don’t hide from it. We’re not criminals, we’re soldiers. Heroes. Like the Haganah, the Irgun. They attack us, we fight. They kill us, we kill them. Don’t try to forget. Remember it like you would a battle. Victory.

A football game was on, the crowd yelled, and suddenly he heard Willa’s scream. They were in the foyer, trying to get to the back stairs. To the big boy’s room, because it was supposed to be him. Only him. But Dworkin knocked over the poster or whatever it was, and she heard it and came out on the landing. They froze, she didn’t see them, and she went back. Levy thought it was all right, but she came out again and they couldn’t move. Then she came down the stairs with her robe floating around her. She crossed the foyer and he thought, if she just picked the thing up and went back, there was a chance; but she was heading for the light switch and he wanted to shout at her to stop. The light came on and she turned, and screamed so hard her head banged the wall. Levy’s throat ached and he shut his eyes. The floor shook and he waited to hear her body fall.

But he heard glass break and he opened his eyes. The younger one had heard the scream and come to help his mother. He tore a slat off the poster and, eyes wide with terror, he was swinging it like a sword. It was too big for him. He smashed the wall clock with it and the crystal chandelier. Glass fell on them. It covered the floor and the boy stepped in it. It slashed his feet and he slipped in his own blood. The slat flew out of his hands and his body hit the side of the door with a crack. Then it fell and rolled while Willa screamed and screamed. It stopped face up and Willa stopped screaming. But her mouth stayed open to the end, which took longer.