“Hrrm” is all he can manage as a goodbye. He drops the gearshift into reverse and creeps backward down the hill until he has space enough to turn around. Then he bumps down the road another mile before finding himself facing another Tahoe. For a moment he wonders if he has somehow circled back the way he came. Then the SUV flashes its lights, and he realizes he is the one blocking the way. So he pulls over to the edge of the road and lets not one, but two, three, five, eight, twelve vehicles pass. SUVs, trucks, and vans, and though their shaded windows don’t reveal much, he spots inside them several more people wearing hazmat suits.

7

Nora changes the sky-blue sheets to the sunflower-yellow sheets. She tightens the corners, fusses with the symmetry of the fold. She plumps the pillow and lays down the quilt and runs her arm along the length of the mattress to erase the wrinkles. In a Ziploc bag is Tigey—Mia’s pink and white tiger—and she places it upright at the head of the bed. Rain patters on the window. Out of it she can see children in raincoats walking to the bus stop, tortoised by the weight of their backpacks. She watches them until they’re out of sight.

Things had gotten worse after Mia disappeared. But they hadn’t been great before. Nora always had to read the newspaper in a particular order. She would meticulously peel the strings off a stalk of celery before eating it. She couldn’t leave the house with dirty dishes in the sink. But there was something about her marriage to Jack—and about parenthood even more so—that forced her to give up control. Jack refused to read instructions. He was never on time. He forgot obligations. He threw his clothes on the floor at night and sniffed them before putting them back on in the morning. He often said, “Good enough,” or “Close enough,” when inadequately sweeping out the garage or guessing the measurement on a recipe. At first this is what she liked about him. That he could drive by a theater and say, Hey, want to go to a flick? instead of buying reserved seats three days in advance. She thought maybe his flexibility would be contagious, and he seemed to bemusedly enjoy the structure and checklists she brought to his life.

They first met when she almost busted him. Dispatch reported a guy creeping through the backyards of a West Queen Anne neighborhood. Nora was a patrol officer at the time and took the call. The old lady with the slippery dentures who’d made the report claimed the man had a knife and was crawling in and out of the woods. “Like an animal,” she said, tucking her teeth back in her mouth. “A wild animal. Who knows what he might do!”