Outside, birdsong had dissolved. The creek lay silent. The little boys’ laughter had vanished. She scanned the water. Where had the neighbors run off to?

Wrapping her arms around her shoulders, she tramped across the dirt road, her vigorous gait belying her age. She called out, “Trudy? Trudy, you up there, hun? Did you see that? Trudy?” Though she knew she was still too far away to be heard, she shouted, recalling something she’d buried from childhood.

Something that made her fear Trudy would not reply.

THREE

THREE

SLEEPING SISTERS

Calliope lingered in Phoenix’s Crayola-colored bedroom, clutching his Thomas the Tank engines. Play with me, Mama, Phoenix had begged. Let’s play. She dropped the trains as if they’d stung her, then moved to his dresser and pulled out a pair of pajamas, which she folded and unfolded, searching the creases for some remnant, some clue. She wanted to pull his body out of hers again, to cesarean him back from wherever he’d gone. She wanted to lie on his bed, cover her chest and swollen belly with his knitted blanket, and wait. For his return. For God to fracture the sky again and bring him back. For an end to this nightmare. Her thoughts had gone fuzzy. Should she be getting on the road? What would Andres have been doing, if he were here?

Eunjoo Yeom was curled like a hedgehog on Phoenix’s child-size sofa, steadying the flashlight and watching her. The girl didn’t ask to play, didn’t say anything even as Calliope had wandered from room to room in the suffocating heat of the dark house before settling in Phoenix’s, unable to snap herself out of her languor. She stared into the girl’s sad face, translucent in the gleam of flashlight, and sighed, at last, “Come on, we should pack.”