Jack heated water on the stove and plugged the sink and poured the hot water in and washed everything and let it dry on the counter. After Matty finished his peaches, Jack asked him to get out his homework. Spelling.

“School,” Jack said.

The concentration returned to Matty’s face.

“S-C-H-O-O-L.”

“Good. Now pencil.”

“P-E-N-C-I-L.”

Outside the kitchen window, wind smashed snow flurries against the glass and gusted them in circles and shoved them to the earth. An iron cold out there. Jack put his hands over his eyes. Dark pressed down on the roof and in on the walls of the fragile house, and she was lying up there on the bed.

II

What do I remember?

My father is a thief and a killer. He robbed a pawnshop with Leland Dahl when I was ten, but nobody ever caught him. No evidence. No trial. That started everything. A long scar jags across his forehead and down his cheek from the time my mother came at him with a knife. She paid for that. He’s a killer, but he’s something worse.

His eyes are hooks. They dig deep. They snare the soul.

Some people have ice in them. I know I do. It’s what my father made me. Frost-covered, black inside. Even now, when I think of him, I go cold all over. Like I just stepped into a freezer.

But Jack—sweet, angry, quiet Jack—he burns me up. He breaks me to pieces.

We knew each other nine days.

They pulled out the sleeper sofa and spread nubby blankets and a quilt over the sagging mattress. Jack stoked the fire and locked the doors and made sure they had enough firewood to get through the night while Matty stripped off his clothes and put on pajamas in front of the stove. Batman PJs and a tattered cape. The sight of him shrank Jack’s chest. His ribs poking out, and his knees. Like some poor orphan. And so it was. Jack picked up the clothes and folded them and put them on the bed.

Just breathe, Jack.

Breathe in and out and then do it again.

Matty burrowed under the blankets. He kept glancing at the rocker. Jack switched off the lamp and tucked the blanket edges around him to keep in the heat. Moonlight gleamed in through the window. He sat on the mattress.

“Can we watch TV?”

“No. It’s past your bedtime.”

“Sure is cold.”

“Yeah.”

The fire crackled. He sat there, breathing. In, out.

“Jack?”

“What?”

“Do you think Dad will come home soon? Like Mom said he might?”

“I don’t know.”

Matty was silent. Then: “You remember that Services lady?”