Although fear settled like a fog along Kelley Street after the disappearances, the neighborhood began to resume its usual routines. Reginald Yates yelled at his teenage son to finish mowing, but the push mower stayed in the middle of the yard like a lawn ornament. The grass to the left of the mower was noticeably a few inches higher than the grass on the right. Gloria Estefan and Maná ballads drifted downhill from the Rodriguez house on the corner. The Bottleman knocked on doors, asking for old bottles. Children rode their bikes, their clamorous voices hushing in reverence when they passed Miranda’s house. At his dead parents’ house, Byron slept in his old bedroom, fed his sister’s chihuahua junk food even though she told him not to, rode his silver Vespa to work at Subway each day. Bree unpacked and returned the U-Haul trailer.
She waited two days after the disappearances before going to see Miranda. Since Miranda had pushed Byron away, Bree was surprised even to be let in. When she stepped across the threshold, the air was heavy and sour, as if Miranda had been locked in that house for months, not days, and her grief was a thing with weight and scent.
The two women sat across from each other at the kitchen table, which was cluttered with old newspapers, coupons, and pictures of Josh and Dusty. Miranda squinted at the plastic blue tablecloth. Bree made coffee and asked her if she’d had anything to eat. Miranda mumbled something Bree couldn’t catch. There was very little in the refrigerator, but in the sparse cupboards Bree found some pancake mix and a can of peaches, so she made the woman breakfast, even though it was two in the afternoon. They didn’t talk while Bree cooked, and when Bree set the food before her, Miranda sipped the coffee, slid one peach slice into her mouth, and that was it. The peach juice dribbled down her lips. The pancakes remained untouched, growing clammy and cold.
Bree eyed the photos of Josh and Dusty. They were mostly school pictures, and the boys were smiling brightly in them, which surprised Bree, because she’d never seen them smile. She missed them suddenly, their silent presence, although she’d thought they were strange kids from the first day she met them. It had been the Saturday after they’d moved in. The door bell rang at three in the afternoon and two white-haired boys stood looking up at her. Antonio struggled in one of the boy’s arms, his wide chihuahua eyes avoiding Bree’s glare. She hadn’t even noticed he was gone. Behind the boys was an overweight white woman, who introduced herself as Miranda Shifflett.
Bree shook her hand. “Sabrina Wilson.”
“Sabrina. Like the Teenage Witch?”
Bree frowned. “My friends call me Bree.”
“Like the cheese?”
“I guess,” Bree said. She didn’t like cheese, particularly brie, and she didn’t particularly like sharing her name with it. She took Antonio from the boys and scolded him. “You get on my last nerve,” she said. “You so bad, bad.”
Bree thanked the boys with Popsicles, which they took with no enthusiasm, as if they’d expected something better. They sat quietly on the love seat. She and Miranda sat down for what Bree thought would be no more than a fifteen-minute conversation, long enough for the boys to eat their Popsicles and play with Antonio a little, but Miranda and the boys stayed for hours. She told Bree her life story, from growing up in a black neighborhood in Montgomery, Alabama, to moving to Virginia with her father and stepmother when she was ten. She described her no good ex-husband who told her he was working the night shift when really he was dressing up in Abercrombie & Fitch and posing as a JMU student at parties to pick up college girls. He was in jail now for assaulting one of those girls. She told Bree about the boys, how they always wanted a dog, but she’d always been a little scared of dogs, though she liked Antonio. While the oldest boy, Josh, was in the bathroom, Miranda confessed that he wouldn’t wear pants with zippers because he was afraid his wee-wee might get stuck in the tiny metal teeth. Bree’s TV remained on, and Miranda would take a break from her storytelling to comment on a laundry detergent ad (That don’t work—I just use Clorox, works better than anything they got out now) or tell a movie character what to do (Why you gonna get close and see if he’s dead? Shoot him a couple more times and then run, girl, run!). Whatever was on the screen would remind her of another story, and she’d continue. The boys either played with Antonio or sat on the love seat without speaking, just watching the television and tuning out their mother. They were the best-behaved children Bree had ever met, and Bree never trusted well-behaved children. They were capable of anything. They were the ones nobody suspected, the ones who would burn down your house while you were sleeping.
Around eight that evening, Miranda finally stood and said she better go to her house and feed the boys. Before she left, she asked, “You lived here long, Bree?” When Bree nodded, Miranda said, “You know that Crolley? The guy that lives next door?”
Bree smiled. “Good old Crolley,” she said. She always thought of him as old even though they were close in age. “What about him?”
“Is he a little off?” Miranda asked. “I mean, a little slow?”
“Could be. Never really thought about it.”
“I think he has a little crush on me,” Miranda said. Bree raised an eyebrow. A woman looking like you, she thought, must be awful bold to be saying somebody has a crush on her.
Miranda continued. “He keeps coming over and fixing things without me asking. I don’t want to be rude, but I have to tell him, thank you kindly, but I ain’t interested. I’ve had my share of skinny men. My ex was skinnier than my pinky.” She laughed. “I want to be done with all of them—men—but a woman’s got needs,” she said.