Zack had awakened at five on the dot, dressed quietly and gone downstairs to make himself a cup of instant coffee, his usual routine. Ruth, half awake and already deeply regretting what had transpired, found this adherence reassuring, suggesting as it did that her husband wasn’t placing too much importance on what had happened between them. With any luck he understood that, like the lightning strike itself, this bout of sex was an anomaly, statistically improbable, unlikely to happen again in their lifetimes. When was the last time she’d even been in this room? She wouldn’t even clean it. She was willing to wash his sheets with her own and those from Tina’s room whenever she stayed over, provided he strip the bed himself and bring everything down to the basement. After they were laundered, she left the sheets and pillowcases outside in the hallway, and he made the bed himself. Why had she even followed him in here last night? What had led him to believe that sex was remotely possible? The fact that she hadn’t withdrawn her hand from his as they watched the blue flame? And why had he wanted her to see that in the first place? Sure, it was a strange sight, almost miraculous, but why her? Tina was normally his appreciative audience. Had he stopped in her room first, seen she wasn’t there and only then come to Ruth’s? Somehow, she didn’t think so. He hadn’t seemed interested in waking the girl. No, the flame was something he’d wanted to show Ruth. That watching it had led to sex seemed as surprising to him as it was to her. It hadn’t been great, but it hadn’t been nothing, either, and this morning, nothing was what she very much wanted it to be.
When she heard his truck back down the steep drive, grinding the gears when he shifted from reverse into second — seeing little to be gained by first — and head toward town, she lay awake for a few minutes, still trying to make some kind of sense of what had happened and why. Was it just that she’d been celibate for so long? Or was there some connection between the blue flame they’d seen atop the shed and the long dormant, barely guttering flame of their dimly recalled intimacy? Stirring the curtains was a lovely breeze, fresh and delicious, the essence of not-yet-arrived morning, and she might’ve lazed there a bit longer except she heard the alarm go off in her own room and didn’t want Tina to find her in Zack’s, since she might tell her mother, who in turn would want to know all about it, her curiosity further stoked because it was none of her damn business.
At some point during the night Tina must have awakened and shuffled back to her own room because the bed was now empty. Later, after Ruth had showered and was joined in the kitchen by her groggy granddaughter, the girl claimed to have no memory of the jolting thunderclap or of coming to her bed, and Ruth then wondered if the entire sequence of events — from lightning strike to blue flame to sex — had actually happened or was just a particularly vivid dream. Outside, though, the black scorch mark on the roof was visible even in the dark, and the strip of corrugated tin still stood erect, so at least that part was real.
“Can we go by Main Street?” Tina asked when they hit the outskirts of town.
“Why not,” Ruth said, though they were running late and this was several blocks out of the way. Actually, she wasn’t anxious to get to the restaurant. Having told Sully it might be best for him not to come by so much, she now thought she’d miss him if he took her advice to heart. Hard on the heels of that worry came another. Had Sully died in the night? Was that what the blue flame atop the shed had been about — announcing his departure from the world? Had some part of her understood it even then? Just yesterday she’d been thinking how nice it would be to live in a world without men. Had that daydream somehow set something in motion? Was what had happened between her and Zack a grim acknowledgment that he was now the only man in her life?
When they passed the Upper Main Street house Sully owned but refused to live in, Tina leaned forward to peer at it. Back in the fall the poor girl had developed a crush on Will, Sully’s grandson. Ruth doubted Will was even aware of it, and he certainly hadn’t encouraged it, but according to Tina he was kind to everyone, even the uncool girls, and not stuck up, like he had a right to be, popular as he was. When he came into the restaurant with his grandfather, he made a point of saying hello. Always using her name and asking how she was. Like it really mattered. So she’d fallen hard. But now he was off to New York City for a summer internship and then college, and she didn’t know when or even if she’d see him again. That she still wanted to drive by the house struck Ruth as particularly heartbreaking.
Only when they’d gone another couple blocks did it occur to Ruth that Sully’s truck hadn’t been out front, which meant he was up and out early. Sometimes, when he couldn’t sleep, he’d be waiting out back of the restaurant when she arrived to open up. If he was there this morning, she’d give him a little grief, but in truth she’d be glad to see him, if only so she could rest easy that the blue flame hadn’t been about him. God, life was a complete mess.
“You know about sex, right?” Ruth was surprised to hear herself ask.
Tina turned to regard her blankly.
“I’m talking to you,” Ruth said. “If you hear me, raise your left hand.”
Tina raised her right.
“Very funny,” Ruth told her, though not at all sure she was joking. Her granddaughter had always had trouble distinguishing left from right. Ruth had tried to help her when she was little by taking her wrists and holding both hands straight in front of her, palms out, and explaining that the thumb and index finger of her left hand would naturally form the letter L. Later in the day, she’d tested her on the concept, and Tina dutifully held both hands out in front of her, palms in this time, and confidently identified her right hand as her left. Had she been joking even then?
“I’m serious,” Ruth said. “Boys want sex. Even the nice ones.”
Tina regarded her for another long beat, her face still an expressionless mask, then went back to staring out the window, as if neither of them had spoken.
“You know you can get pregnant, right?” Ruth continued. “You know how all that works?”
Tina raised her right hand.
“What’s that mean? That you heard me, or that you have a question?”
That half smile again.
“You want to know what I thought when I was your age?”
Again she raised her right hand.
“I thought you could get pregnant if a boy touched your breast.” Which was true. She had thought that, though she’d been much younger than Tina. “Then one did.”
She turned into the alley between the restaurant and the Rexall drugstore. Her daughter’s car was parked behind the Dumpster. There was no sign of Sully’s truck, nor had it been parked in the street. She thought again about the blue flame.
“Did you?” said her granddaughter.
“Did I what?”
“Get pregnant?” There was definitely a smile now.
“Are you having fun? Messing with Grandma?”
The girl nodded, her smile broadening. “Was Grandpa the boy?”
Ruth turned off the ignition. “I hadn’t even met your grandfather yet.”
“Then who was it?”
“Just a boy. Nobody you know. He died.”
“When?”
“In the war.”
“Which one?”
“The one he was fighting in.”
“Are you mad at me?”
“No, I’m mad at the war.”
“Why’d you let him?”
“Go to war?”
“No, touch you.”
“I didn’t let him. He just did.”
“Did you let other boys?”
“Why are we talking about me?”