With her hands clasped under her belly, Grace crosses the bedroom and stands at the back window. She rests her fingertips on the cool marble sill. In the alley below, Orin Schofield sits in his chair just as she knew he would. He’s hunched over, maybe asleep. His rifle will be propped against his garage within easy reach but where the other neighbors won’t see it and take it away from him again. Go to Julia’s, Grace had told James, and now she’s happy for it.
There are four of them today. They walk with a slow, lazy pace and are only just past the house when Grace pushes open the kitchen door.
“Orin,” she calls out toward the alley. “I need you, Orin.”
She waits, listens. The chair will creak when he stands. Hearing nothing, she calls out again, louder this time, but not so loud that the men walking down the street will hear.
“Orin, up here. I need you up here at the house.”
The metal chair whines. In a few moments, he’ll appear around the side of the garage. She wonders if he knows Elizabeth is gone and that the man walking down their street took her and killed her and whatever else he did, Grace cannot let herself imagine.
“You there.”
Now Grace shouts so the men will hear and so Orin will know there’s trouble and bring his rifle. She walks to the end of the driveway, slowly at first, but then more quickly. She doesn’t want them to get too near Julia’s house, where James might see them.
“You there. You stop.”
The street is quiet for this time of day. Having received word Elizabeth was pulled from the river, the husbands are already home. Garage doors are closed, curtains are drawn, even windows, it seems, have been shut because the usual sounds of supper being served-glasses knocking against one another, a stray piece of silverware being dropped, someone shuffling a stack of everyday china-have been silenced. Even though Grace can’t hear them, she knows her neighbors are sitting down to the table, all of them whispering about the funeral that will come and wondering what will follow. Will Alder Avenue ever be the same, or has it changed-have their lives changed-in a lasting way? Grace glances behind her. Still no sign of Orin.
Only two of the men hear her and turn. The man with the beard continues his slow pace. Across the street, Mrs. Wallace, who had been sweeping her porch, props her broom against her house, walks inside, and closes the door. The two men look at Grace and then at each other. The first jabs the second in the side, shrugs, and they hurry down the street to catch up to the other men.
“Yes, you,” Grace shouts. “I mean you.”
The baby hangs heavy today, heavier always at the end of the day. That’ll mean a boy, Mother likes to say. But Grace thinks it means only a strong, healthy baby.
“How can you walk here?” she says.
Behind her, two footsteps and a tap, two footsteps and a tap. Orin is using his gun like a cane, just as he did the three-foot length of wood. He must see her and the men, too, because the steps and the tap quicken. Soon she’ll hear him breathing. He’ll cough because the walking is a strain. If she could turn toward him, she’d see his face flushed, sweat dripping from his temples, a white button-down shirt wilted and clinging to his soft midsection. Only one man pays her attention this time. He looks at Grace and then to each side as if wondering whom she means to question.
“Ma’am?”
He’s the one who couldn’t watch. Grace’s memory of him is correct. His lids droop over his large brown eyes in a way that makes him appear kinder and more thoughtful than the others. He let it happen but couldn’t bring himself to watch.
“I know what he did,” Grace shouts. “I know it was him.”
Two others turn, but the bearded man stands with his back to Grace. The footsteps and the tapping have stopped. Grace points so Orin will know which one. She points at the tallest man. His wide shoulders roll forward. Thick veins run like cords from his wrists to his elbows. Grace can’t see them from such a distance, but she knows they’re there because that night, he hovered over her, those arms flanking her, trapping her. Like the other three, he turns. He looks past her at first, past both her and Orin as if they’re not worth noticing, and then his eyes focus. They settle on Grace.
“Did you know, Orin? They found our Elizabeth today. Pulled her from the river.” Grace lifts her hand again. Points. “That’s the one who took her and dumped her like garbage.”
Orin must be tired. Every morning, every evening, and late every night he waits in the alley. He must have wondered why the men stopped coming, or maybe he thought he kept them at bay. Maybe he has felt pride these days since Elizabeth disappeared. For the first time in many years, he must have felt useful, powerful even. But now he sees the men are here on the street. He hasn’t frightened them away, and it’s Grace who has stripped him of his pride.
“Orin,” she says again because he doesn’t move. “That one there. That one.”
“Thought for sure you’d tell.”
The sound of his voice, pitched so much deeper than James’s, knocks Grace backward. She’s remembering the smell of this man-spicy cologne sprayed on much earlier in the day and the sour patch under each arm. He knows the police came to see her. He knows the officers questioned her and that she lied. This is why he’s back. It’s safe for him now. Someone was arrested, someone stronger and less selfish than Grace. It may have been the man with the soft, kind eyes. Whoever it was, he was strong enough to try to stop it from happening again. He told the police a woman was hurt at 721 Alder. A pregnant woman, badly injured. But Grace lied. Because she wanted to protect her marriage and the life she had planned for her daughter, she had smiled for the officers, hid the ache in her tailbone and the stiffness in her neck, and now the man is back, walking down Alder Avenue, caring so little about what he did that he is scarcely able to recognize Grace.
“I know you did it,” she says.
It’s a whisper now. At her side, Orin shuffles forward. Standing, when normally he sits, he struggles with the gun’s weight.
“What’d I do?” the one says, looking to the others who stand at his side. “Any of you all know?”
The men shake their heads. The man with the lids that droop kicks at the ground and crosses his arms. It’s not only Elizabeth whom Grace has harmed, it’s this kinder man too. She wants to lay a hand on his shoulder to calm him. Stop your fidgeting, that’s what Mother would have said. As if knowing Grace’s thoughts, the man with the beard trained by three fingers wraps a hand around the kinder man’s shoulder, presses, probably squeezes, and the kinder man stands still.
“You must be mistaken, ma’am,” the man with the beard says. “If nobody tells, then nothing happened. Ain’t that the way it goes?”
From the corner of her eye, Grace sees a flash. It’s the late-day sun reflecting off dark metal. A thin barrel rises and levels off. Orin coughs. Each breath is a struggle for him. It wasn’t always so bad. Every year, the breathing, the walking, the standing, all of it becomes harder for him. The doctors give shots now that burn and pinch and what happened to Orin won’t happen to the rest of them. He nods in the direction of the men, confirming which is his target. The man knows Grace didn’t tell. He knows she never will and he knows the kinder man betrayed him.
“No, Orin,” Grace says. She rests her palm on the thin barrel and pushes it toward the ground. It’s the way Mr. Williamson lowered it the day Orin shot into her garage. “No.”
With his large hand wrapped around the kinder man’s shoulder, the man who ruined Grace and killed Elizabeth takes a shallow bow. He knew she wouldn’t do it, and he turns and they all walk away. But because Grace is too weak, they’ll come again.