original façade, they’d made a curious discovery. A kind of passageway had been walled off for decades, most likely also damaged in The Fire, as my grandfather reverently referred to it. His oddly fervent insistence that he had no ideas about the cause of the blaze had always left me with vague suspicions that he knew more than he had ever let on—and the uncovering of this secret enclosure held out promise for more revelations.
But the reality was far less interesting. Within the walled-off space, there were mounds of shingles and wood and nails—the residue of a decades-old re-roofing project. Under the dust and debris lay a trove of historical incoherence—an old washing basin and an electric sewing machine; a horse team harness and a car jack. Turn-of-the-century newspapers stacked atop a package of unopened floppy disks. Two unopened burlap sacks of pinto beans, one of flour. In the corner stood a three-legged desk, a mirror frame atop, though no glass, and an old corroded woven straw basket. Scattered about were fully intact olive jars, tins of cough syrup and soda, some lightly lacquered with the dried residue. In one corner, rolls of poster advertisements for items such as Queeg digestive gum and Legent pomade; an arrowhead, a necklace of shark teeth, a brass door knocker, and a nearly complete set of broken china. The treasures of someone else’s age.
The exterior wall was now torn away, and in its place, a blue plastic tarp was all that separated our upstairs from the elements, secured to the new gable’s wooden frame. I hadn’t seen the workmen in several days, the contractor in over a week. As I sorted through the piles of old shingles and nails that were scattered about the floor, I could vaguely hear the sound of voices downstairs. Hero was talking, the strangers answering. It didn’t end quickly. They were engaged. It sounded as if they had left the front door and entered the living room. Hero was rummaging in the kitchen. They laughed together, chatting away the afternoon.
I stayed hunkered in the debris for nearly an hour, sorting, waiting.
When I finally heard the front door open and shut and peered down to see the two men retreating down the walk, I came out. Hero was carrying drained glasses with half-melted ice back to the kitchen.
“You should have come down,” she said.
“What did they want?”
“Saving the damned. Money for their trouble.”
“Same old, same old.”
“It can’t hurt to be nice,” she pointed out.
“Sure it can.”
“My father, the heathen.”
“It’s just a waste of time. Theirs and ours.”
“Maybe not,” she shrugged, then filled the cups up and left them in the sink.
“I somehow didn’t expect you to find that kind of stuff intriguing.”
“I’m exploring,” she said “I’m at that age. I’ve got questions.”
“Keep in mind that you may not like the answers.”
“This is the Bible belt. I would’ve figured you’d be more enthusiastic. Or at least supportive.”
“I just don’t like people trying to tell me what I should believe.”
“I think you just don’t like anyone to question your faith.”
Growing up, my own family had been devoutly semi-religious. My father said we were “Periodicals,” as we hopped from congregation to congregation in no discernible pattern. Lost sheep in search of a fold. Methodists, Presbyterians. Catholics, Unitarians, Baptists, Lutherans. Either the regimen was too strict or too loose, too intellectual or too vapid, and ultimately we left our confused and wearied spirits to drift leisurely, without mooring. But even when we did find a place to settle, we never went very often. Easter, Christmas, and perhaps six other assorted times throughout the year.
Hero and I stepped out through the sliding door into the backyard. This had become an increasingly hazardous endeavor. Nails and screws and splinters of shaved metal and wood littered the patio slab as the wraparound porch began to rise up at the edges. If I wanted to be perfectly authentic, the cement slab, too, would need to go, but I was waffling. It was something I wanted to discuss with the contractor if he returned tomorrow. I made a mental note to call him again, even if he refused to answer. Just so he’d know I knew he wasn’t there.
Barefoot, Hero defiantly walked straight across the patio and out into the yard. The back line of my property was overgrown, dropping quickly into a steep ravine, an undeveloped and presumably undevelopable swath cutting straight through Magnolia Grove—each year creeping a bit closer. The sky above was threatening with heavy clouds, and the afternoon was turning dark.
Hero flopped down onto the unmolested long grass and gazed back up at me with a gray face.
“I hear you’re going to be killing someone.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“I think that’s kind of a big deal.”
“Janice told you, I suppose.”
“About the killing,” she said. “Yes.”
“I’m not killing anyone,” I said, bending down beside her. “I’m just arranging the execution. It’s entirely different.”
“Not for the guy dying,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t exactly matter to him who does it.”
The thick overgrowth loomed in the twilight, and through the buzz and creak of the insects, we could make out sounds of small, slow movement—a neighborhood cat, most likely, or squirrels, raccoons, armadillo, the only roaming animals left to the city in this century. And us, teetering on the fringe of the wild.
“You’re leaving in a week,” I pointed out.
“I know.”
“We don’t have much time to sort all this out.”
“Sort what out?” Her eyes were closed, her lips drawn into a soft smile that might have been satisfaction.
“Us. As in, how do we proceed from here?”
“Maybe we just wait and see.”
“Wait and see what? What is there to see?”
She opened her eyes and stretched her arms out over her head into the grass with a large sigh. The pose struck me with a sense of my own vulnerability, facing the danger of a looming pounce.
“Does it bother you,” she asked, “what you do?”
“What do I do?” I asked, crouching beside her.
“Your job. Locking people up.”
“Someone has to do it,” I said. “Imagine if we didn’t.”
“I’m still collecting data on you.”
“You make me sound like an experiment.”
To this, she just shrugged, as if to say that this seemed fairly obvious. I eased the rest of the way down onto the grass beside her. A bright flash of lightning and a swift low rumble told us we didn’t have long before the storm.
“Maybe I should have given those missionaries money. God seems displeased.”
“Do you believe in God?” she asked.
“That was a joke.”
“But I’m being serious.”
“Then, yes. Of course, I believe.”
“But which god?”
“Now, that’s the kind of question I’d expect from a teenager.”
“Don’t try to change the subject.”
I sighed. “You’re overwhelming, you know.”
“You’re still changing the subject.”