his wife had left him? Walked away without a word? With not
a single regret? Well, it made sense to her. Her own mother had left
her, and she felt sick with rage at being left alone. Not her mother’s
fault, of course, but the pain of it. She looked down at Sam one last
time, then turned and left the small bedroom,Tyler on her heels. He
gave her one of his wife’s robes, pink and thick and on the tatty side,
well worn, and she wondered what sort of woman Ann McBride had
been. Why hadn’t she taken her robe? She couldn’t ask Tyler now. The
robe fit her very well. It was warm, comfy. She and Ann McBride
were of a size.
They drank coffee heated on a Coleman stove Tyler got out of
the basement. It was the best coffee she’d ever tasted and she told
him so. She fell asleep on the old chintz sofa, wrapped in blankets.
The sun was harshly bright, too bright, as if the storm had
scrubbed off a thick layer of dust from all the trees and streets and
houses, even given the sky a thorough shower. Becca’s jeans were
soft, hot from the drier, and so tight she had barely been able to zip
them up when Tyler had tossed them to her.
Sam said, his small voice unexpected, startling her, “Did you
bring cookies, Becca?”
An entire sentence. Maybe he was just very frightened and wary
of strangers. Maybe he didn’t think of her as a stranger anymore.
She hoped so. She smiled at him. “Sorry, kiddo, no cookies this ft
time.” She’d awakened with a start, frightened, tingling, to see Sam
standing beside the sofa, holding a blanket against his side, his
thumb in his mouth, just staring at her, saying nothing at all.
Sam said now, “Haunted house.”
Tyler was pouring cereal into a small bowl for his son. He
looked over at Becca.
She said, “You could be right, Sam. It was a bad storm and that
old house shook and groaned. I was scared to my toes.”
Sam began eating his Cap’n Crunch cereal his father put in front
of him.
Tyler said, “Sam’s too young to be scared.”
Sam didn’t look up from his cereal bowl.
It was nearly eleven o’clock that morning when Becca drove
back to Jacob Marley’s house. It no longer looked frightening and
menacing. It looked bedraggled, very clean, and the hemlock with
its branch sticking through her second-floor window no longer
looked like a ghostly apparition, but like a tree that was dead now,
nothing more. She smiled as she walked around the house, assessing
damage. Not much, really, just the branch in the window.
They’d have to haul the tree away.
She called the real estate agent, Mrs. Ryan, from a working public
phone in front of Food Fort, who told Becca she would notify
the insurance company and the tree-removal people and not to
worry about a thing, everything was covered.
Becca went back to the house and toured for the next twenty
minutes, not seeing any damage anywhere inside. The electricity
flickered on, then off again. Finally, when it was nearly noon, the
lights came on strong and bright. The refrigerator hummed loudly.
Everything was back to normal. Then, with no warning, the hall
and living room lights went off. The circuit breaker, she thought,
and wondered where the devil the box would be. The basement,
that was the most likely place. She had to check down there anyway.
She lit one of her candles and unlatched the basement door,
which was at the back of the kitchen. Steep wooden stairs disappeared
into the darkness. Great, she thought, now to top it all off,
maybe I can fall and break my neck on these rickety stairs. They were
wide and felt sturdy and strong, not so dangerous after all, a relief.
There were a dozen steps. The floor was uneven, cold and damp
concrete. She raised the candle and looked around. There was a
string hanging down and she gave it a pull. The bulb switch clicked
but nothing happened. This light must be on the same circuit. She began