Vox(56)

Physics is a fascinating thing. I think of the times when I’ve been out for a drink with friends, in one of those bars where they serve beer in heavy glass mugs, except you find out—just about when the beer hits you in the face—that the mugs aren’t made of glass but of plastic, some kind of composite that has the look of glass but not the weight. You calculate the force needed to lift a pound or so of beer mug, and—whoops!—you’ve got a face full of lager. “Drinking problem,” you say, and start wiping.

Well, now I have a pulling problem.

The foot-pounds I exert on the drawer would have been enough to unstick it. Would have, if the brass handle hadn’t popped off.

I fly backward, hardware in hand, and my head hits the floor. Patrick stops snoring.

“What you doing, babe?” he mutters.

“Just tripped on the rug. Go back to sleep.”

Amazingly, this works, and I wait a full five minutes listening to his breathing become shallower before going to the kitchen in search of a screwdriver.

It’s nine o’clock by the time I’m able to pry the nightstand drawer open wide enough to snake my hand inside, feel for the closed but unlocked safe door, and get a fingernail into the crack. The safe swings open, and I palm the cool metal of Patrick’s keys before pushing the drawer closed.

Time to send Sam and Leo to bed.

They resist, Sam telling me he’s got just one more trick.

“Now,” I say, and wait until I hear them settle. Then I walk to the end of the hall, to Patrick’s locked office door.

I have the lie already prepared, ready to go, in case Patrick wakes up and finds me sitting behind his desk, rifling through stacks of papers and envelopes. After all, my mother’s in a hospital thousands of miles away, the language center of her brain possibly damaged beyond repair. Of course I need to call, even at the late hour. Papà won’t be sleeping tonight.

But I’m alone, me and my sticky fingers and Patrick’s neatly squared piles arranged like paper soldiers in rows across his desk. Everything looks exactly the same as it did last night, and it would, since no one has been in this room today. Olivia’s gruesome self-electrocution left no time for such banalities as paperwork. Attempted electrocution, I remind myself, trying to put the image of her burned arm out of my mind.

Everything is exactly as it was, except for the manila envelope and its TOP SECRET stenciling.

By eleven, I’ve been inside every drawer and cabinet, examined under the two fake Persian rugs, felt along each inch of baseboard molding for a loose board. Finally, I give up and lie back on the hard floor, head still pounding from my earlier fall.

I’m so tired. Like, bone tired. It would be nice to stay here, limbs stretched out and eyes half-closed, until morning.

It would be nice, and it would get me in a shitload of trouble, even with the ruse of trying to FaceTime my father.

I push myself up, willing my legs to take the weight, and go over Patrick’s desk one final time, squaring up the stacks of reports and memos with flat palms. If he says anything in the morning, I’ll tell him he tried to work while he was drunk.

As the office door key turns in its lock, the other keys jangle together. I close my fist around them to keep them still and silent, and rack my brain for what they might unlock. There are three keys in all: one for the office and two smaller ones. I suppose one of these others fits the lock on the trunk in the attic, where most of my books are. But the smallest, with its round bow, reminds me of Jackie.

We kept a key hanger, a kitschy little job Jackie picked up at a yard sale, on the wall next to our apartment door. She repainted it in a Native American motif, coloring over the paw prints and the text that proclaimed ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE . . . AND A DOG, replacing the lettering with our names, DOOR, and MAIL. I was always misplacing the mailbox key, she said, so from now on the sucker gets hung up on the hook. I can still picture it, that tiny key with its round bow.

When I’m sure Patrick’s office is locked, and Steven hasn’t emerged from his room in search of a midnight bowl of cereal or a Snickers bar, I slip out the front door. Night air hits my skin, and it prickles, reminding me that I’ve been sweating.

Next door, the Kings’ house is blacked out, not even a porch light on. Of course, Evan had left in the ambulance with Olivia while the sun was still high in the sky. Perhaps he hasn’t come back yet. I feel around the inside of the doorjamb for the switch that turns our light off, flip it, and wait for my eyes to adjust to the night. Above me, over the Kings’ roof, hangs a sliver of crescent moon. It looks like a hook.

Wiping the sweat from my palms on my skirt, I fumble for the smallest key on the ring. With one trembling hand, I find the lock on our mailbox, the steel container Del Ray peered into only this morning, finding a single envelope. The key turns easily, once I get it into the lock, and I hold my breath.

What the hell are you expecting, Jean? I think. Top secret government documents in your mailbox?

And yet, under that fingernail moon that looks as if it might float down and whisk the house next door away, into the night clouds, I see the outline of a manila envelope.





FORTY-SEVEN




As of two minutes ago, my name isn’t Jean.

My name is thief.

Or traitor, I think, and wonder for a moment what sort of punishment Reverend Carl and his pack of Pure Men might have set aside for subversives. In a world where women are sent to the Siberia of North Dakota for crimes as petty as fornication, where Jackie serves a life sentence in a concentration camp for homosexuals, surely there must be some fresh horror for women who steal state secrets.