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By Root 666 0

of fresh-faced boy soldiers on their way to Vietnam, and she spent a week in that treeless house barricaded against the elements. It was a shock, even to her, how instantly and how deeply she loved her grandson. He was not quite two years old by then, a beautiful baby with a head that seemed adult in its shape—sharply defined, the golden hair trimmed close and neat. His firm, straight lips seemed adult as well, and he had an unchildlike way of walking. There was a bit of slump in his posture, a little droop to his shoulders, nothing physically wrong but an air of resignation that was almost comical in someone so small. Pearl sat on the floor with him for hours, playing with his trucks and cars. “Vroom. Vroom. Roll it back to Granny, now.” She was touched by his stillness. He had a sizable vocabulary but he used it only when necessary; he was not a spendthrift. He was careful. He lacked gaiety. Was he happy? Was this a fit life for a child?

She saw that Cody had a sprinkling of gray in his sideburns, a more leathery look to his cheeks; but that Ruth was still a scrappy little thing in too-short hair and unbecoming dresses. She had not grown fuller or softer with age. She was like certain supermarket vegetables that turn from green to withered without ever ripening. In the evenings, when Cody came home from work, Ruth clattered around the kitchen cooking great quantities of country food that Cody would hardly touch; and Cody had a gin and tonic and watched the news. The two of them asked each other, “How was your day?” and “Everything fine?” but they didn’t seem to listen to the answers. Pearl could believe that in the morning, waking in their king-sized bed, they asked politely, “Did you sleep all right?” She felt oppressed and uncomfortable, but instead of averting her gaze she was for some reason compelled to delve deeper into their lives; she sent them out one night to a movie, promising to watch Luke, and then ransacked all the desk drawers but found only tax receipts, and bank statements, and a photo album belonging to the people who really lived here. Anyway, she couldn’t have said what it was she was looking for.

Coming home, jouncing on the train amid another group of soldiers, she felt weary and hopeless. She arrived in Baltimore seven hours late, with a racking headache. Then as she entered the station, she saw Ezra walking toward her in his plodding way and she felt such a stab of … well, recognition. It was Luke’s walk, solemn little Luke. Life was so sad, she thought, that she almost couldn’t bear it. But kissing Ezra, she felt her sorrow overtaken by something very like annoyance. She wondered why he put up with this, why he let things go on this way. Could it be that he took some satisfaction in his grief? (As if he were paying for something, she thought. But what would he be paying for?) In the car, he asked, “How’d you like Luke?” and she said, “Don’t you ever think of just going there and trying to get her back?”

“I couldn’t,” he said, unsurprised, and he maneuvered the car laboriously from its parking slot.

“Well, I don’t see why not,” she told him.

“It’s not right. It’s wrong.”

She wasn’t given to philosophy, but during the drive home she stared at the grimy Baltimore scenery and considered the question of right and wrong: of theoretical virtue, existing in a vacuum; of whether there was any point to it at all. When they reached home, she got out of the car and entered the house without a word, and climbed the stairs to her room.

Ezra scoops the dead bird onto a piece of cardboard and slides it into the trash bag. Then he tapes the cardboard to the broken windowpane where the bird must have entered. Pearl, meanwhile, sweeps up the shards of glass. She leaves them in a pyramid and goes downstairs for the dustpan. Already, she sees, the house has a bit more life to it—the sunny pattern of leaves shimmering on the parlor floor in front of the open door, the smell of hot grass wafting through the rooms. “It was never all that practical,” Cody said on the phone just recently, referring to the farm.