Six months after Mrs. Civitelli died of cancer, Mr. Civitelli and Al moved across town into a big, two-story house in an unfinished neighborhood with kids much younger than us. Strands of hay covered steep, seeded lawns and newly planted spiky shrubs prevented the kind of epic touch football games we had played at Al’s old house.

1.
The wife could think again, only in shorter sentences. Not that there was much to say. She’d made it past the episode, and her husband was grateful. She knew the words on the tip of his lips before he did. For a while, just after, it was silence all the time. He would glance at her or she at him; no words necessary. A blink, a nod. A kind of shorthand, she thought. Or treason, she heard him think. No one spoke. No one listened. Their new normal.

2.
“You watch too much Forensic Files,” he told his wife. “The Killer You Know.” “Murderous Neighbors.” Yada yada yada. Suspicion invaded her thinking. And she, suffering from cabin fever, her fragile mind so easily swayed. He woke at midnight to see her at their bedroom window, watching their neighbor’s Toyota Hatchback pull into his driveway. The neighbor let it idle for a good ten minutes before he turned off the engine, cut the lights. But still, he sat there, watching the neighbor’s wife’s shadow against the white blind. “I don’t blame him,” the husband thought. He, too, liked the way she moved.

3.
“I’ve always wondered how it will end for me,” the wife admitted. Now she thought she knew. He would fight for her, while she would slide into death as she had into most things. She’d learned the futility of effort-ing. She dreamt of heaven, reunited with dead beloveds—her son, her best friend. Generations of family. How stupid! she thought. Living with an atheist for twenty years had dissuaded her belief in an afterlife. She’d tried, but her son’s death at twenty-six knocked all the God right out of her.

4.
Now when the husband and wife made love they kept their eyes wide, focused on each other. “If I knew it was the last time,” her son’s lover had shared. “I would have paid more attention.” Haunted by her words, the wife paid attention. Made each time feel as if it were the last. The weight of his body, the soap scent of his skin. His hard cock a pleasure between her thighs. How well she slept after orgasm, the husband thought. La petit mort. The little death. “I want to die first,” the wife often said to him. Now it looked like she wo

That night, Mad Martha slept fitfully as the wind began to blow down canyon. She listened to the yapping coyotes get closer, knowing they were telling her something. Mad felt the cougar, and even smelled it before the distinctive chirping and rough purr could be heard. At first she was afraid and pulled her covers around her. Then she slipped out of bed and pulled aside the curtain.

Black ice surrounded Ophelia’s Volvo SUV. Six inches of fresh snow had fallen within 24 hours on top of the 10 inches laid down two days before that; not unusual for the middle of February. She faltered as she stepped from the driver’s seat out into the darkness. The crunch of her boots on the frozen snow sounded loud in the quiet night. The wind was up and she had to reach down to the slippery ice to snatch up her wool scarf. Her courthouse badge had also fallen to the ground. She reached inside the vehicle to grab a flashlight from the seat pocket, slammed the door shut, and pointed the beam of light on the parking lot.

Gregory looks not-too-closely at the babysitter in her tight jeans with her tiny teeth and tries to remember his age. When did kids get so brash with their elders? He would never have asked his friends’ parents how old they were.

“Forty-three or forty-two,” he answers. “I forget which.”

When Nancy quit mid shift, we had to pick up “the slack” though we were all strung so tight already. Rosie, the head nurse, randomly assigned the now-unattended patients. Even with just one person gone, we all ran room to room, rushing and barely taking care of our charges.