Chapter 8
That afternoon the white door opened again and I heard metal before I saw him.
I'd been sitting on the gray sofa with my knees pulled up the way she'd left me, the rug trace I'd hidden still under the edge of the beige pile. The house had been quiet since breakfast, just the refrigerator humming and her moving around upstairs. Then the door clicked and the man in the dark winter jacket was back, and this time he carried a small black toolbox in his gloved hand.
He didn't look at me at first. He looked up.
The white smoke detector on the ceiling was still there above the rug, clean against the off-white paint. Yesterday he'd reached for it with his hand and stopped. Now he'd come back to finish it. I knew that before he set the toolbox down.
He set it on the dark wood floor by the door with a soft thud. The latches clicked open. Inside I saw a headlamp, a screwdriver with a yellow handle, a little plastic case. He took out a short stepladder, the folding aluminum kind my school janitor used, and opened it under the detector. The legs clacked against the floor.
My stomach dropped. I understood what would happen if he unscrewed it. Whatever was inside would be gone, and with it whatever it had seen of me on that sofa and her hand on my face. I didn't have a plan, I just felt the time get narrow.
The older woman came down the stairs then. She'd changed nothing since that first day, same white satin blouse, same short blonde bob, her red nails catching the daylight as she held the railing. She stopped at the bottom and looked at him, then at me.
"You're sure you need the ladder?" she said.
"Ceiling's high," he said. His voice was low and even. "Need both hands."
She nodded once toward me. "She'll stay put."
I stared at the toolbox and the ladder and the detector. My mouth was dry. I needed them to not finish, even for a few minutes. I needed that white housing to stay screwed in.
He stepped onto the first rung, then the second. The aluminum creaked. He lifted the headlamp onto his cap and switched it on. I watched him reach up and steady himself with one gloved hand on the ceiling while the other held the screwdriver. He fitted it to the first small screw on the detector's base and turned. A faint squeak.
One screw loosened. He turned to the second.
I looked at the kitchen counter three feet from the sofa where she'd left a glass of water for me that I hadn't touched. The glass was full to the rim, condensation on the side. The floor under his ladder was dark wood, right on the edge of the light rug.
I didn't think about what would happen after. I just moved.
I slid off the sofa and reached for the glass with both hands. My hands were shaking and I tried to make it look clumsy, like a kid being careless. I lifted it and stepped toward the ladder like I wanted to be closer to watch.
"What are you doing?" the woman said, sharp.
"I just wanted water," I whispered.
I tipped it.
The water sloshed over the rim and went straight down onto the floor at the foot of the stepladder, spreading fast across the dark wood and soaking into the corner of the beige rug. The glass didn't break. It just clunked against my chest and I let out a small gasp like I hadn't meant to.
"Hey," the man said, stepping back down one rung quickly. His boot came down right near the puddle and he stopped. "Watch it."
The woman stepped forward fast, her hand grabbing my shoulder, her red nails digging in.
"I told you to sit still," she said, not loud, right near my ear. Her breath was warm and her grip was tight enough I felt my heartbeat in my shoulder.
"I'm sorry," I said. My eyes watered. "It slipped."
He was looking down at the floor, then up at the detector. The housing was still on the ceiling but he'd gotten the cover loose. One side hung open a half-inch, the white plastic parted, two screws hanging loose at an angle, the inside dark line visible. He hadn't pulled it off the mount. He hadn't taken whatever was inside out yet.
"Get a towel," he said to her, annoyed but not yelling. He stepped off the ladder entirely to avoid the water, his brown boots shifting to dry wood. "I can't work with water under the legs. It'll slip."
She didn't let go of me right away. She looked at him, then at the puddle, then at my face. I kept my head down and let my lip tremble the way it had when she'd grabbed my jaw that first day. I tried to breathe like I was about to cry so she'd see a scared kid and not a choice.
She finally released my shoulder and walked to the kitchen, her shoes clicking. She came back with a dish towel and dropped to her knees to blot the spill.
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The man stood beside his toolbox, screwdriver still in his hand, looking up at the half-opened detector with the loose screws. He didn't climb back up. He watched her dab at the rug, waiting for the floor to be dry.
I sat back on the edge of the gray sofa, holding the empty glass with both hands, and stared at that white circle on the ceiling hanging open but still attached, and felt for the first time that I'd bought us time.
