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He wanted quiet for a while instead of the radio, so you could say what happened was his fault. She wanted fresh air instead of the AC for a while, so you could say it was hers.
A scattering of dust-filmed cars was parked here, windshields beetle bright in the glare of the sun. That all but one of these cars appeared to have been there for days—even weeks—was another anomaly that would not strike them until later.
Nor did she connect the way she felt then with the dreams that had been bothering her for close to two months now, dreams she had not discussed even with Cal—the ones about driving at night. A child shouted in those dreams, too.
He was still on her right, but now he sounded closer to five o’clock. Like, almost behind her.
Oh whistle and I’ll come to you, my lad,
A part of him—a part he had been trying with all his will to ignore—already knew what he was going to see. This part had been providing an almost jovial running commentary: Everything will have moved, Cal, good buddy. The grass flows and you flow too. Think of it as becoming one with nature, bro.
In her lungs was a sudden, dreadful vacancy.
She would soon be winking out herself, she understood. This did not seem such a terrible thing. Urgent action was not required.
His hands loosened; for an instant his thumbs were no longer burrowing into the soft skin in the hollow of her throat.
They danced together, the pregnant woman and the one-eyed madman. They danced in the grass, feet squelching, his hands on her throat.
It was such a strong mental image, he could close his eyes and almost smell it, the somehow wholesome late-summer reek of burning green.
He kicked at the whole mess in a spasm of sick, ugly despair.
Instead, his heels slid, as if he stood at the top of a mound of soft earth giving way beneath him. But the ground was flat; he slid forward because the stone had him, it had its own gravity, and it drew him as a magnet draws iron scrap.
