“Only when a trick-or-treater rang the bell,” Blue said. “Wait, why?”

“I need you to be honest with me,” she said. “What time did you go over there?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Right after I left. I was bored. No one was giving me good candy because they said I didn’t have a real costume. And he saw me and said it didn’t look like I was having much fun so he invited me inside to mess around on his Playstation. I’d rather hang out with him anyway.”

What he was saying couldn’t possibly have happened because of what James Harris had done to Slick.

“I need you to think,” she said. “I need to know exactly what time you went into his house.”

“Like around seven-thirty,” he said. “Jesus, why do you care? We played Resident Evil all night.”

He was lying, he didn’t understand the severity of the situation, he thought it was just another spray-painted dog. Patricia tried to make her voice understanding.

“Blue,” she said, focusing on him intently. “This is extremely important. Probably the most important thing you’ve ever said in your life. Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying!” he shouted. “Ask him! I was there. He was there. Why would I lie? Why do you always think I’m lying? Jesus!”

“I don’t think you’re lying,” she said, making herself breathe slow. “But I think you’re confused.”

“I’m! Not! Confused!” he shouted.

Patricia felt tangled in string, like every word she spoke only made things worse.

“Something very serious happened tonight,” she said. “And James Harris was involved and I do not believe for a minute that he was with you the entire time.”

Blue exhaled hard and turned to the front door. She grabbed his wrist.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to Jim’s!” he shouted, and grabbed her wrist in return. “He doesn’t scream at me all the time!”

He was stronger than she was and she could feel his fingers bearing down, pressing into her skin, against her bone, leaving a bruise on her forearm. She made herself unclench her fingers from his wrist, hoping he would do the same.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” she said.

He let go of her wrist and stared at her with utter contempt.

“You’re not going to believe anything I say anyway,” he said. “They should put you back in the hospital.”

His hatred radiated off his skin like heat. It made Patricia take a small step back. Blue stepped forward and she shrank from him. Then he turned and started up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To finish my homework!” he yelled over his shoulder.

She heard his bedroom door slam. Carter still wasn’t home. She checked the time—almost eleven. She checked all the doors and made sure all the windows were locked. She turned on the yard lights. She tried to think of something else she could do, but there wasn’t anything. She looked in on Korey and Blue again, then she got into bed and tried to read November’s book club book.

Books can inspire you to love yourself more, it said. By listening to, writing out, or verbally expressing your feelings.

She realized she’d been reading for three pages without remembering a word she’d read. She missed reading books that were actually about something. She tried again.

Take a time-out to center yourself, it said. So that you can then come together again with greater understanding, acceptance, validation, and approval.

She threw the book across the room and found her copy of Helter Skelter. She turned to the back section about the trials, and read about Charles Manson getting sentenced to death over and over again as if it were a bedtime story. She needed to reassure herself that not all men got away with it, not every time. She read about Charles Manson’s sentencing until her eyes got grainy and she fell asleep.

MEN ARE FROM MARS, WOMEN ARE FROM VENUS

November 1996

CHAPTER 34

They took Slick to the Medical University on Tuesday. On Wednesday, they started making visitors wear paper gowns and masks.

“We don’t know precisely what’s going on,” her doctor said. “She’s got an autoimmune disease but it’s developing faster than we’d expect. Her immune system is attacking her white blood cells, and more red blood cells than we’d like are hemolytic. But we’re keeping her oxygenated and screening for everything. It’s too early to hit the panic button.”

The diagnosis simultaneously excited and horrified Patricia. It confirmed that whatever James Harris was, he wasn’t human. He’d put a part of himself inside Slick, and it was killing her. He was a monster. On the other hand, Slick wasn’t getting better.

Leland visited every day around six, but always seemed like he needed to leave the moment he arrived. When Patricia followed him out into the hall to ask how he was doing, he stepped in close.

“You haven’t told anyone her diagnosis?” he asked.

“She doesn’t have one as far as I know,” Patricia said.

He stepped in closer. Patricia wanted to back up but she was already standing against the wall.

“They say it’s an autoimmune disease,” he whispered. “You can’t repeat that. People are going to think she has AIDS.”

“No one’s going to think that, Leland,” Patricia said.

“They’re already saying it at church,” he said. “I don’t want it coming back on the kids.”

“I haven’t said anything to anyone,” Patricia said, unhappy to be forced to participate in something that felt wrong.

Friday morning, they taped a sign to Slick’s door that had been photocopied so many times it was covered with black dots saying that if you had a temperature, or been exposed to anyone with a cold, you were not allowed in the room.

Slick looked pale, her skin felt papery, and she didn’t want to be left alone, especially at night. The nurses brought blankets and Patricia slept in the chair by her bed. After Leland went home, Patricia held the phone so Slick could say bedtime prayers with her kids, but most of the time Slick lay still, the sheets pulled up almost to her chin, her doll-sized arms wrapped in white tape, pricked with IV needles and tubes. She sweated out fevers most of the afternoon. When she seemed lucid Patricia tried to read to her from Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, but after a paragraph she realized Slick was saying something.

“What’s that?” Patricia asked, leaning over.

“Anything…else…,” Slick said. “…anything…else.”

Patricia pulled the latest Ann Rule out of her purse.

“‘September 21, 1986,’” she read, “‘was a warm and beautiful Sunday in Portland—in the whole state of Oregon, for that matter. With any luck the winter rains of the Northwest were a safe two months away…’”

The facts and firm geography soothed Slick, who closed her eyes and listened. She didn’t sleep, just lay there, smiling slightly. The light outside got dimmer and the light inside got stronger, and Patricia kept reading, speaking louder to compensate for her paper mask.

“Am I too late?” Maryellen said, and Patricia looked up to see her pushing open the door.

“Is she awake?” Maryellen whispered from behind her paper mask.

“Thank you for coming,” Slick said without opening her eyes.

“Everyone wants to know how you’re feeling,” Maryellen said. “I know Kitty wanted to come.”

“Are you reading this month’s book?” Slick asked.

Maryellen pulled a heavy brown armchair to the foot of the bed.

“I can’t even open it,” she said. “Men Are from Mars? That’s giving them too much credit.”

Slick started coughing, and it took Patricia a moment to realize she was laughing.

“I made…,” Slick whispered, and Patricia and Maryellen strained to hear her. “I made Patricia stop reading it.”

“I miss the books we used to read where at least there was a murder,” Maryellen said. “The problem with book club these days is too many men. They don’t know how to pick a book to save their lives and they love to listen to themselves talk. It’s nothing but opinions, all day long.”

“You sound…sexist,” Slick whispered.

She was the only one not in a mask, so even though her voice was weakest, it sounded loudest.

“I wouldn’t mind listening if any of them had an opinion worth a damn,” Maryellen said.

With three of them in Slick’s little hospital room, Patricia felt the absence of the other two more acutely. They felt like some kind of survivors’ club—the last three standing.

“Are you going to Kitty’s oyster roast on Saturday?” she asked Maryellen.

“If she has one,” Maryellen said. “The way she’s acting they might call it off.”

“I haven’t spoken to her since before Halloween,” Patricia said.

“Give her a call when you have a chance,” Maryellen said. “Something’s wrong. Horse says she hasn’t left the house all week and yesterday she barely left her room. He’s worried.”

“What does he say is wrong?” Patricia asked.

“He says it’s nightmares,” Maryellen said. “She’s drinking, a lot. She wants to know where the children are every second of the day. She’s scared something might happen to them.”