Glimmering

“—LAST DAYS! THREE DAYS ONLY!—”

“Good Lord, what’s this—oh look, Keeley darling, power’s on!” Mrs. Iverson tottered onto the landing. “Good heavens, tell that girl to be quiet! Quick, Jack, help me bring the laundry down. Mary Anne! You help, too, bring those baby things we got out—”

They ran from floor to floor, the girl puffing and swearing as she gathered sheets and a plastic basket heaped with yellowed infant clothes; Jack loped past her with armfuls of shirts, khaki pants, mismatched socks, Keeley’s turtlenecks. In the laundry room Mrs. Iverson disappeared behind piles of clothes, and the washer groaned as cold water poured through the pipes. Marz panted back upstairs and went from room to room turning on lights, looking for radios to crank up, checking the answering machine.

“Stop!” shouted Jack from the basement. “You’ll blow a fuse!”

When he got back to the first floor he found her in the living room, remote in hand, staring rapturously at the TV “This is so fucking great,” she announced. “We can, like, watch Thanksgiving specials.”

He laughed. “See if King Kong is on—”

He took the remote and began flashing through channels.

“Too fast!” Marz yelped, and grabbed it back. She rocked on her heels, squealing when the screen showed game shows, mud slides, music videos, groaning at the more numerous bursts of static where stations had been, once.

He left her and went out to the carriage house. He booted up his computer, looked for messages there and on the answering machine and fax. There was an update on the GFI New Year’s celebration, dated some weeks ago, and a letter from Leonard, photographing fish die-outs and human birth defects in someplace called Komsomolsk-na-Amure.

And there was a note from Larry Muso.