Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) by Deirdre Gould Page B

the hardware stores first, but that didn’t last long, almost everyone else had the same idea. After Bill and Charlie died, Ruth raided the empty neighboring homes for anything wooden. But wood was getting scarce in the city. The stairs were just beyond the fireplace. Ruth climbed them slowly, examining each picture that hung beside them in the gloomy half-light. She pulled Emma’s fourth grade school picture from its frame. One of Emma’s front baby teeth was missing, its replacement half in and giving her smile a slightly crooked look. There was a star barrette pinning her hair back. Her white shirt was startling against the fake leaf background.
    Ruth put the photo into her pocket, sliding it carefully under the slim MP3 player so that it wouldn’t bend. She reached the top of the stairs. The hallway was narrow but surprisingly bright, one side studded with large, dusty windows. Three doors sunk into the opposite wall. There was a blue five gallon bucket in front of the middle one, and a heavy hydrant wrench lay beside it, its red paint flaking in spots.
    Ruth pushed the bucket and wrench back to the top of the stairs, and opened the middle door, to see a small bathroom. The window was cracked and stuffed with rags to keep the breeze out. Wax ends of candles slumped over the edges of the sink and puddled in disks on the floor. Ruth picked two that were still large pillars and lit them. The wallpapered walls were dented in half a dozen places where they had been struck. The paper hung in thin, horizontal strips. where someone’s nails had dragged down the wall. The mirror over the sink was long gone, leaving behind a lighter mark and a shallow, naked cabinet.
    Ruth ignored the obvious signs of struggle and turned to the bathtub. She found the drain plug and squeezed it into place. Leather mittens hung from long straps that were bolted into the tile and a grey plastic hockey mask hung from the shower head, its inside dark with flakes of dried blood. Ruth quickly looked away.
    Bill had always held Charlie while Ruth bathed him. She’d never had to strap him into anything. But she’d also had sedatives. Every time she did this, she became more convinced that Bill had been right. Charlie was better off this way. Ruth was better off. It didn’t stop her from aching for both of them though. Ruth pushed back from the tub and left the room with the candles still burning.
    The door to the left shuddered. Ruth ignored it, turning her music up. She opened the far door. A large mattress remained in the center of the room, but the rest was bare, the carpet still dented with the footprints of heavy chairs. A small pile of clothes sat where a dresser ought to go. The doors to the closet were also gone, burned some winter before. Ruth could see dresses still hanging inside and a thin pile of blankets and sheets stacked beneath. It occurred to her to wonder where Emma’s mother was. She’d never asked. It was easy to assume Nick had done for her what he could not bring himself to do for Emma. It disturbed Ruth that it was far easier to imagine someone killing their spouse than their child— as if one life were less worthy than the other. She slowly flipped through the dresses and remembered how angry she’d been at Bill.
    If he’d just waited until she got back— even if he hadn’t believed her, even if it were just to let her say goodbye. Instead, twelve years of laughing together, fighting and loving all gone in one cold little line on a slumping notebook in front of Charlie’s door. Why didn’t she join them? Why seven more years doing the same penance over and over? Because that’s what she was doing here, and all the other times before. Penance. Doing what she had failed to do for Charlie. She didn’t have an answer for herself.
    She pulled out a light summer dress, one that should have floated down the boardwalk at the beach. Ruth knelt down and found an untorn white sheet. Smacking the dust out of the cloth, she