Taft by Ann Patchett

said.
    "No."
    "There's no other way."
    "I can't go inside," I said.
    "Nobody's going to know."
    She didn't understand. If she was wrong, just a little wrong, if only one person saw me that would be enough. I shouldn't have been in that neighborhood, parking my car on that asphalt. "No."
    "Please," she whispered. I could hear the word after she stopped saying it.
    Such quiet on that street, like they'd paid off every living thing to keep it that way. "You can't carry him, can you?"
    "I'm sorry," she said, and she put her hand on my arm. She was so sorry I could feel it through my jacket. "There's no other way."
    Leave him outside. That's where he wanted to sleep. Leave him in the grass, in the forsythia beside the house. "Anybody awake in there?"
    She shook her head. "They sleep like rocks. All of them."
    Be right, I was thinking. My hands were sweating as I leaned into the back seat and pulled her brother out. I was good at this. I'd done it a million times. Had Franklin been this light? A boy of nine wasn't heavier than this. Though Franklin smelled better, not just because he hadn't been spending nights outside, sleeping in his clothes, but because he smelled healthy, like a boy. Carrying her brother in my arms, I followed Fay up the driveway, past the thick line of hedges. I didn't have to worry about the people on either side seeing me, only the ones across the street. I was worried about them. They wouldn't look long enough to see if I was carrying Carl into the house or away from it. They wouldn't look to see Fay. They would only see me while they were punching out 911 and calling to their wife to get the shotgun out from under the bed.
    Fay reached inside her shirt and pulled out a house key on a chain around her neck. The chain was too short, and she had to lean down to the lock to open the door. She practically had to press her face against it. I shifted Carl's matchstick bones in my arms and tried to step out of the porch light. Fay looked at me and put a finger to her lips. Like I didn't know to be quiet. We went inside the dark house. I was inside somebody else's house, holding their son, following their daughter. My feet were sinking into somebody's thick carpet. I saw the dark outline of their things. Flowers on small tables, the backs of sofas and wing-backed chairs. I wanted to close my eyes. Everything I saw incriminated me, proved I was there. Panic came up in my throat and turned my mouth bitter. Fay ran her hand along the wall until she came to the thermostat box. A second later the heater came on with three clicks and a groan and then sound poured up from every vent to help cover us. She walked over to the staircase. Upstairs would be worse. Harder to get out from there, fewer places to go. She moved without noise, but I heard everything: the heaviness of Carl's stoned breathing, the sounds the stairs made under our feet, under my heavy feet. I tried to breathe. The house smelled too clean, a little bit perfumed even. It smelled like a woman. I was inside the house. All doors shut, windows locked. The last stair made a loud, animal sound when I took my foot away and I felt the sweat beading up at my hairline.
    I followed Fay down the hallway, past what looked to be an endless row of closed doors that held beds and sleeping people. I didn't know who or how many. I was trying to count them as a way of steadying myself. Then I heard something from behind the second door. I stopped and held Carl tighter to my chest. A bedside drawer being pulled open? Someone rolling over, reaching into a drawer? There are no questions they would have to ask. Seeing me was reason enough to shoot me. It would be reason enough for the police who would come later to fill out the paperwork. All of the neighbors would buy better alarm systems. At parties they would tell the story again and again. They would take Fay's aunt by the arm and say,
It must have been so terrifying for you, I can't imagine.
Fay turned around, followed my