The advocate calls out of the blue on a sleepy summer morning, months after the previous pairing fell through. She is young, fresh off an irrelevant degree, well acquainted with the demographic data that ranks the widower—caught between careers, presently tuning his pickup truck in a detached garage—low on the list of likely candidates. But today she talks at a feverish pace, her voice breathless and bright.
“Greek,” the advocate explains. “Emergency placement. Idiopathic anomalies.”
“What does that mean,” the widower asks.
“Strictly confidential,” the advocate replies. “But I will tell you the algorithm matched at ninety-one percent.”
Admin error, the widower can only assume. Last they spoke, the advocate blamed backlog, danced around a disastrous home study, how her fingers cramped from logging red flags in her notebook including stacks of poison ivy pallets and snake infested tire pile and industrial grade turpentine within reach and left open. The widower promised to purge, but the yard remains littered with rusted chassis, an eyesore known to neighbor children as The La Brea Car Pits. They trespass often, performing dinosaur death throes under imagined meteors, and though for liability reasons the widower should probably shoo them away, he lets them play, their joyous shrieks a minor salve for the melancholy ache of grief.
“Still there,” the advocate says.
“Still me,” the widower replies.
“Few prospective parents are prepared for the unique challenges this case presents,” the advocate says. “The girl needs someone—how to put this—with otherworldly patience.”
Hard but true. In three years since the funeral, what has sustained the widower, beyond gearhead threads and a meager insurance payout, is the unlikely dream his late wife seeded, future with family, hopeful strangers crowding the baggage claim until baby floats into sturdy arms. The early stages—sleepless nights, temper tantrums, diaper disasters, vomit-caked booster seats—would be rough but worth it. Cue montage of playground bloopers, T-ball practice, piano recitals, cut to more productive phases, another pair of hands to haul junk, fetch parts, maybe even inherit the dying art of restoration. Not once has a grimy travel plaza figured into such fantasies, nor the gangly tween who would disembark the coach later that week sporting a super creepy skull mask, earmuff headphones on full blast, black robe dragging underfoot as she lurches across the lot. The advocate does not disclose these details during their call, nor the girl’s history with sharp objects, but the widower, stuck in neutral at the precipice of late middle age, is more than prepared for a new mission.
Down the road, celebrity doctors will debate the girl’s condition on daytime talk shows, but there is no framework at first, no way to distinguish psychogenic symptoms from run-of-the-mill pubescent malaise: see poor posture, creaky joints, difficulty listening, lethargy punctuated by long, dissociative reveries. She never showers and speaks in dead languages exclusively, forgotten tongues impervious to the latest translation technology, a barrier that would be more meaningful if the girl had any interest in conversation. Instead, she haunts the suite above the garage like a poorly kept secret, mooning about with ball-and-chain footsteps, up all hours by blacklight, awash in the frenetic rhythms of acid jazz—all of which would be more tolerable had the girl even acknowledged her designated sleeping quarters, a spare bedroom repurposed with beaded curtain curtains, bean bag chairs, and a grass rug, items the internet insisted would appease a seventh grader. But despite her disinterest, the widower bites his tongue. He reminds himself, on a daily basis, that the gap between the person you are and the person you become cannot be bridged without grace.
By this logic, he does not reprimand the girl when she sleeps past noon, fails to report for breakfast, then lunch, sometimes dinner. Meals left on the landing—a children’s menu of grilled cheese and chicken nuggets, frozen pizza and chili mac—cannot compete with delivery sushi, procured in the wee hours with the widower’s credit card. He discovers fresh evidence in the morning, half-eaten clamshells scattered about the roof by nocturnal scavengers, the reek of rotting sashimi impossible to ignore. More than once, sifting gutter scraps astride a wobbly ladder, the widower catches the girl spying through the dormer window, annoyed or amused, tough to gauge her expression behind that plastic mask. If her goal is to create distance, to sabotage another chance at stability, the plot backfires when the ravens descend, cackling, shit-bombing pests mad for yellowfin—a diet that soon emboldens an entire flock, the birds now brave enough to infiltrate neighboring skylights and doggy doors in search of sustenance. The situation, to quote one anonymous mailbox missive, has become unsustainable.
On day twelve, left with no other choice, the widower stages a nutrition intervention. At the megamarket, the girl is given a basket, asked to gather ingredients more amenable to her palate. She bypasses the bakery for the produce section, where simulated thunder and swirling mist absorb her attention. Note to self, the widower muses during discount rack detour, sprinkler as hygiene apparatus, but when he returns, only the basket remains, brimming with bags of dehydrated seaweed. Unfamiliar with the girl’s trademark vanishing act, the widower must now conduct a search: first the seafood department, then the café, then the pharmacy, fashion, sports, and the restroom, where a probing hello is met with reproach. Another fruitless sweep calls for an intercom request, visions of abduction alerts, dead-end leads and cryptic clues. But when the widower finally reaches the register, the girl, next in line, is twirling an ergonomic scythe.
“I would prefer that you keep me apprised of your whereabouts,” the widower says after composing himself. “Where did you find that?”
The girl slides her headphones down her neck, lifts a bony finger toward Home and Garden.
“Not what we came for,” the widower replies. “Or in the budget.”
But the cashier—bearded, pierced ears, painted nails—interjects without glancing up from his phone. “On the house,” he says.
“Too generous,” the widower says.
“Seasonal surplus,” says the cashier. “Love the look, by the way.”
The girl performs an ironic curtsy. The widower spares the speech to avoid making a scene. But driving home, behind the wheel of his antique truck, he is already weighing punishments, a reflection letter or maybe a chore chart to instill the kind of structure such indifference demands. Lost in thought, he barely notices the ambulance fleet parting oncoming fog, dopplering down the causeway towards another routine tragedy. When pressed on the recurrence of similar harbingers in future interviews—for example, the girl’s proximity to the Eventide apartment complex that fateful evening—the widower will plead ignorance, invoke a promise whispered at his wife’s grave, that he would resist the temptation to dwell in darkness, find the strength to focus on forward progress, do some good in a world that so desperately needed it.
The next morning, as a character-building exercise, the girl is assigned to bushwhacking duty. By any reasonable standard, the job should only take a couple days. But within hours, the bamboo blockade has been broken, vines eradicated from a warren of corroded cars. The girl blazes a radial path, slashing switchgrass with smooth, confident strokes, no need for water breaks under the oppressive sun. Slowly but surely, a horde of displaced insects gathers about her head.
“We do own bug spray,” says the widower at one point, supervising under the ruse of a misfiring muffler.
But the girl, engrossed in edging, will not be distracted, does not even flinch when a butterfly alights on her shoulder, its wings pulsing in slow motion.
“Suit yourself,” the widower says. “But don’t come crying when you contract malaria.”
The girl decapitates a potted palm.
In moments like these, the widower chooses not to assume the worst. He cannot know (legally, the advocate insists) what the girl has been through, what traumas or treatments inform such behaviors. In fact, the passion currently on display could very well play a therapeutic role. In the widower’s experience, blood/sweat/tears have a way of solving problems, from short circuits and dead batteries to creeping anxiety, which is why, the following evening, he proposes landscaping as one possible outlet, a productive application of innate talents. “Could be fulfilling,” he suggests during local access news, a half-hour ellipse in the Venn diagram of their divergent interests. But the girl makes a big show of excusing herself, slamming doors she never uses. Unfazed, the widower spends the next day hunched over a dusty desktop, building a business page for Weed It and Reap—brush bundles lining the river Styx, shadowy gondolier steering wheelbarrow skiff, affordable (organic!) alternative to the bigger boys. A mockup hangs on the fridge for weeks, accumulates chicken-scratch graffiti until closer inspection reveals a pattern, shorthand hieroglyphs suggesting minor design tweaks. In this regard, true crime podcasters will forget years later, the idea was never hers to begin with, a gift meant only to inspire purpose, to create meaning in the sprawling suburban void she must now call home.
Neighbors buy in. The first customer, a born-again accountant two doors down, pays twenty bucks up front. “Kudos on cleaning up that dump,” she tells the girl within earshot of the widower, who monitors early gigs from streets and sidewalks, circling with his hands in his pockets like a glitch, “grind is exactly what your generation needs.” Her gusto is shared by Dawn, spiritual healer and proprietor of an unlicensed chicken coop, plus the new couple on the corner, personal trainers whose lives have become unmoored with a newborn in the works. Yard by yard, the girl remixes a block once infested with invasives, lawns now layered in organic textures, foliage abloom with nightshade, black velvety orchids dotting strings of Spanish moss. So dramatic is the improvement that one prominent member of the civic association, a retired union clerk and former county council candidate, confronts the girl from his driveway, cites the potential for rising property values, warns of premature scaling and unforeseen consequences. “Mark my word,” he says, waving a rolled-up flyer, one of two hundred the widower printed at Kinko’s that morning, “what seeds you plant will only bring blight.”
But the girl pays no heed to public opinion. Every evening, after the final job, she rinses her combat boots with hose water, massages bunions out back before sharpening her scythe against the pavers, a solitary ritual accompanied by synthesizer solos coursing through her headphones. More than once, the widower prepares California rolls as a bonding pretense, only to draw daggers for interrupting yet another moment between the girl and a growing congregation of butterflies attracted by her ethereal energy. The widower lingers nonetheless, studying their communion for what exactly? The girl betrays nothing, not the slightest hint of the twisted desires megachurch pastors will one day frame as fact. If privacy must be earned, certainly she has bought a little breathing room, the space to drift and dream without fear of surveillance, her so-called father dissecting the console of a terminal truck, stealing glances in the rearview. Too much tinkering could easily backfire, the widower must remind himself, pushing her away at a pivotal juncture, just as she’s discovered a future worth fighting for.
The advocate has a different take. Though admittedly impressed with the front yard facelift, unequivocal evidence of “meaningful investment in wellbeing priorities,” she barely pays lip service to elbow grease or entrepreneurial spirit during the first check-in (unannounced, in the garage). Instead, the conversation circles back to obsessive behaviors, prolonged absences, the non-ideal sleeping arrangement, which, the advocate is obligated to mention, flies in the face of best practices.
“I believe in firm boundaries,” the widower says.
“Boundaries are important,” says the advocate.
“The girl has to know she deserves trust.”
Absolutely is what the advocate says. But between questions, perched on the edge of a workbench, unbothered by the condensation blurring her glasses, she scribbles in her notebook. It is a small red notebook with a gold ribbon bookmark, better suited for poetry than formal evaluation, a detail the widower intends to paint as disqualifying should the need arise.
“Random thought,” the advocate says. “Do you foresee any risks in premature vocational specialization?”
“No more than idle hands.” The widower shoulders an oily rag.
“The research has shifted towards a generalist approach in recent years. Studies show that exposure to a broad range of experiences accelerates the acquisition and development of key life skills.”
“Persistence, grit, entrepreneurial spirit,” says the widower, “you’re telling me these aren’t key life skills?”
More scribbling. “I have no objection to productivity per se,” the advocate replies with a strained sigh. “To be frank, I was hoping to chat with the girl in person, see what she’s thinking about the fit.”
“Working,” says the widower. “Around the corner. Not that you’d get much out of her.”
“You’re aware that school starts in less than a month,” the advocate replies.
Though the widower would prefer to avoid the subject, he has already procured textbooks and binders, etched GRIM onto carrying cases filled with mechanical pencils and colorful pens. As evidence, he unfurls the floor-length receipt padding his wallet, a financial commitment signaling “seriousness of parental purpose.”
“My two cents?” The advocate removes her glasses, buffs the lenses with the sleeve of a crisp, company issued blazer. “More than supplies, what she needs is practice being around peers.”
Of the many reasons to disagree, the widower would highlight the girl’s rigidity, her distaste for human companionship. At this point in her character arc, he can only foresee predictable persecution—vicious teasing, cruel pranks, short-tempered authorities beaten down by the melee of middle school. But, as the widower’s late wife notes during daydreams, you never know if you never try. Besides, from a practical standpoint, the advocate is the one writing the report, and to ignore her suggestions, no matter how myopic, would be imprudent this early in the process.
So begins a crash course in social discomfort, a phase postmortem standoms will come to conflate with conversion therapy. The widower signs on for day camp, where Grim is the oldest by two years. She chooses arts and crafts during free period, fashions black dahlia bouquets from tissue paper before producing a watercolor series including Still Life of Severed Mailbox and, more infamously, Landscape with Lawnmower Accident (transl. from Latin). On the second morning, popsicle stick coffins inspired by Grim’s prototype proliferate among the campers. The director, quick to compliment the girl’s craftsmanship, nevertheless cites optics as grounds for expulsion, suggests more appropriate venues without specifying any. “Sadly,” the director concludes, “we are unable to issue a refund at this time.”
The next week, teen dance night at the community hall finds Grim paired with a pale, pickle-faced boy half her height, whose embarrassment induces a state not unlike rigor mortis. Somehow, this does not ruin the evening. She stays after the EMTs collect her partner, loses herself in frenetic headphone fuzz, pantomiming sling blade sweeps under the exit sign, muscle memory from a pro-bono park gig hours prior. When similar moves spread through the crowd, the widower asks a much younger mother if the scene reads as flattery or mockery. “People skills are on the decline,” she replies before theorizing origins of the attention deficit epidemic, floating tips on preferred pediatricians and pharmaceutical discounts. The widower reconsiders the advice days later, after Grim plays keeper in a neighborhood pick-up game. The widower implores her to pay attention, stop picking dandelions, but she blocks every shot, extending a lanky limb at the last possible moment. Her uncanny anticipation earns reluctant praise until, freak accident, the goal topples, crushing the ribcage of a golden retriever leashed to the net. Other kids scream and scatter, but Grim kneels beside the broken dog, smoothing its blood-matted fur—out of concern, the widower explains to horrified onlookers, not morbid fascination.
However much he tries to internalize the incident as progress that evening—a step forward on the empathy front, uncommon sensitivity to suffering so many others ignore—he must admit that an objective diagnosis (or, as criminologists will contest in hindsight, a neuropsychological profile) could mitigate her difficulties with group dynamics. But when the widower calls the doctors, twelve offices over the span of a week, robotic messages explain that appointments are booked through the end of the year.
Miramar International Academy, a limestone complex abutting bottomland, only deepens his doubt. No amount of wishful thinking can sugarcoat the orientation picnic, how Grim snubs the few students whose parents insist on small talk, wanders off mid-tour to cull cattails from a sewage canal and consort with butterflies. Or the ad-hoc administrative addendums, passive aggressive dress code reminders, prohibited paraphernalia lists updated to include gardening implements. Or the holy hush of the pick-up queue, the way people freeze when Grim, lurking in the low branches of a fungal oak, swings down, shuffles past sidewalk cliques and neon traffic marshals before climbing into the widower’s wheezing truck. Were he to weigh the uptick in funereal garb among fellow students—black tunic tops and birdcage veils, powder-white faces that will define the reaper chic aesthetic in glossies to come—perhaps the girl’s broody aura would code as cool, evidence of a divinely indifferent disposition. But no, the widower fixates on the girl’s broken body language, the scoliotic hump exacerbated by an overstuffed backpack, the way she melts into the seat on the ride home, soothed only by the funky groove of psychedelic horns, by pathological scrolling on a phone recently procured with her earnings. Before long, the widower cannot help but wonder how a conventional curriculum benefits a girl with her unique gifts. Do long days in airless rooms discourage curiosity? What lessons can be learned from shunning? How will fleeting knowledge acquired from a teach-to-the-test model serve someone destined for a divergent path?
A mandatory visit with the principal raises further questions. Grim, slouched in her seat, gazes out the window. She digs eraser flecks with sickly yellow fingernails, piles shavings in her lap.
“Students are complaining,” the principal says. “Teachers, too.”
“When are they not,” the widower asks. “Has she threatened anybody?”
“Not directly,” says the principal.
“Then I’m not sure why we’re here,” the widower says.
The principal produces a personality test taken in social science. The widower snatches the sheet off the desk, skims a list of Likert-scale questions:
I forgive easily: Strongly Disagree
I resist temptations: Strongly Disagree
I have a lot of fun: Strongly Disagree
I feel happy most of the time: Strongly Disagree
I am helpful to the people around me: Strongly Disagree
I often wonder why I am the way I am: Strongly Disagree
I love life: Strongly Disagree
I believe people should be punished for their mistakes: Strongly Agree
I have trouble controlling my impulses: Strongly Agree
It is important for me to follow traditions: Strongly Agree
I like thinking about the mysteries of the universe: Strongly Agree
“Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses,” the widower says.
“She rarely contributes,” the principal adds. “Disappears on bathroom breaks for hours at a time. And her academic performance, to be frank—”
“I take it you’re aware of her needs,” the widower interjects without conceding his own confusion on the subject.
“We have highly trained counselors on staff,” the principal says. “But buy-in from all parties is required.”
“We’re doing our best,” the widower says. Grim offers a single, decisive nod.
That evening, an email arrives announcing the principal’s resignation, a recurrence of long dormant cancer. The next principal, who observes the girl in multiple classes, suffers a similar fate, but not the third, who, out of indifference or self-preservation, elects not to address the elephant in the room.
Grim lives for afternoons, weekends. New gigs include cemeteries and office parks, a mental hospital on the outskirts of town. Even though the girl has memorized public bus routes, the widower insists on driving, never mind the maladies plaguing his truck, from hydraulic leaks and frayed cables to grinding gears. The second time they break down, on a poorly lit backroad, the widower burns an hour trying to coax the clutch while Grim channels her frustration into the armrest, scoring the leather with her scythe despite multiple admonitions. Her behavior is little better in the tow rig. Headphones on full blast, she taps rabid beats on the passenger-side glass, irregular rhythms that force the driver to clear his throat. The widower apologizes, says the girl is going through a phase, overdue for a stern talking-to, only to drop the subject when they finally get home. Hearing damage aside, he cannot pretend to fathom the effects of distortion on a difficult past, resists the urge to fill in blank spaces with neglect or nomadic parents. It is not his job to pick at scabs. If Grim is to adapt, the widower must focus on supply and demand, the steady flow of satisfied customers, growth that gives new purpose.
It is this line of thinking, expert witnesses will testify in a time of reckoning, that clouds warning signs obvious to an outside observer. Exhibit A: unread client emails re: Safety Hazards (Tetanus) re: Compensation for Mutilated Chrysanthemums, ditto copycat cosplay tagged on the business page, hot pics that sexualize the cloak, #grimgirl tonguing blade or straddling the latest John Deere during a lightning storm. And what of the downward turn on WXTP Gateway Tonight? The home fires and falling trees, the flash floods and interstate pileups, the shootings at Papyrus Mills and Coral Gardens, fatalities recorded, suspect on the lam? Was the growing propinquity of these tragedies merely coincidental? Or—objection, motion to speculate—considering the defendant’s selfless financial and emotional devotion to a vulnerable young life, is it not unreasonable to assume a heightened awareness of calamity, precisely why all proceeds from Weed it and Reap, let the record show, have been deposited into a rainy day fund (and not, as the D.A. has baselessly insinuated, an offshore bank account), held in trust until the girl turns twenty-one, an age the widower has deemed appropriate in his favorite version of the future, Grim grown into strong, independent woman, proud and sly, more than capable of making decisions he may not understand but must ultimately respect, for which she remains grateful enough to visit every few months despite having relocated to a more happening locale.
“How’s everyone holding up,” the advocate asks at their next meeting, which takes place over the phone due to a heavy caseload.
“So well,” the widower says before touting Grim’s first quarter report card, straight As for reasons that may or may not reflect the quality of her work. “Are you getting this down?”
“Not to skip ahead,” says the advocate, “but can you speak to her development on the social functioning front? I need something for the form.”
The widower does not mention the classmates who showed up at his door last weekend in harvester garb, how he turned them away only to discover empty bottles of liquor the next morning, stashed lazily in the husk of a Cadillac he’s been meaning to resurrect. He does not mention the cigarette packs in the trash, the condom wrappers interspersed among maki cartons and zip ties. He does not mention the inventory of heavy-duty garbage bags slowly overtaking the garage, leaf tarps smeared with sap and blood.
“Making new friends,” the widower says.
“I’m sorry,” the advocate says, “I really have to take this call.”
As Halloween approaches, in a patronizing attempt to recapture lost innocence, the widower buys a pair of butterfly wings bedazzled with sequins and blinking rainbow lights. The girl receives the gift with cruel disdain, discards the bag before dusting her hands in theatric fashion. That evening, however, while the widower pretends to nap through EMS broadcast alerts, the girl backtracks for some reason, fishes the wings from a cache of rice cartons, slides her arms through its delicate straps before bouncing on tiptoes in a futile effort to take flight.
She wears the garment to school all week, then the neighborhood parade, then trick-or-treating, an hours-long trek the widower oversees. They visit clients first—the accountant, the healer, the trainers plus happy healthy baby—all of whom recognize Grim right away, her wardrobe more modest than the sexy undertakers and risqué druids dominating this year’s crop of costumes. Other neighbors play scared, their ashen expressions betrayed by knowing winks. Still others, including the civic association president, say the girl is too old for this, what exactly is she supposed to be, does her trick—half-hearted scythe twirl more befitting a majorette—really deserve a treat?
One homeowner, a frail octogenarian whose property slides into swamp, greets Grim from a wheelchair. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she manages between oxygen huffs, “hardly get any visitors these days.” Grim fiddles with the ragged rosebushes lining the walk, no attempt at eye contact or pleasantry. Before the widower can apologize on her behalf, their host funnels a sleeve of black licorice into the girl’s plastic pumpkin, an exchange prolonged by her trembling hands. “Lord knows I’m not going to eat all of this,” she says as spillover accumulates about her ankles—bare and bruised, bones protruding through veiny, translucent skin. The widower cannot decide if her present state merits medical attention, a debate he must table as Grim scurries into the gathering night, barely distinguishable from a crush of similarly clad celebrants following in her wake. He whistles through his teeth, tries to keep up, but his heart throbs in his chest as he wades through untended potholes and jailbreak chickens, stumbling as the girl, incapable of waiting, recedes into darkness, her progress obscured by strobe lights and animatronic screams. It is at this moment, the widower will refuse to admit for years to come, that he first recognizes how little he means to Grim, how much she means to him.
The next morning, the widower’s knee swells to the size of a grapefruit. A week off the feet should fix things, he assumes, surely Grim is responsible enough to follow the instructions on the laminated index card slipped inside the side-pocket of her backpack: bus to school, then work, then home, no detours in-between, text when plans change. But the girl disobeys the directives, returns at a later hour with each passing day. Laid up on the couch, channel-surfing or guiding greenhorn hobbyists on digital forums, the widower is powerless to confront the sudden friends who drive Grim home and stay too long, older girls from forgotten fringes reeking of fertilizer and cheap spirits, their bodies hidden beneath handmade costumes, whispers carrying low and lecherous from the garage suite, which, to quote down-the-road dramatic reenactment narrators, has become little more than a waystation between worlds. How quickly the widower fades into the background, into caricature, his ever-growing list of curfew conditions laughed off, ignored by a girl increasingly difficult to distinguish from her followers. Sometimes, dazed from unprescribed medications, he dozes off before their departure, startled from sleep by nightly news commercials. On a windy evening near the end of November, things come to a head when the group breezes down the staircase at precisely 11:53.
“And where do you think you’re going,” the widower croaks.
But the girls fail to break stride at the sound of his serious voice, slam the screen door in their wake.
“I’m talking to you.” The widower hobbles onto the front porch, stung by the chill in the air, a front moving in. Grim pauses at the gate, makes a big show of maxing out her headphone volume, clicking the little black button like a patient desperate for morphine.
“Will you please take those off,” the widower says.
Grim points to her ears, as if to say, can’t hear you. What she means is I hope you disappear.
I almost have, the widower wants to say. He measures his breath, an unsuccessful attempt to ease the pain radiating through his leg as he limps down the walk. He does not mean to snatch at her headphones so forcefully, to insert himself so aggressively in her path. When Grim grips her scythe like a hockey stick, wind tickles the hem of her cloak. Somewhere in the distance, a rooster crows. The widower searches for softer words until a motion-sensor light, triggered by swirling debris, frames the girl in silhouette, a vague and formless presence forever on the verge of ghosting. When one of her stooges unleashes a string of epithets, when another claws the headphones clean from his hand, the widower knows not to retaliate. Instinctively, he knows what their studded masks and hooded cloaks can never conceal, a loneliness their idol will always acknowledge but never resolve. He knows what it means to be left behind. Long before the statewide bans of harvester paraphernalia, before scythe-wielding teenagers take to the streets in protest, he knows that it is already too late, that Grim has found the family she always wanted, a family that will never tell her no.
What he does not know, a sticking point in future proceedings, is the full extent of her whereabouts that evening. He cannot answer questions concerning CCTV footage procured from Eventide authorities, the blurry figures circling the community garden in ritualistic formation before entering #3A one by one, at five-minute intervals, save for the final member, tallest by far, who leaves the premises via wooded trial. He cannot comment on the toxicology report, chemical traces of antifreeze and turpentine, never mind the black blossoms found on scene, or the crude composites of a white-masked marauder with translucent wings sprouting at the shoulder blade. Nor will he address the discoveries detectives make months later in suite—electrical tape covering walls, window and ceiling, murder porn populating the shelves, microscopic ruts in the rafters, Roman numerals tallying well into the millions. In the face of likelier explanations, this is what the widower will testify: proximity is not the same as culpability, messengers too often take the heat, and once an idea takes root, there is little one can do to stop the spread.
Grim does not come that night. The widower holds vigil, listens for footsteps or the rumblings of the sushi delivery van, something more than late season butterflies beating against the screen, searching for warmth. Only on the third morning does he drift off, startled moments later by the doorbell. The widower wipes drool, splashes cold sink water on his face before eyeing the peephole, fully prepared to stonewall authorities. Instead, it is the advocate, notebook underarm, dressed in the same blazer as before. He lies and says the girl is on a job, should be home this afternoon.
“Are you all right,” the advocate asks.
“Been better,” the widower says.
“Then you’ll be glad to hear the good news,” the advocate replies. “The revocation period just ended.”
The date, a destination once starred on Grim’s behavior chart, has slipped his mind entirely. Soon the advocate is camped at the kitchen table, outlining finalization formalities, legal rights and obligations, resources the widower might take advantage of once the hearing is complete.
“I have a question,” the widower says during a brief lull. “What goes in your notebook?”
“To be honest,” says the advocate, “it’s doodles mostly, reminders and random thoughts. I got in the habit during graduate school.”
“It’s harder than I thought it would be,” the widower admits.
“What is,” the advocate says.
Differences of opinion, he tries to explain. Butting heads. Fixed positions incapable of arriving at middle ground.
“What I’m hearing is not out of the norm,” she says. “Growing pains are a part of the process.”
“Some days patience is a struggle,” says the widower.
“A watched pot never boils,” the advocate says.
Separated by thirty years, they search for a new subject of conversation as rain drums the roof. The girl could return at any moment, the widower keeps saying, if not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then the next day, or the day after that, months or years down the road, at the moment he least expects.
