The Threat

That night, after the kids were tucked in, Maureen told Sal about the cat.

He smiled apologetically. “Don’t hate me for soundin’ like ‘The People’s Court,’ but did you actually see her do it to the cat?”

Her neck tensed up. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I saw her after what I know she did to the cat. The Animal Control guys aren’t gone two minutes when the ice cream man is coming down the street, and Sophie’s running down the back steps, screaming, ‘Ice cream, ice cream!’ Ann and Paula were in their bedroom,” she said, pointing to their door, “saying a prayer to St. Francis for the cat—while Sophie is wolfing down a fugdsicle on the front stoop.”

His hand motioned for her to lower the volume.

“God, I’m so pissed at myself for letting the kids see all that. The way the guys were holding it, I’d only thought it had a thorn or got stung by a hornet.” She said mockingly, “I thought, okay, since they followed me out, may as well let them watch a little biology lesson. What an idiot.”

Sal lowered his head as he asked, “I’m sorry, I’m lost. Are you blaming the kid for the cat, or yourself for I don’t know what?”

She was looking out the window. “Has she ever, ever said hello to you?”

“You said she had asshole-burgers.”

His trying to lighten the mood was grating. “It’s not Asperger’s,” she said. “She’s like something out of Stephen King.” A couple of weeks ago, Maureen had picked up cute bracelets for the twins at the Target checkout, and had thought it would be a nice thing to get one for Sophie, too. Upstairs in their kitchen, Maureen didn’t know where to look as Tricia pleaded, “Please, Sophie, just say thank you. Sopheee, come on.” The kid plucked the bracelet out of Maureen’s hand, examined it coldly—and then asked, “Would this melt if it was in a fire?” It wasn’t Asperger’s.

Leo shrugged. “The parents are always real nice. Edgar always asks how things are goin’ and offers to hold the door whenever we’re crossin’ paths.”

“They’re too nice. Like they’re hiding something.” She raised an eyebrow. “It’s, like, a cliché: the criminals in TV shows are super polite to their neighbors.”

“They’re criminals now?” he said, arms crossed, nodding sarcastically.

“Oh, shut up,” she said, laughing, because laughing was the only way he might take this—her—seriously. “No, but they hafta realize she’s a freak-job, and they’re on their best behavior so we’ll just back off. It’s a classic look-the-other-way tactic.”

Getting in from Sunday brunch at Pancake House, they opened the car doors to a strange smell in the yard, like a barbeque with too much lighter fluid. Maureen didn’t think about it until she was rinsing off grapes in the kitchen, where the odor was stronger. She opened the door to the back hallway, but it was even more intense there. To air things out, she pulled open the porch door, but settled out back was an oily-sweet smokiness, thick enough to give everything a tint of milky blue. She went out to investigate.

She stepped tentatively across the yard, inhaling deeply, and stretched to peer over the neighbors’ fence. Nobody was barbecuing. Finally, she spotted it, up in the far corner, right in front of the hip-high Blessed Mother statue, a gray pile of smoldering something. Walking slowly toward the statue, she looked left and right. When a crow cawed, she froze for a moment before she continued across the dry grass.

Maureen’s brain couldn’t make sense of the jumble of images, the straight lines of Mary’s white robes pointing down to the smoking, dark mound at the statue’s base. Surrounding the clump, in a circle a few feet wide, was seared earth. She bent forward, and blinked to finally understand it was a dead frog, a large bullfrog, looking like it was covered in spent charcoal. She recoiled and screamed without thought of the neighbors. “Sal, Sal! Come out in the back please, Sal!”

When he got to her side, she was still leaning over it, pointing. “Oh my God, Look. Look what she’s done.” Because it could only be Sophie who’d done this. Right in front of the Blessed Virgin.

Picking at the charred flesh with a twig, Sal said, “Yah, uh, it was, uh, doused in lighter fluid. A lot of lighter fluid. You can see, there was a pool of it around the thing.”

“Oh, God, the kids are on the porch,” she whispered.

“Bring them in. I’ll take care of this. And then I’m talking to them.”

She was nodding, suddenly very sleepy, maybe a little motion-sick, and instinctively, she wanted to take her children to her big bed, fold them up in the comforter, and tell them stories about what they were like as babies and toddlers.

Walking to the house, she was smiling tightly. “No, no, it was nothing. Daddy will take care of it.” Up on the porch, with her arms spread to herd them inside, she ignored their questions until they were all in the kitchen. “We think the frog tipped over the container of lighter fluid, and there was some kind of chemical reaction that hurt the frog. Daddy’s taking care of it. He’s a nice person to take care of this.” Redirect them to the positive. And distract them. “Now, I think it’s gonna rain, so let’s watch a good movie.” The Sound of Music was a reliable hypnotic, and she put in the DVD, hoping a twentieth century Hollywood musical could eclipse a real-life horror movie in the backyard.

Ann and Paula were sitting up straight on the couch, singing backup for the Von Trapps, while Leo was stretched across the big easy chair, his legs draped over an arm and bouncing to the music. Maureen was curled up in the armchair, just watching them. She smiled; her children could soothe her nerves as reliably as that big fish tank in the dentist’s waiting room.

A half-hour later, the backdoor opened and she got up slowly—not wanting to arouse their curiosity and have them follow her.

The light in the ceiling fan darkened the lines around Sal’s eyes. “You want some decaf?” he asked, sounding tired. He was looking around the kitchen, like for a place to start.

“What’s going on?” She was glad the kids were cushioned in noise.

“Lemonade, then.” He poured a couple of glasses.

At the table, he examined his watch, picked at something on the band. “Well, when I got there, I wasn’t sure how to tell them. I feel bad how I did. I just kind of blurted it out—told them what we found.” He exhaled a chestful of air. “Right then, Tricia just starts bawling, and like collapses into Edgar’s chest.”

Maureen was nodding confidently. “Nothing like Oh, my God, I can’t believe it. Right? See. Proof. They know what their kid’s capable of.” She’d been right about them.

“Yeah, but they have more than Sophie to worry about. Tricia fell a couple of times and she thought it was vertigo or something, and went to the doctor.” His face was wincing. “They said she has M.S.”

“Oh, shit.” Maureen imagined for a moment the horrible luck of having a child and a medical condition that would both, over time, just get worse and worse.

With the tenants instantly elevated to the kind of family you ask people to pray for, Maureen suddenly couldn’t lay out her vision for bringing stability back to her universe. Even with Sal finally getting that Sophie was a more than just a little peculiar—that she could be a horrible influence on their children and even, who knew, God forbid, burn the house down—she couldn’t suggest the family find another place to live.