He and Brad ate dinner in silence in the kitchen, boiled hot dogs with cheese and sliced baby tomatoes from the garden and lemonade from scratch. Bradley ate seven. Mimi had three bites out of the one that he brought up to her room, and when he went up to collect her plate, she was asleep and had the covers wrapped snugly around her. He took a spare sheet and a blanket out of the linen closet and brought it downstairs and made up the living room sofa. In moments, he was sleeping.
This night, he was keenly aware of what had roused him from sleep. It was a scream, at the back of the house. A scared, drunken scream that was half a roar.
He was at the back door in a moment, still scrubbing at his eyes with his fists, and Bennett was there already.
He opened the door and hit the switch that turned on the garden lights, the back porch lights, the garage lights in the coach house. It was bright enough to dazzle him, but he’d squinted in anticipation.
So it only took him a moment to take in the tableau. There was Link, on the ground, splayed out and face down, wearing boxer shorts and nothing else, his face in a vegetable bed in the next door yard. There was Krishna, standing in the doorway, face grim, holding a hammer and advancing on Link.
He shouted, something wordless and alarmed, and Link rolled over and climbed up to his feet and lurched a few steps deeper into the postage-stamp-sized yard, limping badly. Krishna advanced two steps into the yard, hammer held casually at his waist.
Alan, barefoot, ran to the dividing fence and threw himself at it going up it like a cat, landing hard and painfully, feeling something small and important give in his ankle. Krishna nodded cordially at him, then hefted the hammer again.
Krishna took another step toward Alan and then Natalie, moving so fast that she was a blur, streaked out of the back door, leaping onto Krishna’s back. She held there for a minute and he rocked on his heels, but then he swung the hammer back, the claws first.
It took her just above her left eye with a sound like an awl punching through leather and her cry was terrible. She let go and fell over backward, holding her face, screaming.
But it was enough time, enough distraction, and Alan had hold of Krishna’s wrist. Remembering a time a long time ago, he pulled Krishna’s hand to his face, heedless of the shining hammer, and bit down on the base of his thumb as hard as he could, until Krishna loosed the hammer with a shout. It grazed Alan’s temple and then bounced off his collarbone on the way to the ground, and he was momentarily stunned.