Dark Rivers of the Heart

out. The pain was of an immeasurably greater magnitude and of a quality itiexpressible.
        They said good-bye with fewer words than Harris would ever have imagined possible-because no words were adequate. They hugged one another fiercely, acknowledging that they were most likely parting until they met again on whatever shore la be nd the ave. Their mother had believed in that far and better shore. Since childhood they had drifted away from the belief that she had instilled in them, but they were for this terrible moment, in this place, fully in the faith again.
        Harris held Bonnie tightly, then Martin, and came at last to his brother, who was separating tearfully from Jessica. He hugged Darius and kissed his cheek. He had not kissed his brother for more years than he could recall, because for so long they had both been too adult for that. Now he wondered at the silly rules that had constituted his sense of mature behavior, for in a single kiss, all was said that needed to be said.
        The incoming waves crashed through the pier pilings behind them with a roar hardly louder than the pounding of Harris's own heart, as at last he stepped back from Darius. Wishing there were more light in the gloom, he studied his brother's face for the last time in this life, desperate to freeze it in memory, for he was leaving without even a photograph.
        "Must go," said the man in the reindeer sweater.
        "Maybe everything won't fall over the brink," Darius said.
        "We can hope."
        "Maybe the world will come to its senses."
        "You be careful going back through that park," Harris said.
        "We're safe," Darius said. "Nobody back there's more dangerous than me.
        I'm an attorney, remember?"
        Harris's laugh was perilously close to a sob.
        Instead of good-bye, he simply said, "Little brother."
        Darius nodded. For a moment it seemed that he wouldn't be able to say anything more. But then: "Big brother."
        Jessica and Bonnie turned away from each other, both of them with Kleenex pressed to their eyes.
        The girls and Martin parted.
        The man in the reindeer sweater led one Descoteaux family south along the beach while the other Descoteaux family stood by the foot of the pier, watching. The sward was as pale as a path in a dream. The phosphorescent foam from the breakers dissolved on the sand with a whispery sizzle like urgent voices delivering incomprehensible warnings from out of the shadows in a nightmare.
        Three times, Harris glanced at the other Descoteaux family over his shoulder, but then he could not bear to look back again.
        They continued south on the beach, even after they reached the end of the park. They passed a few restaurants, all closed on that Monday night, then a hotel, a few condominiums, and warmly lighted beach front houses in which lives were still lived without awareness of the hovering darkness. v n two miles the came to another restaurant. Lights were on in that estaf)lishment, but the big windows were too high above the beach for Harris to see any diners at the view tables. The man in the reindeer sweater led them off the sward, alongside the restaurant, into the parking lot in front of the place.
        They went to a green-and-white motor home that dwarfed the cars around it.
        "Why couldn't my brother have brought us directly here?" Harris asked.
        Their escort said, "It wouldn't be a good idea for him to know this vehicle or its license number. For his own sake."
        They followed the stranger into the motor home through a side door, just aft of the open cockpit, and into the kitchen. He stepped aside and directed them farther back into the vehicle.
        An Asian woman in her early or middle fifties, in a black pants suit and a Chinese-red blouse, was standing at the dining table, beyond the kitchen, waiting for them. Her face was uncommonly gentle, and her smile was warm.
        "So pleased that you could come," she said, as if they were paying her a social visit. "The dining nook seats seven altogether, plenty of room for the five of us. We'll be able to talk on the way, and we've so much to discuss."
        They slid around the horseshoe-shaped booth, until the five of them encircled the table.
        The man in the reindeer sweater had gotten behind the steering wheel.
        He started the engine.
        "You may call me Mary," said the Asian