The Lesson of Her Death

shock.
    “Emily Rossiter?” A man’s voice was speaking. The doors were thin. She felt the knocking resonate upon her heart. “It’s Deputy Miller? I was by before? We were wondering if you could come in and speak to Detective Corde for a bit? He’s pretty anxious to see you.”
    A woman’s voice, that of the housemother, asked, “Emily? Are you there? This gentleman wants to talk with you.”
    “I’ll drive you over.”
    She heard their voices speaking to one another. She couldn’t make out the words. She—
    Oh no
. The key! The housemother has a key. Emily flipped off the covers. She scooted off the bed and stood in the middle of the room like a child, knees together, panicked. Another knock.
    Emily stepped into her closet and sat on the floor, which was strewn with fallen hangers and dust balls and tissue from the dry cleaner’s. She quietly pulled several of her winter coats off the hooks above her and covered herself entirely.
    “Emily?”
    Breathe slowly, breathe slowly. They can’t get you here.… You’re safe with me, kiddo
.
    But there were no keys in the door. After a moment she heard footsteps walking away, the jangle of the awful police equipment receding. It would be safe to climb out but there was something so comforting about lying under satin and cashmere so hidden that she was compelled to stay. “‘Such wilt thou be to me, who must / Like the other fool obliquely run.…’”
    She wrapped the coats tighter about her.
    They took Jennie away.
    They took her letters away.
    And now they want me too
.…
    Ah, kiddo
.… Emily lay her head on the thick hump of a suede jacket.
    “‘Thy firmness makes my circle just, / And makes me end where I begun.’”
    The green Schwinn bicycle sat in the garage, standing upright. Twined around and around the small bike were little lights, a string of Christmas lights from the indoor tree. Wound around the handlebars, the fenders, the training wheels. The lights were on and the bike glowed like a city seen from an airplane landing.
    They glowed too in reflection on the surface of the puddle of water on the garage floor.
    Sarah stood in the doorway and looked at the spectacle in awe. It made her think of the movie
E.T
., which she’d seen five times, the scene where the creature makes the bikes fly through the sky.
    She walked around it, studying the lights with fascination. This bicycle had terrified her when she’d received it two years ago. At her mother’s insistence she had tried riding it several times without the training wheels and nearly fell headlong onto the concrete of the driveway. She’d leapt off and run into the house screaming in panic. Even with the wheels on she avoided riding it when other children or Jamie, who rode his tall fifteen-speed so fast, might see her.
    But what she was looking at now didn’t scare her. It was a bike but it was also something else. Something more. Something pretty and something mysterious. With the cord plugged into the wall socket to light the bulbs she couldn’t ride it of course. But she could sit on it and pretend she was pedaling—riding through the sky.
    She could fly to the Sunshine Man’s cottage and thank him.…
    She could be the queen of the sky, as if the dots of yellow lights were the stars in her own constellation.…
    Stepping forward into the puddle of still water, she reached for the handlebar.
    “Sarrie, like what
are
you doing?”
    Jamie stood in the doorway, pulling on his brown leather biking gloves. He slipped off his Styrofoam helmet and set it on a shelf. He stood with his hands on his hips for a moment then walked toward her bike.
    “Nothing.” She stepped away, looking down.
    “Did you do that?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “That’s like totally stupid.”
    “I’m not stupid,” she said meekly.
    He walked to the outlet and yanked the plug out of the wall then began unwinding the lights.
    “No, don’t!”
    He shouted, “Look! Look at this!” He held up a portion of wire that had been wound around the frame of the bike. The plastic insulation was missing and several inches of copper wire were exposed and wrapped around the foot pedal. He pointed at the floor beneath the bike. “And there’s water spilled there.”
    “Don’t yell at me!”
    “If you do stupid things you’re gonna get yelled at.”
    “Stop it! Stop it!”
    “Don’t lay one of your effing tantrums on me! It won’t work,” he shot back.
    He wound electrician’s tape around the exposed