Peter and Maya hear it above the guitar and drums. They rush out from the garage and into the house. Freezing wind is blowing into Maya’s room, and Leo is standing openmouthed in the middle of the floor, looking at the stone. BITCH has been written on it in red letters.

Maya is the first to realize what the real danger is. It takes Peter a few more seconds to figure it out. They rush for the front door together but it’s too late. It’s wide open. The Volvo has already pulled out of the drive, Kira at the wheel.

*

There are four of them, two on foot and two on bicycles, and the ones on bikes have no chance. The snow is still ankle-deep on the sidewalks, so they can only cycle on the plowed furrow in the middle of the road. Kira presses the accelerator to the floor of the Volvo so hard that the big car lurches out onto the road behind with a howl, and she’s caught up with them in twenty yards, and her foot is nowhere near the brake. They’re only children, thirteen or fourteen at most, but the mother’s eyes are empty. One of the boys turns around and is dazzled by the headlights, and throws himself, terrified, off his bike at speed, and crashes headfirst into a fence. The other boy just manages to do the same before the front bumper of the Volvo smashes into his rear wheel and the bicycle flies across the road.

His pants are torn and his chin grazed when Kira stops the car, opens the door and gets out. She gets one of Peter’s golf clubs from the trunk. Gripping it with both hands, she marches toward the boy on the ground. He’s crying and screaming, but she doesn’t care, doesn’t feel anything.

*

Maya rushes out of the house and down the street in just her socks. She hears her dad call her name but doesn’t look back. She hears the crash as the car hits the bicycle, sees the body sail weightless through the air. The Volvo’s red brake lights jab at her eyes and she sees her mother’s silhouette as she gets out. The trunk opens, a golf club is taken out. Maya is slipping on patches of ice in her soaking-wet socks, her feet are bleeding, and she screams until her voice is nothing but a croak.

*

Kira has never seen anyone so frightened. Small hands grab the golf club from behind and wrestle her to the ground, and when Kira looks up Maya holds her tight and screams, but at first Kira can’t hear what. She’s never seen such terror before.

The boys on the road crawl to their feet and limp away. Leaving a mother and a daughter, both crying hysterically, the mother still clutching the golf club in her clenched fists, the daughter soothing her over and over in her rocking arms:

“It’s okay, Mom, it’s okay.”

The houses around them are still dark, but they know that everyone in the street is awake. Kira feels like standing up and bellowing at them, throwing stones at THEIR windows, but her daughter holds her tight and they just sit there in the middle of the road, trembling as they inhale each other’s skin. Maya whispers:

“You know, when I was little all the other parents at preschool used to call you ‘wolf mother,’ because they were all scared of you. And all my friends wanted a mom like you.”

Kira sniffs in her daughter’s ear:

“You don’t deserve this damn life, darling, you don’t deserve . . .”

Maya holds her mother’s cheeks and kisses her forehead softly.

“I know you’d have killed for me, Mom. I know you’d have given your life for me. But we’re going to get through this, you and me. Because I’m your daughter. I’ve got wolf’s blood.”

*

Peter carries them to the Volvo. First his daughter, then his wife. He reverses the car slowly back along the street. Home.

*

The bicycles are left lying in the snow; the next day they are gone. No one who lives on the street will ever talk about it.

41

Morning comes to Beartown, unconcerned about the little lives of the people down below. A sheet of cardboard has been taped up on the inside of a broken window; a sister and a brother are sleeping, exhausted, side by side on mattresses in the hall, far from any other windows. In his sleep Leo curls up close to Maya, the way he used to when he would creep into her room when he was four years old and had a bad dream.

*

Peter and Kira are sitting in the kitchen, holding each other’s hands.

“Do you think I’m less of a man because I can’t fight?” he whispers.

“Do you think I’m less of a woman because I can?” she asks.

“We have to get the kids away from here,” he whispers.

“We can’t protect them. It doesn’t matter where we are, darling, we can’t protect them,” she replies.

“We can’t live like that.”

“I know.”

Then she kisses him, smiles, and whispers:

“But you’re not unmanly. You’re very, very, very manly in lots of other ways. For instance, you NEVER admit that you’re wrong.”

He replies into her hair:

“And you’re very womanly. The most womanly woman I’ve ever met. For instance, you can NEVER be trusted with rock-paper-scissors.”

They laugh, the pair of them. Even on a morning like this. Because they can, and because they must. They still possess that blessing.

*

Ramona is standing outside the Bearskin smoking. The street is empty, the sky is black, but she still sees the puppy from a long way off, even though the weather is bad. She starts to cough hoarsely as Sune rolls out of the darkness; it might have been a chuckle if she’d smoked less. Forty or fifty years less.

Sune calls out, and the puppy totally ignores him. It jumps up at Ramona’s jeans, eagerly demanding attention.

“You silly old fool, have you got a puppy now?” she says with a grin.

“A disobedient little shit, too. I’ll be filling my sandwiches with him soon,” Sune mutters, but his love for the furry creature is already obvious.

Ramona coughs. “Coffee?”

“Can I have a splash of whisky in it?”

She nods. They go inside and stamp their feet and drink while the puppy very methodically sets about eating one of the chairs.

“I assume you’ve heard,” Sune says sadly.

“Yep,” Ramona says.

“Shameful. Shameful, that’s what it is.”

Ramona pours more drink. Sune stares at the glass. “Has Peter been in?”

She shakes her head. “Have you spoken to him?”

Sune shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

Ramona says nothing. She understands that all too well. It’s both easy and difficult to offer someone coffee.

“The club isn’t your job anymore, Sune,” she murmurs.

“I haven’t formally been dismissed yet. They seem to have forgotten about that in the midst of all this. But, sure. You’re right. It’s not my job anymore.”

Ramona pours more whisky. Tops it up with a splash of coffee, sighs deeply.

“So what do we talk about, then? An old bag and an old bastard, sitting here babbling. For God’s sake, just spit it out instead.”

Sune gives her a wry smile.

“You’ve always been a bit of a psychologist, you have.”

“Just a bartender. You were always too cheap to pay for the real thing.”

“I miss Holger.”

“You only miss him when I’m shouting at you.”