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  "Same thing the Walter Reed doctor said three months ago. As long as the count's low, rising so gradually, it's best to wait. Get another test in six months."

  "And how do you feel about that?"

  He reaches over and brushes his thumb across her cheek. "Carbon," he says.

  She threads her fingers though his, presses the callused pad of his palm. "Richard?"

  He taps a button on the fan: oscillation. Summer swings back and forth over their bodies. "What'll be, will be."

  Del places the two camp chairs and the binoculars on the back seat of Richard's truck; one of them can sit on the picnic table and they can bring out the stool for the fourth person. Main thing is to have each of them located in a spot where they can see all the vents at once so they'll know where the holes are. How many bats are there anyway? Fifteen, forty? No doubt the seven Mark returned to the woods got right up and flew back in. One thing she's learned: little brown bats are what they've got. Chioptera. She found what may be a helpful site: batcontrol.com.

  She checks the sky: the edges of the clouds glow pink. 8:10. Best if she and Richard arrive not too long before the sun sets. Say 8:50—such a wonder that every day the sun, the earth are so right on time. It should only take a few minutes to rally Mark and Tess and get the four of them in position. Make the whole count quick to keep Mark from wandering off.

  Del grabs the handhold above the door and pulls herself up into the truck. Either the trucks Richard buys are getting higher or she's getting older. At least she hopes Mark is going to be a part of this. Tess was mostly full of her new milking job that starts tomorrow, the news that Hoop might be willing to take Mark on for chores a few evenings a week. Tess sounded inconclusive about what was up with Mark, if she'd even be able to talk him into being part of the … bat watch. But even if Mark is reluctant, nothing can take away the fact that he's the one who accomplished the most important part of the job: figuring out that the bats were coming in around her light and caulking that up. Not a single bat since.

  Richard's getting something from his shed, but he wouldn't say what. 8:13. It's right this minute she'd like to be leaving, but she's learned to trust Richard on timing. She watches him move down the hill with a length of PVC pipe, at least fifteen feet long with a row of holes. He's got it in perfect balance, held at just the right spot so he doesn't have to break his stride. Richard's backlit by the sun as well, his lean arms, his green-as-the-trees work shirt. Richard, the tightrope walker, and he will figure out how to get those bats out of there.

  He bungees the pipe into the bed of the truck and sets a big, rattling bag on the back seat. Then they're off. Maybe now that he's got no catalogs, now that he's stuck in space going forty miles an hour, is a good time to try to pin him down a little more. What are the best treatments available if the count starts to spike? She glances at Richard's straight-ahead profile, his sure hands on the wheel. "What's in the bag?"

  "Naphthalene. Right after sunset tomorrow, when I'll have a better idea what's up with the bats, I'll slide that pipe, full of mothballs, in above your ceiling. Any lingerers will clear out; then I'll replace the screening. Leave the mothballs for a few weeks: the bats will not be back."

  "What about the smell in my room?"

  "Once the pipe's out, it'll dissipate. Meanwhile you can stay with me: be my love full time." He squeezes the back of her neck. "Got to check the sill on your stone wall too. I felt around in there when I put up your new gutters, but I want to make one hundred percent sure."

  Richard pulls in by the barn so he can stow the mothballs and pipe. Her car's there, so Mark must be around, and Tess's truck is at the end of the drive, but the front door is closed and everything's still. She hauls out the camp chairs and binoculars. As she turns toward the back of the house to line up one of the chairs with her bedroom vent on that side, she gives Mark's loft window a quick glance: instant foreboding—closed up tight in this heat, the light-blocking towel gone. Nothing visible beyond the dark of the glass.

  She places the second chair almost against the dog kennel so her other bedroom vent will be easy to watch without cricking her neck. This is going to be her spot. She's almost positive this is the bats' main entry. Mark? She's going to have him sit on the stool at this end of the stone section, and Richard and Tess can decide who'll take the chair, who'll take the picnic table on the other end. 8:40. In fifteen minutes they all need to be sitting, unblinking, at their posts.

  She hesitates at the front door. Even though she still lives here two days a week, her initial reentries always feel intrusive. She gives a warning rap before she walks in. "Hello," she calls. "Mark, Tess? We're almost ready to begin watching for the bats." She aims this cheer at the loft even though already she can feel Mark isn't up there. In fact, her voice echoes in a new kind of silence. That sudden knowing the space has changed the way one feels the first big snow. She turns and there it is or there it isn't. The center of the living room is empty: Mark's drum set is gone. She scans the rest of the surfaces. Everything of Mark's has been removed. All the rest of the equipment is lined up and dusted off. Surely Tess's contribution. The answering machine flashes: four red signals as if it's about to detonate.

  8:45. Richard is on his way from the barn, balancing the ladder this time. Someone's in the bathroom. There's the flush of the toilet. The sound of the washing machine. This is reassuring. Things cannot be too dire if someone is doing laundry. The door opens. Tess appears, looking like herself. Del tries for a calm tone.

  "What's going on? Where's Mark?"

  Tess gives her a squint. "Where's all his stuff? His drums?"

  Tess steps a little closer, checks the peripheries. "Moved it all down to his drum-room. I came back from learning how to run the milk machines and he was hauling the last loads in the wheelbarrow. He said … he had to get the fuck out of this house."

  Del turns back into the living room. Out the window, she sees Richard has already settled on the picnic table. Should they try to go on with the bat watch? Del points to the phone.

  "I was here, but I figured it was better to let the machine pick up. I do not want to talk to my mother."

  "Any messages for me?"

  "Maybe one I didn't hear. But the rest are for Mark: Charlie, Rozmer, Ben Jacobs from the clinic. All giving 'here for you' respiration."

  8:50. Sunset in seven minutes. Del starts up the loft-ladder. "Do you still feel like doing the bats?"

  "Sure."

  "Be good if you'd sit in the chair that's already set up in back." She points toward where she means. "And not just where they're coming out, but could you keep a good count too?" At the top of the ladder, she leans into the loft. "My god, Tess, he took his mattress, all his bedding."

  "Yep. Everything. I'm going to quick go get my glasses."

  "I'll go around by the kennel as soon as I see if I can rouse Mark." As she starts toward the barn, she waves to Richard sitting on the table, the binoculars by his side. He motions toward his watch. "I know. Only a few more minutes." She calls to Tess, "Where's Luke?"

  "Down there, too." Tess disappears around the corner.

  No sounds of drums coming from the barn. Luke there. That's a comfort. Del goes through the garage, leans her ear against the drum-room door. Nothing. "Mark, we're about to watch to see where the bats are going out." Silence. No light above the sill. She knocks. She could try the knob. Pound and wail. Instead she steps out into the falling light. She hurries toward the house, her eyes on the back section above the kennel. No flutters of wings circling, only a few darting birds heading for their night roosts. Probably Mark and Luke have gone for a walk. Otherwise, surely Luke would have beat his tail, whined hello. Surely? Nothing is sure. Before they go if Mark hasn't appeared, if he doesn't answer when they call, she, Tess, Richard, one of them is going to have to turn that knob, unlock that door and go into the dark.

  9:00. Soon it will be too dark to see anything. And no matter how hard she tries, she can't help blinking. Her eyes are start
ing to cross, the slats of the vent to blur.

  "Del." Richard's voice flies over the roof, caught by the hill to echo back. "See anything yet?"

  "No." Best not to be making noise. The bats might decide to skip their dinner. The little bit of the article she had time to read said each bat eats up to three thousand insects a night. But not when it rains. Motion. A flick of something in the left corner of the vent. Then a quiver of dark drops, is gone. Jesus, that's all it's going to be. That's one. She dares to glance up. No question, a bat now high above the roof. No way of knowing if it's one of her bats. Flick. The same corner. Flash away into the trees this time. That's definitely two. Unless she missed one earlier. So much quicker, less fanfare than expected. Flick. Three. She wants to scream out. Watch. But she doesn't: four, five, two right together. Don't let them come out any faster than that or she won't be able to keep track. Six, seven, eight. Let it not get so dark she can't see.

  "Del." Tess's voice. "Five, Del, so far five." That vent too. That makes thirteen. Silence from Richard's direction. Nine. Another swoop. Ten. Coming so fast. Eleven.

  Down the road, the creak of the big barn door closing. Luke's bark. Thirteen. Fourteen. The glow of a light. Probably Mark going into the drum-room. Fifteen, sixteen. The sound of drums. Seventeen. Other mothers complained of the amps turned up, the scream of guitars, but she was always happy to know where they were, playing together.

  Completely dark now. Only the headlights of the truck jetting across the rock pile, shining on the thickets of Queen Anne's lace. She's so glad Mark is there, that he's got enough up-energy to be drumming. Maybe she can come back tomorrow, connect with him, without seeming as if she's bearing down. Tell him how much she appreciates him caulking the light. The periodontist? She not going to think about that. She slides over a little closer to Richard, puts her hand on his knee. "One hundred and seventy-five bats out my vent. One hundred and seventy-five, plus Tess's thirteen. One hundred and eighty-eight. Amazing. They've been living up above me all this time and I didn't even know they were there. And not a bat out the vent above the loft. Just like you said. No bats getting in the stone section."

  Richard makes the turn toward Back River Road. Back River Road: she's always loved the sound of that name. Won't be long, if she watches carefully, before she'll see Richard's outside light glowing way up on the hill, glowing through the trees.

  www.batcontrol.com. She scrolls past the title "A Single Bat in the House," the picture of a man placing a saucer over a hanging daytime bat, scrolls past "Identifying Entrances." They are way beyond all that. Her eyes stop on "House Bat Maternity Colonies … these 'house bats' situate their roosts in hot attics, which act as incubators for the growing pups…" My god, what she has is a maternity colony.

  The best time for bat-proofing is in the fall, after the bats have left. If bat-proofing must be done while bats are inhabiting a building, it should be done by installing a one-way door after the pups are able to fly. Otherwise the flightless bats will be trapped inside and the mothers will frantically attempt to reenter to rejoin their young.

  Not just 188 bats. There are a bunch of babies in there too. Why, Zephyr P. Dixon, aren't you ashamed talking as if you had a big job getting bats out that had already migrated? Have to tell Richard no mothballs. We have to wait till all the bat babies go.

  23 : Whistling

  BEFORE HE UNLOCKS the drum-room door, Mark checks to see that the scrap of brown paper he always tucks in at the bottom is still exactly as he left it, ripped side out, small black dot in front. All those years of reading Hardy Boys were not for naught. He stows the paper; his T-shirt, smelling heavily of cannabis; and his dandy little pipe in a plastic bag which he then stuffs in a box, under a jumble of old cassettes his mother would never discard or mess with. Too bad he can't burn incense, but trusting as she is, even his mother would have to wake up on that one. This skulking behind a tree up on the hill to sneak a toke, all this subterfuge ridiculous, but what else can he do?

  Dark inside: the windows curtained with towels. He finds his way through the mayhem to stretch out on his mattress. No question Nooley's weed is of an excellent quality. Dear friends, I want you to know I plan to take this lying down. He lights a candle and pulls his notebook from beneath his pillow. Plenty of time to wig out for a few hours before he has to go do barn chores with Tess.

  He thumbs through the notebook until he comes to a blank page. So good to be off the meds, the plod, plod of them, his tongue sticking to his teeth. So good to have his mind back, the grid up and running again. In only a few weeks since his return to the land of the living, he's laid down about ten new bass lines. Doobie do, doobie da. A lot of it just playing around with words, lists of words that launch him into a phrase he can then lay out in chords. He leans the notebook toward the candle and lets his pen write whatever flows out: subterfuge. Bad enough he has to do all his imbibing on the sly, give his clothes the smell-test before he goes up to the house. Tess is already giving him the sniffs. No doubt she knows, no doubt she doesn't approve, but she will not tell. Another thing he likes about Tess.

  Trick scheme evasion dodge. Lot of writing went on in this barn. His bed almost exactly where his dad sat in his black-and-brown chair, scrawling on his yellow pads. Fucked up on grass too. Mark fishes two vials from beneath his piles of clothes and a tube of glue from his backpack. Do a little cave mosaic with his meds. He's got six hundred dollars' worth of meds at his disposal. He uncaps the black Magic Marker. Along the wall, about a foot above the bed, he draws a straight black line as far as he can reach without rising. Along the line, several inches apart, he draws a series of jagged saucer-size circles. He contemplates the empty circles: little vats where faces are developing. One remains blank: the barefaced liar who's going to go to a meeting and receive his six months Clean and Sober medal soon.

  When he stretches out his leg, his foot hits a cymbal stand. Number-two problem: the extreme crowded conditions—wall-to-wall drums, mattress, weight bench, computer, four-track, and the innards of a piano, with one narrow path to the door. He studies the first circle, then he lifts the marker and draws a large eye in the center, an eye that reaches across and touches the outer edges. On a scrap of cardboard he squeezes a blob of glue. Using his handy roach clip he dips in one side of a Neurontin tablet. Then he presses it below the eye and holds. When he's sure the tab's secure, he pastes another below that, and then another.

  Outside Luke barks. Luke, his sentry. Mark scoops the pills into their vial and pushpins a towel so it drapes over his mosaic-in-progress. He gives himself a quick smell-check. Camels and sweat, mildew, no hint of dope. He lifts the edge of the towel covering the window that looks out on the road. Charlie's car dusting along up the drive. Too late, Charlie, I've up and gone solo. Mark puts on his baseball hat—some cover. High pretty much gone. He steps out, locks the door. Got to whistle a happy tune past the graveyard. Uh-oh, Charlie's brung backup. Mark speeds his amble. The passenger door opens. Rozmer's big leg swings out. Fee Fi Fo Fum. All they need now would be Ben Jacobs and they could have an intervention party.

  Rozmer steps forward, bows. He's slimming down, making it past the Burger King drive-throughs. Rozmer gives him the complete once-over. Red alert on because his sponsee isn't doing his daily check-ins. No question what impression Mark's got to bring out for this one: Howdy do. Careful Charlie's looking a little schizy. Luke does his happiness run. Round and round, swerving just as he's about to hit them head on. Diversionary havoc welcome.

  Rozmer doesn't give him a hug. The distance is there and he respects it. "Sorry not to hear from you in the last few days, buddy."

  "Yeah," Mark says. Don't offer up any shit-excuses Rozmer will make you eat. "I'm struggling. Got the Fuckits, but I'm working on it. I'll give you a call tomorrow after my appointment with Jacobs." An appointment he was previously planning on canceling. "Get myself to the twelve o'clock." Solid plan presented.

  "Sounds good," Rozmer says, smiles.

  And
of course he's going to have to keep his word. Got to go through more of the motions. But he's going to take what he likes and leave the rest.

  Rozmer squeezes Charlie's arm. "We're on our way to a meeting in Bayville. Speaker's meeting. Charlie's home group. His anniversary. He's going to tell his story."

  "Five years, right, Charlie?" Mark says, and shakes his hand. "Got to be a good feeling. I'd like to be there, but I have to load the manure spreader this evening." Bulletproof Reason.

  "How many evenings are you working now?" Charlie says.

  "Three. And it's going okay." Now what would be best would be if they'd re-board and tootle-loo down the lane, but it's clear he's going to have to offer full hospitality. Just as soon not take them into the emptiness of the living room, the death of their big Jam Together fantasy. 'Course Charlie knows he's moved all his stuff to the barn, but Mark hasn't fully outlined that for Rozmer and he knows Charlie has said very little. Charlie's good that way, like Tess. "Such a hot night, how about if we sit out here?"

  "Yeah, we've got lots of time," Rozmer says.

  He leads them toward the picnic table. He sees Tess moving around in the kitchen. Be good if she came out. More welcome diversion. The more talkety-talk he has to do, the riskier it is. He's been keeping the lies simple, but make no mistake about this: Rozmer's always got the scam-o-meter running. They settle and as a real feat of control, he doesn't light up. He knows Rozmer will notice that and maybe be impressed with his lack of compulsion. Or Rozmer's so sharp, he knows just what he's up to by not sucking away. So fuck it, might as well smoke. No, keep his twitchy fingers from groping for his pack.

  "Not long before you'll be coming up for being six months clean. What day exactly?"

  Dangerous topic #1. Sweat breaking out. But a sign of just how devious he is, he's got the date pre-stamped right in his frontal lobes. "September 3rd," he says.