Page 78 of All Good People Here

Her eyes widened in fear. “Where’s Mommy?”

“Shh,” Billy hissed. “Be quiet.”

But she was crying now, her voice getting louder. “I want Mommy!”

Billy grabbed the sides of January’s face, his fingers white. “Shut up.”

She began to scream, “Mom—” but Billy clapped a hand over her mouth.

As he did, her head turned ever so slightly, and in his daughter’s face, Billy suddenly saw the shape of Krissy’s eyes, the angle of Dave’s chin, and Billy remembered that January wasn’t his daughter after all—not really. And then, his mind was a blank. He heard himself saying, as if from a great distance, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.” He watched, detached, as his hands tightened around January’s head, his thumbs closing her eyes and pressing them shut so she couldn’t see him anymore, so he couldn’t see Krissy. And then he looked away as he lifted her head and slammed it against the floor. It only took once for her to stop moving.

Billy crouched, motionless, over her body, his breath coming in ragged gulps. From somewhere very far away, from underwater orthrough layers of glass, he heard someone crying, and then, vaguely, he registered tears on his cheeks, growing sticky on his jaw.

“Oh God.”

What had he done? He gazed down at January and his stomach twisted. What had he done to his darling girl? Then, ever so slowly, he stood as a new question formed in his mind: What was he supposed to do now?

He gazed around at the blackness of the underground room, feeling as if he were standing in the mouth of a monster. He did not want to leave January down there in its jaws, but it was beginning to dawn on him that he had no choice. He couldn’t call an ambulance now. He couldn’t call the police. It was too suspicious—him finding January in the middle of the night, moments after she’d died. He needed to put distance between her body and himself. He needed January’s death to look like an accident. When he and Krissy woke the next morning and found January dead at the bottom of these stairs, the only logical assumption would be that she had sleepwalked and fallen to her death. It would be horrible and believable.

He didn’t look at her as he turned to the stairs. He took one step, then another, and that was when he saw it: the little scrap of baby blanket on the basement stairs. So that was why January had been down there that night. She never slept without her baby blanket, but Krissy had put it in the wash earlier. He remembered because January had made a big deal about it at dinner. She must’ve woken in the middle of the night and gone to get it.

Quietly, Billy stepped up the stairs to retrieve it, then returned to January’s side. He couldn’t just leave her like that, cold and alone. He’d given the blanket to her the day she was born. He always told her it would make her brave if she just squeezed it tight enough. It was their thing together—their little secret. He leaned over to tuck the scrap of snowflake-patterned fabric into one limp hand. He knew it was stupid and worthless, knew shewouldn’t need it wherever she was now. But—who knew?—maybe, just maybe, it could bring her some peace.

Billy turned from January to climb the stairs, his mind already spinning with what the next day would bring, preparing himself for the performance of a lifetime.