"Mice," Del said, but he didn't sound like he believed it, and he didn't look at her when he said it. He looked at the cat, lying under the table. "He threw up?"
"Just now."
"Fiberglass'll do that. Poor guy." Del crouched down, his knees popping, and put a hand on Milo's side and held it there. Milo's eyes half-closed. Del stayed like that for a long moment, his big hand rising and falling with the cat's breathing. Then he stood up.
"I'll put a board over the scuttle hole tonight," he said. "Keep him out of there."
"Del—"
"I'm going to be late, Jan."
He picked up his satchel and went.
* * *
The Ding Dong fight happened that night, and it was worse than the first one.
It started with the milk. She'd stopped at Kroger on her way home from her shift, picked up a gallon of two-percent and a loaf of bread and a box of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls, because she was weak and because she'd been up since two-forty. She was putting the milk in the refrigerator when she saw the face on the side of the carton.
It was Kevin.
Not the school picture. A different one, a snapshot, grainy in the blue ink the dairy used, Kevin in a Little League uniform squinting into the sun with his cap pushed back. MISSING CHILD, it said above it. KEVIN RAYMOND DOYLE. DOB 4/11/74. HT 4'9". WT 76 LBS. LAST SEEN XENIA, OHIO, 10/29/85. IF YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION—and a phone number.
Janet stood with the refrigerator door open and the cold air pouring over her feet.
Seventy-six pounds. She thought of a seventy-six-pound boy out in weather that was going down into the teens.
There was a half-gallon of milk already in the refrigerator, the girl from Michigan facing the back wall. Janet had bought it Monday. It was nearly empty.
She took it out and held it up. Two inches left. She did not drink milk except in her coffee. Del had milk on his Grape-Nuts, one bowl, every morning.
She was still standing there holding it when Del came in from the garage with a square of plywood and a handful of nails.