"MY NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD GRANDSON PUSHED ME INTO THE LAKE, my daughter-in-law filmed it, and my son said I needed attention — but NONE of them expected the silence that followed.

The house smelled of old grease and stale lake air when I went back inside at twelve o'clock.

Frank Miller stayed until one. He helped me carry the silver frame back into the dining room, put the red garden rock back in the flowerbed by the hose, and checked the padlock on the garage.

"You want me to send my sister over tonight, Margaret?" Frank asked as he stood by his cruiser door. "She could sleep on the daybed in the den. Just so you're not alone."

"No, Frank," I said. I was standing on the porch with my hands folded over my stomach. "I've been alone since ninety-nine. I just had four people staying in the extra rooms."

Frank nodded once. He put his tan hat on, adjusted the brim, and got into his car.

"I'll have the night car double-check the lane around nine," he said through the window. "If they come back, don't go to the door. Just press the button on the wall."

"They won't come back, Frank," I said. "Arthur's afraid of the dark."

When the police car was gone, I went into the kitchen.

The sink was full of their dishes.

There were three coffee mugs with dark brown rings dried around the inside, four plastic plates from the picnic set covered in cold bacon fat, and a small glass jar that Brody had used to keep his lake worms in.

I didn't start with the dishes.

I went to the pantry. I took down the iron kettle—the three-quart kettle with the copper bottom that Thomas had bought at the hardware store in 1972.

I filled it at the cold tap.

The water came out yellow at first—it always came out yellow if the pump had been running hard—then turned clear and cold as ice.

I set the kettle on the front burner of the electric stove. I turned the dial to high.

While the water was heating, I went into the dining room.

The sideboard was covered in their small messes: three empty candy wrappers, a pair of cheap sunglasses with one arm broken off, and a receipt from a McDonald's in Lansing for twenty-two dollars and forty cents.

I picked them all up. I put them into a brown paper grocery bag.

I went into the living room.

The couch cushions—the green floral chintz cushions I’d bought from Sears—were squashed down, showing the white canvas backing underneath. I pulled them off, carried them out to the back porch, and beat them with the carpet beater until the gray dust flew out into the sun.

I fluffed them. I put them back on the frame.

The kettle began to whistle.

It wasn't a sharp scream; it was a low, steady fwww-hhhh that filled the kitchen with white steam.

I poured the boiling water into a blue ceramic bowl. I added two drops of liquid soap—the clear, lemons-scented soap I kept in the white bottle—and picked up my dish rag.

I washed Arthur's coffee mug first.

I rubbed the dark brown ring until the white porcelain showed clean and bright under the lather. I washed the bacon fat off the plastic plates. I took Brody's worm jar, walked out to the back garden, and threw it into the tall weeds behind the compost heap.

When the kitchen was clean, I sat down at the yellow table.

I had a cup of black tea—Lipton's, two minutes in the mug—and one slice of dry white bread with a little plum jam on the crust.

The kitchen clock ticked.

Tick-tock. Tick-tock.

It was two o'clock.

The sun was directly overhead now, coming through the window behind the sink and laying a big yellow square across the floorboards.

I looked at the floorboards.

Right where Arthur had stood yesterday morning while he was drinking his Diet Coke, there was a small red circle—a stain from where he'd spilled three drops of his soda on the unsealed pine near the cellar door.

I got down on my knees.

My knees made that dry snap-crack sound again, but I didn't care.

I took the stiff scrub brush from under the sink and a square bar of lye soap.

I wet the brush in the blue bowl. I rubbed the soap into the bristle until it was thick with white foam.

I scrubbed the red stain.

I scrubbed until the pine turned white, until the grain stood up in tiny rough threads under my fingers, until the soda stain was gone and there was nothing left on the wood except the smell of cold lye and wet cedar.

When I stood up, my navy dress was wet at the hem.