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something, she knows, but she also knows that it is maybe not the start she was looking for. She closes her eyes and pictures herself hovering above all of her possessions, flying away. She imagines herself in a forest. A dark, deep forest. Walking out into it, naked, and never coming back. She hears Ronnie fumble with his keys at the front door, swearing. She disappears into a cathedral of trees.
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    Tiny goes missing. Jeanne calls Jack late on a Sunday to tell him, apologizes if she’s interrupting anything. He has been watching a tedious sitcom, his prosthesis off, the stump tucked away out of sight under a blanket. The bowl of chili he spilled reaching for the phone is splattered all over the floor. He looks at it dolefully. Well, it was giving him heartburn, and he shouldn’t be eating that junk, anyway. He pounds his chest and burps.
    â€œNow, Huddie, I don’t want to jump to no conclusions. But that cat, Hud—it could have just come down out of the woods behind the house and waited. I let him out for five minutes. Five minutes . That panther could have just slunk in and—oh! I’ve got goose pimples just thinking about it—carried him away.”
    Jack can picture her perfectly, pacing the kitchen, ripping at her fingernails, the phone pinched under her chin. In moments of crisis, she has always managed to lose herself in a cyclone of panic. Never keeps her head. He sighs, too loudly, sending a rush of wind into the phone. Jeanne falls silent.
    Damn, he thinks. Christ. Now I’ve done it.
    â€œWell, I’m sorry , Jack. I shouldn’t have called you so late. I’m sorry. Never mind. Get back to what you were doing. Never mind me. We can talk in the morning.”
    â€œWe’ll find him, Jeannie,” he hears himself saying, cutting her short. “We’ll find him. He’s just gone off to sow some wild oats. He’s just been feeling full of himself, these days.” As he goes on, Jack finds that he wants to believe himself. “He just went off for a little tour of the neighborhood. That’s all, Jeannie. That’s all. I promise. We’ll find him tomorrow.”
    When he walks into the shop in the morning Jeanne is there already, red-eyed and red-nosed, leaves clinging to her jeans where she’s been down on her hands and knees, checking under the porch and in the old spring box. She takes a step towards him, as if she is going to fall into his arms, then hesitates, bites her lip, collapses in a chair, and covers her face with her hands, letting out a muffled sob that hits Jack like a hammer in the chest.
    They drive around all day doing twenty-five, Jeanne hanging half out the window, calling and whistling. “ Tiiiii-ny!” It’s a warm day, more September than December, and clouds of hatched gnats hover in the road.
    Jeanne calls herself hoarse. Every so often Jack finds himself watching her heavy backside waggle as she strains out the window, then looks back quickly at the road, disturbed by it, vowing not to look again. At four o’clock they decide it’s time to quit, without having found hair or hide of Tiny. Jeanne is crumpled against the door of the car as if she doesn’t have the strength or the will to hold herself up. Jack feels utterly powerless.
    When he drops her off back at the house, he grabs her hand before she gets out of the car and meets her eye. “You gonna be all right tonight?”
    She bites her lip and nods.
    â€œYou call me if you need anything. You just pick up the phone and call. I’ll put the phone right by the bed. All right?” He watches her go in and waits until she’s closed the door behind her before he puts the car in gear.
    Jack stops at the end of the drive, pops a pill, and eats a granola bar from the glove box. He is cramped up, exhausted, the small of his back aching and his glucose levels all out of whack. He feels hollow, nearly desolate. It can’t just be