the rain woke me, not the alarm. i don’t wake up to the alarm. alan does. it’s on his side of the bed, you see. that’s why i don’t recall the time. the alarm, alan was between us. i didn’t realize they were there at first. at first i only noticed the open window, the stripped moonlight, the ultraviolet color of the rain as it ricocheted off the sill. they stood at the foot of our bed, the three of them all in a row: the younger girl, she was closest to the window. the tall man in the middle. to his right, the older lady. they were silent, hands folded in front, little bookmarks holding their place.

i stirred alan with a quick elbow to the ribs. he woke. who the hell are you all? he asked. no, i don’t think we were frightened. that wouldn’t be the word for it. more like...elated. i felt like joseph k. before the committee, eager for a dole of pleasure, pain, whatever they had on them, really. the girl, she was sad looking, black hair all wispy smoke, loose, ungovernable curls. her eyes like a bat’s asshole, puckered and dark. the tall man was tall, like goliath tall, but wiry and oddly-jointed, the knees too close to the hips, the elbows too close to the shoulders. his head was flat and parallel to the brow. the older gal, she’d a blonde blowout and bright green lipstick. a black pleather onesie fit her in all the right places, and over her shoulder was a baseball bat riven through with rusty nails.

now a thing like that gets your attention, so i sat up in bed real quick and reached for the phone, but it was gone. the girl held it out to me, bored and helpless. meet us downstairs, the tall man said. where? alan asked. it doesn’t matter, said the girl. well then let’s meet at the breakfast nook. i nearly squealed. everyone turned. we’d had it installed just last spring: dalbergia wood. built by two hefty bulgarians in carhartt pants. our three guests pivoted without comment and descended the stairs. isn’t this what we’re supposed to own a gun for? alan asked, rhetorically, as though posing a philosophical quandary. what, i scoffed, you gonna shoot them, are you? what do you think they want? alan stood, draping the yellow yakata over his shoulders, the one he bought that horrible night we spent in nagoya. i hated that thing. when he walked too fast he looked like a runny egg. maybe we won something, he said, like a sweepstakes. i laughed in his face. is that why they’re inviting us downstairs in the wee hours of the morning, i countered, to present us with a novelty check? is that really what you think? he stopped. i guess i don’t know, he said, cinching the yukata shut at the waist.

i stepped into my ox tongue slippers and down the stairs we went. do you think they’re religious? alan asked. don’t be silly, i said, good christian women don’t wear pleather. we found them in the kitchen. the girl lulled across the granite island, little juliet in the tomb, arm poised tragically above her head, an empty gaze to the ceiling. the older lady stood guard at the patio door. the tall man sat on the inside of the nook and gestured with one hand for us to join him. alan and i took our seats. only then and there, in that light, did it all became suddenly so clear: the dalbergia really was a good investment.

the lot of us shared a moment of silence. one of you needs to leave with us, the tall man said. and that was all he said. the way he said it did not invite follow up. so no, we didn’t ask where or why or when. for at that moment a door at the back of the house unlatched, and through the open portal we could now hear the rain slowing to a trickle. i’ve never seen that door before, alan said. nor had i.

i’d like some early grey. would anybody like any tea? i asked. nobody said anything. i stood and prepped the kettle. alan went into the pantry cupboard. he pulled out a box of animal crackers and a jar of nutella. he lined up all the crackers in a little row, like the beasts of noah’s ark, only the box contained no duplicates. just one giraffe, one hippopotamus, one macai monkey. they’d get as far as the flood, i thought, but what then? what came after the rain when there was only one of you? what would be the point of all that? alan played with his food. he did little voices for the animals, mewing protests from the cows, cooing promises from the snowbirds. alan left me to deliberate, to arrive at some impending fait accompli. alan would go or he would stay, it mattered little to him. at first alan would carry bits of me around with him, at least for the first few days, running on them as though they were double-a batteries. but eventually those batteries would die out, and he'd wake somewhere in the woods without me. he’d wake to the birds singing in the trees, to the new shoots of spring grass, to the smell of tomorrow’s rain. yet alan would find solace there, even without me. he’d stretch out his hands and find all ten fingers reaching in every direction, around the trees and the bushes and the felled timber and the dancing cicadas. alan might wrap his arms around it all and find peace. i—on the other hand—would collapse.

they must’ve taken him out the secret door in the back of the house. no, i don’t remember exactly the moment. i had been standing there in front of the kettle, thinking. i don’t remember saying goodbye. no last hug or final kiss. none of that, just the final sight of them walking down the hill outside our house, trudging through the long grass, entering the woods in a single-file line, one after the other. alan was the last among them, the newest member of their strange family. no, he didn’t turn to wave goodbye. he just marched headlong into the woods, not knowing or caring where it might take him.

i walked through every room of the house. twice. i touched every hard surface—the sinks, the record player, the coffee tables, even the lap desk. i catalogued all of his clothes and each album in his record collection. i looked through all his photo albums. and then i called you. no, not to find him. just to let you know he was gone. no, i don’t want to file a missing person’s report. no, i don’t wish to report a crime. i just thought to tell you i was alone now. so that the record would be clear. and i thought you and i...perhaps we might wait out the rain together.