But it wasn’t Bob, it was Donnie. “Oh, shoot, I really wanted to talk to you guys.”

She picked up the phone, leaned back against the counter, and said, “So talk. I was coming back from the garage.”

Donnie was bubbling over with news. He was living in Cleveland, Ohio, now, and after two years of thankless toiling in an entry-level position with the city’s largest ad firm, he and a friend had decided to strike out on their own. Bob had strongly advised against this, telling Donnie that Donnie and his partner would never get the start-up loan they needed to make it through the first year.

“Wake up,” he’d said after Darcy turned the phone over to him. In the early spring this had been, with the last bits of snow still lurking beneath the trees and bushes in the backyard. “You’re twenty-four, Donnie, and so’s your pal Ken. You two galoots can’t even get collision insurance on your cars for another year, just straight liability. No bank’s going to underwrite a seventy-thousand-dollar start-up, especially with the economy the way it is.”

But they had gotten the loan, and now had landed two big clients, both on the same day. One was a car dealership looking for a fresh approach that would attract thirtysomething buyers. The other was the very bank that had issued Anderson amp; Hayward their start-up loan. Darcy shouted with delight, and Donnie yelled right back. They talked for twenty minutes or so. Once during the conversation they were interrupted by the double-beep of an incoming call.

“Do you want to get that?” Donnie asked.

“No, it’s just your father. He’s in Montpelier, looking at a collection of steel pennies. He’ll call back before he turns in.”

“How’s he doing?”

Fine, she thought. Developing new interests.

“Upright and sniffin the air,” she said. It was one of Bob’s favorites, and it made Donnie laugh. She loved to hear him laugh.

“And Pets?”

“Call her yourself and see, Donald.”

“I will, I will. I always get around to it. In the meantime, thumbnail me.”

“She’s great. Full of wedding plans.”

“You’d think it was next week instead of next June.”

“Donnie, if you don’t make an effort to understand women, you’ll never get married yourself.”

“I’m in no hurry, I’m having too much fun.”

“Just as long as you have fun carefully.”

“I’m very careful and very polite. I’ve got to run, Ma. I’m meeting Ken for a drink in half an hour. We’re going to start brainstorming this car thing.”

She almost told him not to drink too much, then restrained herself. He might still look like a high school junior, and in her clearest memory of him he was a five-year-old in a red corduroy jumper, tirelessly pushing his scooter up and down the concrete paths of Joshua Chamberlain Park in Pownal, but he was neither of those boys anymore. He was a young man, and also, as improbable as it seemed, a young entrepreneur beginning to make his way in the world.

“Okay,” she said. “Thanks for calling, Donnie. It was a treat.”

“Same here. Say hello to the old feller when he calls back, and give him my love.”

“I will.”

“Upright and sniffin the air,” Donnie said, and snickered. “How many Cub Scout packs has he taught that one to?”

“All of them.” Darcy opened the refrigerator to see if there was perchance a Butterfinger in there, chilling and awaiting her amorous intentions. Nope. “It’s terrifying.”

“Love you, Mom.”

“Love you, too.”

She hung up, feeling good again. Smiling. But as she stood there, leaning against the counter, the smile faded.

A clunk.

There had been a clunk when she pushed the box of catalogues back under the workbench. Not a clatter, as if the box had struck a dropped tool, but a clunk. Sort of hollow-sounding.

I don’t care.

Unfortunately, this was not true. The clunk felt like unfinished business. The carton did, too. Were there other magazines like Bondage Bitches stashed in there?

I don’t want to know.

Right, right, but maybe she should find out, just the same. Because if there was just the one, she was right about its being sexual curiosity that had been fully satisfied by a single peek into an unsavory (and unbalanced, she added to herself) world. If there were more, that might still be all right-he was throwing them out, after all-but maybe she should know.

Mostly… that clunk. It lingered on her mind more than the question about the magazines.

She snagged a flashlight from the pantry and went back out to the garage. She pinched the lapels of her housecoat shut immediately and wished she’d put on her jacket. It was really getting cold. – 4 -

Darcy got down on her knees, pushed the box of catalogues to one side, and shone the light under the worktable. For a moment she didn’t understand what she was seeing: two lines of darkness interrupting the smooth baseboard, one slightly fatter than the other. Then a thread of disquiet formed in her midsection, stretching from the middle of her breastbone down to the pit of her stomach. It was a hiding place.

Leave this alone, Darcy. It’s his business, and for your own peace of mind you should let it stay that way.

Good advice, but she had come too far to take it. She crawled under the worktable with the flashlight in her hand, steeling herself for the brush of cobwebs, but there were none. If she was the original out-of-sight, out-of-mind girl, then her balding, coin-collecting, Cub Scouting husband was the original everything-polished, everything-clean boy.

Also, he’s crawled under here himself, so no cobwebs would have a chance to form.

Was that true? She didn’t actually know, did she?

But she thought she did.

The cracks were at either end of an eight-inch length of baseboard that appeared to have a dowel or something in the middle so it could pivot. She had struck it with the box just hard enough to jar it open, but that didn’t explain the clunk. She pushed one end of the board. It swung in on one end and out on the other, revealing a hidey-hole eight inches long, a foot high, and maybe eighteen inches deep. She thought she might discover more magazines, possibly rolled up, but there were no magazines. There was a little wooden box, one she was pretty sure she recognized. It was the box that had made the clunking sound. It had been standing on end, and the pivoting baseboard had knocked it over.

She reached in, grasped it, and-with a sense of misgiving so strong it almost had a texture-brought it out. It was the little oak box she had given to him at Christmas five years ago, maybe more. Or had it been for his birthday? She didn’t remember, just that it had been a good buy at the craft shop in Castle Rock. Hand-carved on the top, in bas-relief, was a chain. Below the chain, also in bas-relief, was the box’s stated purpose: LINKS. Bob had a clutter of cufflinks, and although he favored button-style shirts for work, some of his wrist-jewelry was quite nice. She remembered thinking the box would help keep them organized. Darcy knew she’d seen it on top of the bureau on his side of the bedroom for awhile after the gift was unwrapped and exclaimed over, but couldn’t remember seeing it lately. Of course she hadn’t. It was out here, in the hidey-hole under his worktable, and she would have bet the house and lot (another of his sayings) that if she opened it, it wouldn’t be cufflinks she found inside.

Don’t look, then.

More good advice, but now she had come much too far to take it. Feeling like a woman who has wandered into a casino and for some mad reason staked her entire life’s savings on a single turn of a single card, she opened the box.

Let it be empty. Please God, if you love me let it be empty.

But it wasn’t. There were three plastic oblongs inside, bound with an elastic band. She picked the bundle out, using just the tips of her fingers-as a woman might handle a cast-off rag she fears may be germy as well as dirty. Darcy slipped off the elastic.