It hadn’t ever been much. A little cross-gabled Cape Cod: eight hundred square feet with a half-story attic, an unfinished basement, one small bathroom on the main floor. But it sat on a nice corner lot with big old trees and lots of yard. This spring, his grandmother’s flower beds still bloomed through the weeds.

Sondra watched him wolf down the last of the eggs, polish off a glass of milk. The food only made him hungrier.

Just as he pushed away, heading back to the counter for seconds, she reached across the table. In the dry air, a light snap of static electricity nipped his wrist where she touched him.

“It’s been a year,” she said. “Are we really still enemies?”

A year. “It’s been nine months. And I’ve never been your enemy.”

He took his plate and went back to the stove. When he looked back and saw her expression, something wilted in his chest.

As much as he’d wanted to imagine otherwise, there was no denying the obvious: The divorce had been like medicine for her. Fresh in from the cold, Sondra looked like a summer morning. It was the first time they’d talked face to face in two months, and she looked ten years younger.

As a matter of fact, she looked radiant.

It took him just that long to put it together. And then he understood. He didn’t know how he knew it with such certainty, but he knew it. Sondra wasn’t here about the house at all.

“You’re pregnant,” he said.

He hadn’t intended to say it out loud. The words fell out of him. Sondra looked up, eyes suddenly glassy. Worth stood at the counter, skillet in hand, stove burner glowing hot behind him.

“Really?”

She nodded.

“Wow.”

“Mark and I are getting married,” she said. Her voice gained a quiver, but she took a breath and laid it out. “Tahoe. In January, New Year’s Day. We just found out about the baby. We weren’t even going to start trying until after the wedding.”

Tahoe. Mark. The baby.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“You don’t have to say that. I know you don’t mean it. I just needed to tell you, and I’ve been trying to decide how, and there’s no good way.”

Worth only heard bits and pieces. The baby. He couldn’t get past the words. Five years, they’d knocked themselves out: doctors, money, strain, exhaustion. Quiet defeat. Vargas got it done without even trying.

“I got up this morning sick as a dog,” she said. “And then I had the appointment with the agent, and…I don’t know. Everything just seemed to crash together. I felt like I couldn’t let another day go by.”

You wouldn’t have known she was crying by her voice. Just a clear tear or two, caught in her eyelashes, the faint blush at the tip of her nose that meant either she’d been crying or she’d had a glass of red wine. Worth thought of Sondra sitting at this same table the day of Kelly’s funeral; she’d cried then, too. These were different tears entirely.

“I’m not asking you to be happy for…me.” Happy for us. She’d edited herself just before saying it. “I know I can’t ask you that. But I needed you to know. I’m sorry for just showing up like this. It’s not really fair.”

“Don’t apologize.”

“I know it’s not fair.”

“It’s not your fault,” he heard himself say. “You deserve to be happy.”

Sondra made a quiet sound.

When he looked, she was up from her chair, halfway around the table. At the stove, she took his face in her hands and looked in his eyes.

She kissed him. One good kiss, warm and full. When it was over, she put her damp salty cheek next to his.

“Even if you’re lying,” she said, “I love you for saying that.”

Without thinking about it, he put his arms around her. She let him draw her in, and they stood there awhile. Worth could feel the faint flutter of her heart beating. He imagined he could feel an extra pulse of warmth where her flat belly pressed against his belt line. It was the first tender moment between them in as long as he could remember, and every second of it broke his heart.

Eventually, Sondra leaned back and said, “You smell like Clorox.”

“Yeah?” For a few minutes he’d actually forgotten what he’d been doing all morning.

They agreed it must be the pregnancy. She claimed she’d been walking around smelling all kinds of things that weren’t really there.

The mystery woman came out the front door of the little house about forty minutes after they’d both gone in the back together.

Sexy little thing. Tight jeans, high-heel boots, great hair. Cute little jacket, wool trim. All warm and toasty.

“She is fine,” Ray Salcedo said, watching her cross the street.

“That’s called a shearling jacket.”

“Huh?”

“That coat she’s wearing,” Tony said. He’d been paging through the clothing catalog he’d found on the floor of Ray’s SUV. He pointed to the picture. “Shearling. Bet you didn’t know that.”

“You’re gay.”

“It’s your catalog.”

They watched. She tossed some hair back, dug in the purse on her shoulder, came out with a set of keys. A point, a click, and she got into the silver Land Rover parked along the opposite curb. She buckled her seat belt.

“Good girl,” Ray said. “Safety first.”

Tony wrote down the plate number beneath the house number. To keep it straight, he scribbled (babe in land rover).

She sat behind the wheel for a moment, doing nothing. The side windows of the Rover had a smoky tint, but from their angle, they had a partial view through the windshield.

She put her hands over her face. After a bit, her head and shoulders began to bounce. Just a little.

“Awww,” Tony said. “There, there.”

“Hey, girl. Why so sad?”

Tony glanced back at the house and said, “Damn. Guess our boy’s got some game.”

The mystery woman sat like that for a minute or so. Then she finally straightened up and rubbed her eyes. She leaned over, came up with a tissue, and blew her nose.

As soon as she was finished, she started the Rover and pulled away.

“Shit,” Ray said, slouching down in the seat.

Tony pulled his cap low and did the same.

At the stop sign, she turned right and drove past them, steering with one hand, still wiping at her eyes with the other.

“So, what,” Ray said. “You want to sit on the house, or find out where that one’s heading?”

Tony thought about it. The mystery woman was probably nothing. The way it looked, their boy had sent her packing. This was a guy who had things to do.

On the other hand, who the hell knew what was what? The more they knew, the better.

Then again…

“She’s turning.”

“Shit, I dunno. What do you think?”

“It’s your uncle.”

Fuck it. Tony nodded up the street. “We know where the janitor lives. Follow the babe in the Land Rover.”

8

An hour before dusk, the first trace of sleet began to patter against the windows like fine white sand.

Worth finished cleaning up in the basement and laid everything out on an old towel to dry. He grabbed a shower and another plate of eggs and headed back out to the garage.

He pulled all the masking tape, the newspaper with it, and shoved the whole wad into a garbage bag. He turned off the space heater and the fans and gathered up the half acre’s worth of drop cloths he’d used to line the garage. He left the blue tarp draped over the Ranger.

In the adjacent stall sat a 1971 Pontiac GTO, minus a spoiler, clad now in a tacky coat of American Home Interior Satin. Tawny Barnwood, Prairie Earth Collection.

Worth went to the workbench where he’d left the inventory of items he’d collected from the interior of the car. Title and registration. A fat padded folio of CDs. A loaded .38 revolver, a sleeve of unopened rubbers. A handheld Bearcat police scanner. Half a pack of Dentyne.