Murphy nodded, the perfect straight man.

"I was the one leading him, Murphy."

And then she walked out to answer the door, and Murphy was left behind wondering why he was so surprised.

* * *

It was Cindy. Of course it was, Timmie thought, pulling the door wide to let her in.

"I don't know what to do," Cindy was saying before the door was even open. "That asshole's dropped me. Dropped me. After what I've given him. Timmie, what do I do?"

Timmie saw the tears that streaked Cindy's mottled face, the bedraggled state of her hair, and thought, Oh, what the hell. It was easier than talking to Murphy about her dad.

"Come on, Cindy," she said, turning her blithely back in the direction of the front yard. "Let's go work on my car."

"I don't want to work on your car!" Cindy wailed, distress lifting her voice like a curtain in high wind, then dropping it into misery. "I just want to feel better."

Any other morning Timmie might have been surly. But Cindy hurt. Timmie could hear it in every syllable. So Timmie smiled and put an arm around her shoulders and guided her away from Murphy, who didn't need to hear this. "I know, hon. But the sunshine will help. And I can teach you to be self-sufficient enough not to need another asshole again as long as you live."

"You do that," Cindy said, sniffing, "and I'm your slave forever."

It seemed to work. Not only did Cindy not notice Murphy in Timmie's house, but within twenty minutes they'd discovered Cyrano's problem and been joined by Ellen, who bore with her the name of a lawyer who was just dying to get her teeth into a delinquent husband.

"I was cleaning out some things this morning," she said by way of explanation. "And I came across this. I guess I just never had the guts to use her when I still could... Cindy, are you okay?"

Which gave Timmie the perfect chance to skip on up to the house to use the phone. The good news was that the lawyer was interested. The bad news was that, of course, she would cost money. Timmie bit the bullet and hired her when she said that since Timmie had filed her need to move with the California court, Jason's latest paper chase was nothing short of imbecilic and could be taken care of in short order. Timmie hung up feeling better than she had all night.

"Did you know that Mary Jane Arlington was head nurse at that Boston nursing home your golden boy ran?" Murphy immediately asked, puffing away on a cigarette he must have found under her father's bed as he made quick shorthand notes on a pad of paper he was balancing against his leg. "Her name was Mary Jane Freize then, but it's her. My old editor's sending pictures."

Timmie glared at him. "It's Halloween," she reminded him. "Tell me tomorrow."

So even with Murphy on her phone and her friends in the driveway, Timmie spent the rest of the day without having to deal with anything more than Cyrano's distributor, the cranky bobbin on her sewing machine, and the fact that Ellen and Cindy didn't seem happy unless they could play endless games of "my love life has been more screwed up than yours."

As for Murphy, he was deemed a little too frightening to be answering any doors, so he got dropped off the minute Cyrano was in service and Timmie's friends were out the door. He lost any grace points he'd earned by smiling at Timmie's ugly little car and saying, "Oh, look. I have a Cabriolet, too." His Cabriolet, of course, wasn't a 1983 Peugeot. It wasn't even rusted.

And that evening, with the clouds scudding in appropriately creepy fashion across an old yellow moon and jack-o'-lanterns lit into leers, Timmie took a very excited Scheherazade out to trick or treat in a costume that billowed and sparkled when she whirled. Since sundown signaled a temperature drop, Scheherazade had to deal with a coat over her lovely outfit, but at least she didn't have to worry about being ambushed by wayward straight pins.

After Meghan's pillowcase sack of candy had been inspected and half-consumed and all the other porch lights on the street flipped off to signal the close to the evening, Timmie ended her long day awake and watching Megs sleep in her veil and lipstick. It was enough for her, even though Megs let Renfield be the one to wake Timmie the next morning from her place curled up in the armchair in the corner of the room. It had to be. The first thing Timmie had to do that Saturday morning was go see her mother.

* * *

"I suppose you think this is an improvement."

Timmie bent over to kiss her mother's taut cheek. "Hi, Mom. Good to see you, too."

Her mother, a prim, petite, precise woman of sixty-five, couldn't drag her eyes from her daughter's hair or mismatched clothing or jangling earrings. Not that Timmie was disconcerted. She'd spent most of her childhood bearing up to similar scrutiny.

Kathleen Leary saw the world as a place that never met her standards. All it took to remain in her good graces was to allow her to attempt your conversion. Timmie had not been in her good graces for a very long time. It didn't increase Timmie's self-respect to know that she'd spent an hour choosing the outfit most likely to elicit maternal outrage. It didn't keep the smile off her face when she saw her mother's reaction to the short brown skirt, oversized Insane Clown Posse T-shirt, and Doc Martens Timmie wore, either.

"I have the pictures you wanted," Kathleen said, closing the door behind Timmie and following her into the beige-and-peach living room Timmie had always thought of as her mother's ode to conformity. "You're more than welcome to them. Where's Meghan?"

Timmie's attention was already drawn toward the spotless white kitchen, where she could hear the distinct sounds of snuffling. Oh, hell. It was going to be worse than she'd thought.

"Meg is on an overnight," she lied rather than explain why her very opinionated daughter did not want to see the grandmother who'd never quite managed a kind word to her.

As for the grandmother, she pursed her features in a quick moue of displeasure. "Oh. Well, you'd think she could take a little time out to see me. After all, you two have been back over a month and haven't been up once."

"That's okay," Timmie answered, heading unerringly toward the center of her mother's life. "I figure Rose gives you enough attention for the two of us. Hello, Rose."

Her older sister by twelve years, Rose had been intended to be the last of the Leary children. Rose had never gotten over the fact that she wasn't. She was sitting at the teak kitchen table with a cup of tea and a box of Kleenex, a puffy, unattractive woman with lank brown hair and basset hound eyes.

"I'm... sorry, Timmie," she said, sniffling. "I shouldn't be intruding. I just needed to talk to Mom for a while. It's Bob. I just don't know what to do with him anymore."

Bob being her husband of fifteen years who was nasty, shallow, mean, and philandering. But without whose unending ill treatment Rose would not be able to play her favorite role of long-suffering martyr.

"I just want to feel better," she said with a much-too-familiar sigh.

Timmie found herself fighting off the urge to laugh. Poor Cindy. No wonder she got snapped at so much.

"I know," Timmie said and remembered all over again why she'd started tagging along after her father in the first place. "I won't be long. I just needed to get some pictures for the nursing home and talk to Mom about a little financial help."

Kathleen Leary stiffened as if Timmie had cursed or thrown a baseball in the kitchen. "I think we've had that discussion. After forty-five years of supporting that man, I don't think I should be expected to flush any more money down that toilet."