“No problem. Look, Frank-” I stopped myself from bringing up the subject again.

His bruised face turned to me in a questioning look. I thought about how he got those bruises, and felt like a complete jerk. He must have seen the guilt on my face. He reached up and brushed some loose strands of hair away from my eyes.

“Give me a call later? If you get a chance?” he said.

“Sure. How late will you be up?”

“Don’t worry about it. If I’m asleep, the machine will get it. I never know when I’m going to be asleep or awake anymore.”

We said our good-byes.

“Irene?” He called to me as I went down the walk.

I turned around. “Yeah”

“Have a good time tonight. I mean it.”

“I’ll try. Don’t worry about me, okay?”

“Can’t promise that.”

“You better work on it, Frank, or I’ll drive you nuts.”

“Too late for that warning.”

That comment had me smiling to myself all the way back to the paper.

THAT AFTERNOON, I studied up on current politics. I had kept up with most of it through O’Connor, but having the responsibility of covering it made me look at it in finer detail. At about five-thirty, Lydia stopped by my desk. “Ready to go home?” she said.

“Yeah, I’ll drop you off and then I’m going to my place-I’m going to the Hollingsworth fund-raiser and someone’s picking me up there.”

A look of concern came over her face. “I don’t think being at your house is such a terrific idea, Irene.”

“And I don’t think it’s smart for anyone to know I’m staying over at your place-I’m going with Guy St. Germain, from the bank, and even though I’m sure he’s not involved in any of this, someone else at the bank might be. So I’d rather not reveal the fact that I’m staying at your house-it might put you in danger, and I’d never forgive myself for that.”

“Yeah? Well, how do you think I’m going to feel if something happens to you over there tonight? I think you’re crazy to go anywhere near your house. Couldn’t you have met Guy somewhere else?”

“I have to go over there to get clothes for tonight anyway. I need some time to get dressed and ready. I won’t be there very long.”

“I don’t know, Irene. It just doesn’t seem wise for you to be over there.”

“I’ll be okay. It won’t even be dark by the time Guy picks me up.”

Twenty minutes later, she was standing in her driveway, still protesting, while I closed the car door and drove off.

As I made the turn down my block, I felt growing apprehension. Lydia’s nervousness was apparently contagious. I tried to convince myself that this was my own home, and that sooner or later I was going to have to return to it. Whatever bravado I had worked up came crashing down when I saw the large piece of plywood over the front window.

When Frank and I had left the house, it was dark out and I was too preoccupied to notice what the boarded-up window did to the look of the place. Now, in daylight, it looked stark and forbidding, a testament to the violence of this past week. It sealed off the house, made it look like abandoned, damaged goods. I wondered if Lydia was right after all. Too bad I didn’t have the bucks just to go out shopping for new clothes.

But then I smiled to myself thinking of how pissed off the neighbors must be at me for not having replaced the window yet. It did add a sordid touch to the gentrification process. I’d have to make a call to a glass company.

I walked up the front steps, the nervousness creeping back over me. I opened the door and was met by a smell that made me realize I hadn’t taken the trash out when I left.

The front room was very dark, owing to the fact that a major source of light was now covered in plywood. I found the switch, and my eyes immediately went to Granddad’s chair. I had known it would be there, but the actual sight of the gaping hole in its back froze me in place. In my mind I could feel Frank tackling me to the floor, hear the glass shattering and the booming of the gun. Images of O’Connor’s house, Frank slumped over the steering wheel, Miss Ralston on the sidewalk, and Elaine Tannehill tied to a chair quickly followed. I pushed the door shut behind me and locked it.

I was trembling and suddenly overwhelmed with doubt. I tried to shake it off, took some deep breaths. “This is my house, goddamn it!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “And you bastards are not going to make me afraid of my own home.” My own voice echoed through the empty house. I smiled to myself, thinking the neighbors really would think they had moved in next to a lunatic.

I picked up the pile of mail that had gathered beneath the front-door slot, and sorted through it quickly. Four bills and thirty-eight pieces of junk mail.

As I walked through the house, I turned on lights everywhere. I went into the kitchen and got the trash can, going around to the bedroom and bathroom to gather the trash from those rooms as well. I unlocked the back door and walked out into the yard. It was a poor cousin to Frank’s, but it had its charm for me. The jasmine from my neighbor’s yard was in the air again. My own yard’s patch of grass was looking a little dried out, but it was comforting to see. The rosebushes I had planted along the back fence had scattered colorful petals all over the ground and had mostly bare hips and a few buds at this point, although one or two brave blossoms still held on here and there. I opened the back gate and set the trash out in the alley. All clear. No one lurking, waiting to kill me.

I shut the gate and started to walk back in, when I heard a car coming down the alley. I froze in my tracks, listening. It drove on without stopping. Nothing to be afraid of, I told myself. I went into the house and locked the back door. I went around to all the windows, checking the latches. As much as I had an urge to let air circulate through the house, I also was aware that my courage was wavering, that more and more I wanted just to hurry up and get dressed and get the hell out of the house.

I went back into my bedroom and pulled out my formal-but-not-too-formal blue dress. I liked the way it made my eyes look. I also found a slip, a pair of heels, and stockings. My clothes for the evening set out, I went into the bathroom and locked the door.

Somehow, being in the confined space of the bathroom made me feel safer. I started the shower going. I took off my watch and earrings, set them on the sink. Closed the toilet lid, undressed and set the folded clothes on top of the lid. Ah, routine.

I got in the shower and started to relax a little, although I was still pretty jittery. I felt as if I were on a pendulum, swinging between anxiety and anger. I didn’t have time for a very long shower, but I made the most of it. I tried to lose myself in the steam and rushing water, the fragrances of my soap, shampoo and conditioner. As I rinsed the conditioner out of my hair, I stood listening to the roar of the water over my ears. I turned the water off. Suddenly I was paralyzed by fear.

There was a noise outside the bathroom.

I stood there, afraid even to reach for my towel, shivering and dripping wet. There it was again, muffled, but definitely a noise. On the other side of the bathroom wall? In the kitchen? Or was it the hallway?

I tried to open the shower door as quietly as possible. It made a creaking sound that I was sure could be heard in New Jersey. Cursing under my breath, I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around me. I looked at my watch-six-fifteen. Too early for Guy. I looked around to see what I could use for a weapon. Other than a nail file and a bottle of hair spray, not much. It wasn’t even aerosol hair spray. So this was going to be my reward for being concerned about the ozone.

Suddenly there was a different noise. I waited. It was someone knocking loudly on the front door. I got on the bathroom floor and looked through the space under the door. No feet in the bedroom. I made myself open the bathroom door a crack. Closet still open, no one in there. I grabbed a robe, rearmed myself with the nail file, and crept to the bedroom door. I slowly opened it a couple of inches and peered nervously up and down the hallway. No one. The knocking came again, more insistent.