The Girls He Adored

47

Tonight the silk dress is black. Black as her mask, black as her mood, black as the forest through which she moves. The woman has watched the sunset from the front porch, but it has brought her no peace. And afterward, she cannot bear to go back into that empty house again, so she throws a shawl over her shoulders and hikes down to the kennels.

It's a short hike, but she is winded by the time she arrives-her lungs were badly damaged in the fire. While she catches her breath, the dogs perform their eerily silent gambol to show their pleasure at this unexpected appearance (she rarely visits them at night), then line up for lovies. Dr. Cream joins Lizzie at the head of the line. Lizzie is the oldest, Doc the largest and fiercest-looking member of the pack, but beneath that black-and-brindle skin beats the tenderest of hearts. (Unless of course you are a stranger, in which case Doc, like the others, will be delighted to tear you into surprisingly small and numerous pieces, which, pending permission from his master or mistress, he will then devour.)

When the woman kneels, Dr. Cream assumes the kowtow position, forepaws extended, and slouches toward her to receive her first caresses, while Lizzie circles around behind her, pushes her muzzle under the tumble of red-gold curls, and nuzzles the nape of her neck. The woman drops her chin to her chest; her sigh is not unlike the sigh that issues from her after her nightly injection of morphine.

Suddenly her body stiffens; she raises her head.

“Hush,” she says, though the dogs aren't making any noise. Soon there's no mistaking the sound of an engine: a vehicle is climbing the blacktop driveway that zigzags up the eastern side of the ridge. The dogs rush into the sally port, prepared to greet their master or silently ambush an intruder. A headlight beam snakes through the trees, pointing this way, then that, as the road doubles back on itself. The woman crouches behind the kennel as the Cadillac pulls into view, stops in front of the sally port. The driver's door opens; Ulysses steps out. Relief-wild, manic joy-surges through the woman. In her mind she rushes into the sally port to open the gate for him and throw herself into his arms.

Then in the space of a heartbeat the relief gives way to fury. “How dare you!” she says under her breath, still crouched behind the kennel, as he walks around to the back of the car and helps a slender, unsteady woman out of the trunk. “How dare you leave me alone here while you go gallivanting around the countryside with some floozy.”

And as he helps the floozy around to the front seat of the car, the woman in the silk mask sees that she has blond hair. Frosted blond hair, not even close to strawberry blond.

“How dare you!” she whispers again, outraged beyond outrage. Her injured hands, in some atavistic reflex, try to clench themselves into fists, but feebly curled claws is all they can manage.