Secrets to the Grave

78

Vince had called to say he would be late again and to go ahead with dinner. Anne brought the girls into the kitchen to “help” and to keep her company.

“What are we having?” Wendy asked.

“Macaroni and cheese—and not the kind that comes out of a box,” Anne said, gathering ingredients from the refrigerator and putting them on the island. “The real deal, like my mother used to make. Haley, do you like macaroni and cheese?”

Haley was on all fours on the banquette, playing with her stuffed cat. “Meow. Yes. Meow. Meow.”

Wendy laughed. “Haley, are you a kitty?”

“Meow. Meow. Meow.”

Anne filled the pasta pot with water and put it on the stove to heat, then cut up an onion and diced it in the food processor.

“Mommy Anne? When can we go and see my kitties?”

“I don’t know yet, sweetie. We’ll wait for a nice sunny day.”

“Will that be tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope it’s tomorrow.”

“Haley, what are the names of your kitties?” Wendy asked.

“Scat and Mittens and Kittywampus.”

“Kittywampus?” Anne said. “That’s a funny name.”

How nice is this? she thought as Haley told a story about Kittywampus. She had grown up in a home that was often filled with tension and sadness and her mother’s desperation to be the best possible wife to a man who deserved nothing of the kind. Anne had tiptoed through that minefield her entire childhood, and unlike Wendy, by the time she was eleven she had wished every day that her parents would get divorced.

This was how a family should be. Enjoying each other. Being together. The picture was only incomplete in that Vince wasn’t there. It didn’t matter to Anne that these girls weren’t her children. She loved having them, getting to know them, figuring out their burgeoning personalities and how their little minds worked.

Life was good.

Until the doorbell rang.

Wiping her hands on a dish towel, Anne went to the front of the house, muttering her too-familiar ritual that she was all right, she was in a safe place, Peter Crane would not be standing on her doorstep.

But Dennis Farman was.