kiss.'
'That I'd be glad to do,' Joe said. He squeezed Marybeth's hand as he walked past her and opened the door to the girls' bedroom. The light was on and they were reading. He kissed Sheridan in the top bunk and Lucy in the bottom bunk.
'What happened to your face?' Sheridan asked.
'Just an accident,' Joe said, involuntarily reaching up and fingering the large bandage beneath his eye.
'That's not what I heard,' Sheridan said, propping herself up on her pillow. 'At school they said you got shot.'
'It was an accidental shooting,' Joe said.
'Will you tell us about it tomorrow?' Sheridan asked. Joe paused.
'You girls get to sleep,' he said. Lucy rolled her eyes and covered herself with the sheet.
'I've been looking out this window,' Sheridan told him. 'I haven't seen anything. No more monsters.'
'You won't,' Joe assured her. 'That's all over now.' Lucy was faking sleep. It was something she
did to punish her father for being away. He kissed her and told her good night, but she held firm and wouldn't acknowledge it, except for a hint of a smile.
***
Joe poured himself a bourbon and water in the kitchen. He had not taken any of the painkillers the doctor had prescribed for him, saving them for tomorrow.
'It says here that fat grams aren't everything,' Missy Vankeuren said from the other room. Joe assumed she was talking to Marybeth. 'You still need to watch calories. Just because something is low in fat doesn't give you license to eat like a pig.'
He drank a quarter of the drink, then topped off the glass with more Jim Beam.
Joe was not much of a drinker anymore, although he'd done more than his share in college and when he worked with Vern. But his intake of alcohol always increased proportionately when his mother-in-law was around.
He came into the living room and sat down. Marybeth had just come from tucking in Lucy. She frowned at Joe, and then smiled at her mother. She offered to get her mother something to drink, and Joe realized he was being scolded for not asking her himself.
'Do you have any red wine? That would be nice.'
'Joe, would you open a bottle?' Marybeth asked.
'Where is it?'
'In the pantry,' Marybeth said. 'And I'd like a glass also.'
Joe found the wine on a shelf in the pantry. There were a half dozen bottles to choose from. All must have been purchased within the last couple of days, anticipating her mother's visit, because normally the only thing on that shelf were boxes of breakfast cereal.
Marybeth, Joe grumbled to himself as he located the corkscrew, was a wonderful strong woman with strong opinions .. . except when her mother was present. When Missy flew in to visit, Marybeth shifted from being Joe's wife and partner to Missy's daughter, the one with unrealized potential, according to Missy. Her favorite child, according to Missy. Marybeth's older brother, Rob, was a loner who failed to keep in touch, and her younger sister, Ellen, had devoted her life to following the alternative rock band Phish on their never-ending concert tour.
Marybeth was the one, Missy had once said while she was drunk and sobbing, who married too early and too low (she may have forgotten about those comments by now, but Joe hadn't). Rather than being the welldressed, wealthy corporate lawyer she should have been, Marybeth was the wife of a game warden in the middle of Wyoming who made less than $30,000 a year. But, Missy no doubt felt, it still may not be too late. At least that's what Joe read into many of the things Missy said and did.
They had discussed all this before, and Marybeth thought Joe was too hard on her mother. Marybeth said that yes, she did sometimes assume the role of daughter when Missy was around, but after all she was Missy's daughter. Her mother just wanted the best for her, which was what mothers did. And Missy was proud of Joe in a way, Marybeth had said. Joe appeared to be faithful and a good father.
Marybeth could have done much worse, Missy felt.
Joe's mood was sour when Marybeth came into the kitchen. He poured two glasses and handed them to her.
'Cheer up,' Marybeth said. 'She's trying to be pleasant.' Joe grunted.
'I thought I was being the model of propriety.'
'You're not being very accommodating,' Marybeth said, her eyes flashing. Joe stepped up close to Marybeth, so that what he had to say couldn't be heard in the next room. He had just been through three of the strangest days of his life, he told her, from finding Ote's body, to the shoot-out at the outfitters' camp, the finding of the mutilated bodies, to the barrage of questions afterward, to the hospital. His mind was reeling, and he was beyond tired. The last thing he needed upon finally getting home was Missy Vankeuren. The Missy Vankeuren who at one time resented the hell out of her daughter for having the gall to make her a grandmother, of all things.
Real anger flashed in Marybeth's face.
'It's not her fault all of this happened,' Marybeth said. 'She's just here to visit her granddaughters. She had nothing to do with a man dying in our backyard. She has a right to visit me and her
granddaughters, who think she's wonderful.'
'But why does it have to be now?' Joe asked lamely.
