'Now?'
'Maybe an hour, hour and a half.'
'Make it an hour and a half. I can have Jenny in bed by then. Just…' She hesitated. 'Just don't try to take her away from me, Robert. No more talk about the university or parapsychology or any of that. You promise?'
'I promise.'
'Now, what were you going to tell me about possession?'
'Just listen to these two paragraphs.' So he read to her from The Supernatural Explained. Finished, he said, 'Sound familiar?'
'I hate to say it,' she said. 'But it does sound like some of the things Jenny's been going through.'
Hearing this, he felt exultant. Hearing this, he knew that everything was going to work out. There would be a marriage, after all.
'See you in about, an hour and a half, honey,' he said.
'Just please understand that I don't want to talk about…any of this…until I'm sure she's asleep. All right?'
'Fine,' he said.
For ten minutes after Robert's call, Diane allowed herself to feel as if things would straighten themselves out. Jenny and Robert, each of whom disliked and greatly distrusted the other, would get along, and somehow Diane and Robert would be married, and the three of them would live in the big, beautiful house there in Stoneridge Estates, and they would be a real family.
She thought about all this as she went down into the basement and took clean towels from the drier-liking the aroma of fabric softener-and as she climbed the stairs to the second floor bathroom.
Jenny, submerged in huge bubbles, thanks to the bubble bath Diane had bought her, glanced up when Diane came into the bathroom.
'Fresh towels,' Diane said, putting the terry cloth to her nose and smelling, then hanging the towels on the rack nearest the pink bathtub.
Jenny continued to stare at her. 'Didn't I hear the phone, Aunt Diane?'
'Why, yes.'
'Oh,' Jenny said.
Diane knew Jenny wanted her to tell her who had called, but Diane didn't want to spoil this moment of bliss.
Deciding she was being silly, Diane said, 'It was Robert.'
'That's what I figured.'
'Please don't take that tone.'
'What tone?'
'Oh…hurt…I suppose you'd call it.'
'I'm not hurt.'
'Well, disappointed, then.'
'I may be disappointed, Aunt Diane, but that's not the same thing as hurt.'
'No, I suppose it isn't.'
'If you want to like him-and trust him-as a friend, that's up to you.'
Diane sat on the closed toilet seat. 'I hope all three of us become friends, Jenny. I hope we become…a family.'
'I see.'
'You see what?'
'A family. That means you're expecting to marry him.'
'Well, not right away. But someday, maybe.'
''Maybe. Sure.'
'I'm sorry if this is painful for you.'
'I just kept remembering the way he looked at me the night Mindy and Jeff died.' She dropped her gaze, seemed to be staring into the impenetrable wall of soapsuds. 'He thought I killed them, didn't he?'
She had to be careful there, Diane thought. She said, 'He was just confused about what went on.'
'Jeff killed Mindy and then killed himself. That's what the police report said.'
'I know what the police report said. Robert wrote the police report and he…he wrote down some of the things I asked him to.'
'Then you think I killed them?'
'I didn't say that, Jenny.'
Tears glistened in her eyes. 'Do you happen to remember that they tried to kill me?'
'I remember that, Jenny. Please don't let yourself get so upset.'
'Oh, there's no reason to be upset, Aunt Diane. Just because the person I love most in the world thinks I'm a murderer-or worse.'
Diane stood up, crossed over to the tub, knelt down. Taking Jenny's small, pretty face in her hands, Diane kissed the girl on the forehead, right where a splotch of bubbles lay. 'I love you, Jenny. Don't you understand that?'
The girl calmed visibly. 'I'm sorry, Aunt Diane.'
'We're always going to be together,' Diane said.
And then Jenny reached up through the soapsuds and grasped Diane's slender wrist. 'Do you mean that, Aunt Diane?'
'Of course I do, honey. Of course I do.'
Twenty minutes later, Diane tucked Jenny into bed, pulling the covers up high so they would reach her neck. Jenny yawned, kissed Diane good-night, and fell asleep almost immediately in the silver moonlight.
'Cream?'
'Please,' Robert said. This was forty-five minutes later.
They were in the kitchen, which still smelled of dinner: meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. They were at the butcher-block table, drinking Sanka from large gray-ceramic cups.
Robert nodded toward the upstairs. 'She asleep?'
'Yes.'
'Good. Then we can talk.'
She reached across and touched his hand. 'I want to talk, Robert, but not about Jenny.'
'But I thought-'
'Don't you see? It's been pushing us apart, talking about her. Can't the three of us just learn to love one another and forget the past?'
Robert frowned. 'I wish it was that easy, Diane.'
'Can't it be that easy, Robert?'
He shook his head. 'She needs help. At least a few sessions with a shrink. This book I told you about-'
'I don't care about the book, Robert. I don't care at all. Can't you see that? I just want peace and quiet and for the three of us-'
He drew his hand away from hers. 'On the way out here, I made up my mind about something, Diane.'
'About what?'
From his suit coat pocket, he took a single cigarette, set it in his mouth; and lighted it.
'You told me you'd quit,' she said.
'Tonight I started again.'
'Oh, Robert,' she said, and in that terrible instant she knew it was not going to work for them. He would always be suspicious. Always remember that night.
'I'm going to the city council tomorrow morning and tell them I falsified that report.' He exhaled heavily.
'You'll lose your job.'
'If I don't tell them the truth, I'll lose my self-respect. Losing that's a lot worse than losing a job, Diane. You should know that.'
'Don't talk down to me, Robert.'
