A Bad Day for Sorry

on.”

Stella noted the sad note in Arthur’s voice. Recognized it all too well.

“I understand,” she said. “My daughter, Noelle and me, we don’t talk much either. We had a falling-out, I guess you’d say, after her dad passed, and now she just lives thirty miles away in Coffey, but sometimes I feel like it might as well be the moon.”

Arthur pursed his lips together and nodded slightly, and the two of them stood there in a silence that was plenty melancholy, but not uncomfortable: just two parents wondering where they’d gone wrong.

“I guess they just have to go their own way,” Arthur finally said. “How old’s your girl?”

“She just turned twenty-eight in July.”

“Arthur Junior’s thirty. Roy Dean’s twenty-seven.… You know, when we were that age, we were settled down, raising kids. I think Gemma’s about given up on having any grandkids.”

“Oh, now,” Stella said soothingly, “don’t let’s give up yet. You know the kids nowadays. They like to wait before they have children. Besides, what about little Tucker? Chrissy’s boy?”

A smile flashed across Arthur’s ruddy features, crinkling all the wrinkles around his eyes and his mouth and making him look ten years younger. “Ain’t he a pistol? Aw, Gemma and I took such a shine to him.”

“Eighteen months old, I think Chrissy told me.”

“Yeah.” The smile slipped, and the light flickered out of Arthur’s gaze. “Thing is, those two, Roy Dean and Chrissy, they don’t get on so well. I think Gemma’s trying not to get attached, you know? If Chrissy goes back to her ex, why, she’s not likely to bring the little guy around anymore, see.”

“Her ex?”

“You know, that Akers boy, from up around Sedalia.”

“But they’ve been divorced for years.”

“Uh, well, the way I hear it, he didn’t want the divorce. He’s been after her all this time. They say…” He cleared his throat but didn’t look at her directly. “They say he used to get a little rough with her.”

Stella wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“I don’t mean to speak out of turn,” Arthur said quickly, “and I know my boy’s not easy to live with. Why, if Chrissy’s been… visiting with the Akers boy, on account of Roy Dean being away from the home so much, it wouldn’t be my place to blame her.”

“Arthur,” Stella began, then stopped, not sure how to say what needed to be said. “I wonder if you’ve noticed, that is, when Chrissy comes to visit, you might have seen, well, all manner of bruises and such—”

“I have,” Arthur said, his voice going sharp. “And if it turns out that Akers boy put ’em on her, why, I’d like to reckon with him myself.”

This time he did look at Stella, but it was only a quick glance with those troubled eyes.

It was possible the man really believed what he was saying.

It was also possible he suffered from the same disease that afflicted so many of the people Stella encountered: denial. Stella had battled denial herself long enough that she knew the pathology well, how it could really take a toll on a person as they struggled to keep believing the unbelievable.

If Arthur Shaw had convinced himself to ignore the facts in front of him, Stella wouldn’t judge him for it. They say most violent men follow paths that get set early in their own lives, that they’d been abused themselves and knew little else. Well, Stella’d bet a hundred bucks that Arthur Shaw had never raised a hand to his boys in anger.

Sometimes it just worked out that way. Sometimes you did your level best with a child, gave them all the love and direction you knew how, and things still didn’t work out the way you wanted.

Stella tried again, cautiously. “But you don’t think Roy Dean—”

“Oh, Roy Dean’s a trial,” Arthur interrupted, turning away from Stella and picking up his paintbrush again. “But he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“Oh,” Stella said. “Huh.” She thought about mentioning some of the convincing details Chrissy had shared about Roy Dean, then decided Arthur had punished himself enough for one day.

“Ah, well,” Arthur said, making his way up the ladder again. “Sorry I couldn’t help you more.”

“No, you were—you helped plenty,” Stella said.

“Just one thing. It ain’t Arthur Junior causing anybody trouble,” Arthur said without looking at her, picking up his brush and dipping it carefully in the creamy paint. “He’s a good boy, just gets a little distracted sometimes.”

“I’ll remember that. You have a good day, now.”

As Stella made her way back to the car, her heart felt like it had got weighed down and rode a little lower in her chest. She hoped Arthur Junior, at least, would not give the quiet man on the ladder any more cause to live by the lies he told himself.

When Stella pulled up in front of her house, the sun was casting long shadows across the lawn, and Todd was doing skateboard tricks in her driveway.

“Hey, Stella, park out on the street,” he called. “I want to use your driveway.” He did some sort of flip that involved him leaping into the air with his skinny legs out at a comic angle while the skateboard flipped both over and around in a circle. When he landed, with a crash so loud it was miraculous the deck didn’t split in half, Todd teetered for a moment and then fell on his behind.

“Ow! Shit!”

“Watch your mouth,” Stella said, but she did as he asked and left the car in the street. Better to have him flopping around on her driveway, leaving patches of his skin on the concrete, than in the street getting run over. She walked over and glared at the boy, not bothering to offer to help him up.

Todd examined his palm, which was scraped red and crusted with old scabs.

“I reckon you ought to put some Neosporin on that,” Stella said.

“You got any?”

“I might, but am I your personal nurse? I don’t think so.”

“Aw, come on, I don’t want to have to go all the way back—”

“Todd, you live two doors down,” Stella said, pointing.

Todd shrugged and got to his feet, as graceful and light as a dancer, and jumped back on the board. He wore his hair down around his shoulders, but it looked as if he’d cut it himself, and maybe he had. His mother had more than enough on her plate.

“Well, you got anything to eat?” he asked, wiping his bloody hand on his baggy shorts.

Stella rolled her eyes. “I guess. Come on in.”

“There’s a lady in your house,” Todd said. He toed the end of his skateboard, and it flipped up into his hand. Not a bad trick, really.

“Yeah? Leave that filthy thing outside and wipe your feet. What kind of lady?”

“Kind of fat, but not too fat. Blond hair. Giant boobs.”

Chrissy.

Inside, Stella called out a hello—no sense spooking the poor girl. Found her in the same chair from the morning, but she’d fallen asleep. Startled awake, Chrissy pushed at the strands of corn-silk hair that had matted themselves to her face with sweat.

“How’d you manage the lock, sweetheart?” Stella asked.

“Oh, I showed her your key,” Todd said. “You know, under the pot on the porch.”

“Todd,” Stella said sternly. She’d shown Todd the key last winter when she hired him to water her plants during a visit to see her sister Gracellen in California. “You do not give strangers my key. You don’t let strangers into my house. Hear?”

“Yeah, well, I—”

“She could be anyone. You know, an axe murderer or something.”

Todd looked dubious. “Her?”

Stella bit down her unease. It was true that Chrissy looked about as dangerous as a toy poodle. It was also true that Stella had always managed to keep the unseemlier aspects of her work away from her home, but the day might come when some disgruntled asshole came around looking for trouble. She grabbed Todd’s arm hard and