Darkness My Old Friend

though she could see more than a little gray in his long dark hair, a cluster of lines around his eyes. She put him in his late thirties.

“I think I scared your little girl,” he said. “Your daughter, I mean. She probably wouldn’t want to be called a little girl.”

“You have kids?” she asked.

He shook his head, casting his eyes down. “Nieces. Twins about that age. Thirteen going on thirty.”

Willow was a very young-looking fifteen; it drove the kid nuts that people always mistook her for younger. There’s no rush to grow up, Willow, Bethany always told her. Easy for you to say, Willow would come back. You’re already grown up. Nobody ever tells you what to do. That’s what kids think it means to be grown up, that no one ever tells you what to do. There was no way to tell them otherwise, to explain the price of freedom.

“Well, thanks for this,” she said.

“Double espresso, splash of half-and-half. That’s $2.09,” said Todd.

She pulled a twenty out of her pocket and handed it to him. “I’ll take this gentleman’s check as well.”

“That’s not necessary,” Michael said quickly.

“It’s my pleasure,” she said. “I insist.”

He looked like he was about to offer more protest, but then he was wearing that grin again. “Thank you,” he said.

When Todd handed Bethany her change and she was getting ready to say good-bye, Michael pointed toward his table. “Would you like to join me?”

She sensed that he was just being polite, that he expected her to decline the offer. Bethany glanced out the window to see Willow still slouched in the seat. She had her earbuds in. She was nodding her head lightly to whatever rhythm was playing on her iPod. But she was watching, staring at Michael Holt. Bethany was surprised she’d stayed in the car. She’d half expected to see her daughter lurking outside the picture window, peering inside.

“My daughter’s waiting for me in the car,” she said. She didn’t want to seem rude. But Bethany really didn’t talk to men anymore, had decided that she wouldn’t bother for a good long time. On the other hand, there was something interesting about him. It wasn’t attraction that she felt-not at all. It was curiosity. He was odd. She couldn’t say how, exactly. She liked odd people.

They stood awkwardly a second, he looking down at his feet, she looking around the room. Todd was eavesdropping, she thought, hovering near the sink with nothing apparent to do. The toddler at the far table issued a little shriek of delight over something. “Indoor voice,” his mother whispered.

“So what were you doing out there in the woods?” she asked. She hadn’t moved toward the table. She took a sip of her espresso, peered at him over the cup. “Willow’s sure you were burying a body.”

He let go of a nervous laugh, which was kind of sweet in its way. He removed his glasses and used the bottom of his sweatshirt to rub the lenses. Bethany found herself laughing a little, too.

“Daughter of a mystery writer,” he said.

And Bethany’s laughter stopped short.

“How did you know that?” she asked. She took another sip of her coffee, looked back at the door instinctively. She could still see Willow in the car.

“Sorry,” he said. He looked sheepish and pointed back to his table at a laptop she hadn’t noticed. “I Googled. Actually, I’d already heard about you. There aren’t any secrets in The Hollows. Well, at least not when it comes to an author moving into town. And I don’t even live here anymore.”

Bethany felt herself flush. So they were talking about her. She decided right then and there that it was weird, and she didn’t like it at all. But what could she do? Maybe that was the price of the silence she so prized. Bethany gave him a careful nod.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. He seemed to mean it. She thought about thanking him again and excusing herself. But she stayed rooted, that curiosity getting the better of her.

“So what were you doing?”

“I wasn’t burying a body, that’s for sure.”

Bethany found herself staring at him as he looked down into his now-empty cup. She liked the gray rivers through his hair, the lines on his forehead. She even liked the rough calluses she saw on his hands, the dirt beneath his nails. He looked real, solid, earthy, like The Hollows itself. When he gazed back up at her, something on his face sent a shock through her. She couldn’t have said what it was-pain, sadness, fear? But then it was gone. He had that grin again. This time it didn’t seem as sincere and boyish.

“Quite the opposite,” he said. “I was digging one up.”

chapter seven

Maggie hadn’t said much. She was loading the dishwasher, placing the dishes in their little slots, unhurried, never banging anything together. She was always careful like that, slow and easy. Jones was wiping down the table, going over the same area again and again, just to keep moving. Her silence worried him a little, because his wife was not a woman to hold her tongue. She was a talker, a communicator. Of course she was. It was her business to communicate. He found himself rambling a little bit, going on and on about the doctor, and what a fancy-pants he was, and his manicured nails, and could she believe he’d say such a thing. He’d been there, faithfully doing the work for months and months. And maybe he was right, maybe the doctor couldn’t help him. But that wasn’t about him, was it? That was about the doctor.

She came to stand in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. She had a dishcloth in her hand. She folded it in half, then folded it again, kept her eyes on it.

“What are you trying to tell me, Jones?” she said.

The light from the halogen bulbs in the kitchen caught on her copper curls. She was wearing her hair shorter these days; it just danced about her shoulders. When he’d first met her, it spilled down almost to the middle of her back. He remembered the first time she’d unfurled it before him, took it down from the bun it had been in and let it cascade around her shoulders. He’d been breathless with desire.

He cleared his throat. “Just that things are maybe not working out with Dr. Dahl.”

She folded the towel again, still didn’t lift her eyes.

“I mean, you said yourself that if we’re not compatible, I should find someone else,” he said into the silence that hung between them.

“So that’s what you’re going to do?” she said. “Find someone else?”

He thought about going for the broom, to sweep up the floor. But Maggie had him locked in the look now.

“When?” she asked.

“I don’t know… in a couple of weeks? Honestly, I think I need a break from therapy. I certainly don’t need to be going twice a week anymore.”

His next scheduled appointment was in two days. Twice a week was supposed to be temporary, to help him through the initial crisis. But it was overkill, wasn’t it? How much talking can a person do?

Maggie sat down at the table. He stayed standing, holding the can of Pledge. The chemical lemon in the air was making his nose tingle.

“What?” he said.

She seemed to have to gather herself together, closing her eyes and issuing a light sigh. Maybe he’d better sit after all. He pulled up a chair, though he would have preferred to walk away and turn on the television, hope she’d disappear into her office. He’d prefer to leave the communicating for a day when he didn’t feel so drained. Though he couldn’t say when that might be.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t been sleeping in our bed.”

He hunched up his shoulders. “I noticed. The snoring, right? The waking up.”

“Yes, partly.”