The Pocket Wife by Susan Crawford Page A

squatting by a couch or flattened under a bed as she streaked, clueless, through the house? The thought makes her shiver. From her car she watches him walking through the parking lot, clutching his small cloth bag with THE ROOT SELLER lettered in red across the outside, with the duck’s bill caught on the top and the rubber face of his purchase peeking out like a tiny spy. As she watches, secure behind sunglasses that cover half her face, Ronald pauses to stare at her car across the sea of asphalt, shaking his head and appearing to point toward her before he aims his key repeatedly in the direction of the already winking taillights of his car.
    Dana sits in the Toyota, trying to see the insides of her purse from Ronald’s perspective. His purchases — the animal crackers and the rubber duck—weren’t the sorts of things a desperate man would buy in lieu of bread. So it definitely wasn’t money he was after, fumbling through her wallet in the pasta aisle. Pictures, she thinks. Of course. Ronald was looking for a picture of Peter. But why did he stare at her so strangely, push-buttoning his car locks so many times the taillights flashed like Times Square? She jams the Toyota into drive and crawls out of the parking lot. For the first time in several days, she moves slowly, the car’s wheels barely turning on the burning black of the asphalt. She wants to put as much distance as possible between her car and Ronald’s.
    Up ahead, traffic is nearly stopped, and Dana feels herself lifting off from her front seat to float above the other cars. She feels her arms move out from her sides, allowing her to hover in midair for a moment, looking for the source of trouble on the road ahead. “Stop it,” she mumbles. “Get it together, Dana.” She inhales deeply and switches on the radio. On NPR an author is discussing his new book. “The absolute worst is when everyone else knows but you,”the author says, and Dana feels a chill go up her spine. She stabs at the radio, pushing the same button over and over in her panic, in her need to stop the voice. “Everybody knows,” the author mumbles as she finds the right button. “It’s always best to face what you’ve done.”

CHAPTER 6
    B e careful on the way back,” Dana says after dinner when the barbecue pit is lined with doused embers and Jamie’s Nissan putters in the driveway. Above them dark clouds streak toward Boston. “Take your time.”
    Jamie nods. “I will.”
    â€œIt looks stormy going north.” She glances at the bag of cookies she’s stuck on top of his backpack and a few books Jamie grabbed from his bedroom. She’ll tell him later when he calls. “Take a look on top of your bag,” she’ll tell him. “I left something there for you. Your favorite—oatmeal chocolate chip!” She’s done this ever since the summer he was nine and traveled to Nebraska with Peter’s sister; it’s become a tradition. “I’m planning to have a brunch this coming Sunday,” she says, “for the neighbors. For Ashby Lane,” an idea that has only now popped into her head. “I’d love it if you came.”
    â€œI don’t think so. Thanks, though,” Jamie says, and he adjusts the rearview mirror but doesn’t leave. He motions her closer, and when she leans over the car window, bending her ear to his lips, he whispers, “Are you sure you’re all right, Mom? You seem a little—”
    â€œTense,” she says, backing away a step or two. “It’s just the . . . killing happening so close to us, to someone I—”
    â€œMaybe you should go see that doctor in Manhattan.”
    â€œI know,” she says. “Maybe I’ll go this week,” and Jamie nods.
    They stay that way for a minute, motionless, the car idling on the hot pavement until finally Peter thumps the roof of the Nissan with