Early Warning

She washed her hands at the kitchen sink and plugged in the coffeemaker. She came upon Nedra’s doughnut stash, and she looked at the doughnuts — pink, chocolate, maple — for three or four moments before putting them back where she found them. She looked out the back door at the lawn, which needed cutting. On the hall table, the paper was folded together. She carried it into the kitchen. There was the boy, flat on his stomach, his head turned away, his feet flopped to one side, his arm folded under his chest. It could be any boy, any boy at all. Andy put her hand over the picture and then took it away. There was the girl, her arms out, kneeling over the boy, her mouth open in a scream. Andy put her hand over the picture again. There was no reason in the world for this picture to affect her, Andy. It was not her business, and anyway, she was inured to death, was she not? Dr. Smith said she was the least in touch with her feelings of anyone he had ever met; just look at the way she kept coming back to the murder of the woman she had never met, but skated over Tim’s death, the death of the darling boy, as if she didn’t care. Perhaps she had no feelings beyond nerve endings. Was that possible? But this picture…She took her hand away again, and stared. Moments before, that boy had been alive. Now he was dead. Someone his own age had shot him. Andy stared at the picture. She did not read the article — no need for that.

—

THE FIRST TIME, Claire was at Hy-Vee, beginning her Saturday’s shopping. She ran into Dr. Sadler in cereal (he was buying Frosted Flakes, which Paul wouldn’t allow in the house). Yes, he had been lightly flirting with her for years by now, but maybe he had never expected to get beyond that. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, which, by turning her head, she transformed into a kiss on the lips, and a passionate one. They left their carts in cereal and went straight to his house, four blocks away. She was home two hours later with her groceries and the news that she hadn’t been able to find any lamps to match the new couch — she’d looked everywhere. Paul related all the things he had done with Gray and Brad in her absence, not a flicker of suspicion, and it went like that for seven weeks, as if a slot had opened up in the normal progression of time that was dedicated to the advancement of their affair.

Claire had no shame, no remorse, no fear. Dr. Sadler was in charge of those emotions. Week by week, date by date, he got more tormented and more handsome. The first time seemed like a game they were both playing — hide and seek, don’t let the grown-ups know. They laughed most of the time — that he climaxed within a minute was hilarious, that they did it again and the corner of the contour sheet popped off with the violence of their lovemaking was wonderful. He admired Claire, her patience and her good nature, and her eyes, especially since she’d gotten the contacts — they were beautiful, riveting, such a strange color, not exactly brown, a cat’s eyes; he wanted her to keep them open while they were making love. He was wonderful to look at also — the sunlight flickering over his triceps, the shadows of his ribs, the indentation along the side of his gluteal muscles. When they were finished making love, he gave her treats in bed — leftover mu-shu pork, Popsicles, once a mai tai, which she’d never had before (Paul didn’t allow food out of the kitchen, he was suspicious of leftovers, and he would not go to a Chinese restaurant). What did Claire want to do? Dr. Sadler did it. Just kiss? He would kiss her a thousand times. Just let her touch it and look at it? He smiled while she explored. He had no inhibitions — he thought getting rid of those was what medical school was for — but, more than that, he was curious, curious about her. In her dating life, she had never met a man who was curious about her, and over the seven years of their marriage, Paul had grown suspicious of her inner life, not curious about it. If she said what she wanted for breakfast, for example, he met every response with an objection: if she wanted pancakes, eggs were more nutritious; if she wanted eggs, waffles would be a change.