Full Dark, No Stars

Darker Husband. And the double bed with the wrinkled sheets and unanchored blankets? That was the Darker Bed. She shifted her gaze back to the wild-haired woman with the bloodshot, frightened

eyes: the Darker Wife, in al her raddled glory. Her first name was Darcy, but her last name wasn’t Anderson. The Darker Wife was Mrs. Brian Delahanty.

Darcy leaned forward until her nose was touching the glass. She held her breath and cupped her hands to the sides of her face just as she had when she was a girl dressed in grass-stained shorts

and fal ing-down white socks. She looked until she couldn’t hold her breath any longer, then exhaled in a huff that fogged the mirror. She wiped it clean with a towel, and then went downstairs to face her first day as the monster’s wife.

He had left a note for her under the sugarbowl.

Darce—

I will take care of those documents, as you asked. I love you, honey.

Bob

He had drawn a little Valentine heart around his name, a thing he hadn’t done in years. She felt a wave of love for him, as thick and cloying as the scent of dying flowers. She wanted to wail like some woman in an Old Testament story, and stifled the sound with a napkin. The refrigerator kicked on and began its heartless whir. Water dripped in the sink, plinking away the seconds on the porcelain. Her tongue was a sour sponge crammed into her mouth. She felt time—al the time to come, as his wife in this house—close around her like a straitjacket. Or a coffin. This was the world she had believed in

as a child. It had been here al the time. Waiting for her.

The refrigerator whirred, the water dripped in the sink, and the raw seconds passed. This was the Darker Life, where every truth was written backward.

- 12 -

Her husband had coached Little League (also with Vinnie Eschler, that master of Polish jokes and big enveloping manhugs) during the years when Donnie had played shortstop for the Cavendish

Hardware team, and Darcy stil remembered what Bob said to the boys—many of them weeping—after they’d lost the final game of the District 19 tourney. Back in 1997 that would have been, probably

only a month or so before Bob had murdered Stacey Moore and stuffed her into her cornbin. The talk he’d given to that bunch of drooping, sniffling boys had been short, wise, and (she’d thought so then

and stil did thirteen years later) incredibly kind.

I know how bad you boys feel, but the sun will still come up tomorrow. And when it does, you’ll feel better. When the sun comes up the day after tomorrow, a little better still. This is just a part ofyour life, and it’s over. It would have been better to win, but either way, it’s over. Life will go on.

As hers did, fol owing her il -starred trip out to the garage for batteries. When Bob came home from work after her first long day at home (she couldn’t bear the thought of going out herself, afraid her knowledge must be written on her face in capital letters), he said: “Honey, about last night—”

“Nothing happened last night. You came home early, that’s al .”

He ducked his head in that boyish way he had, and when he raised it again, his face was lit with a large and grateful smile. “That’s fine, then,” he said. “Case closed?”

“Closed book.”

He opened his arms. “Give us a kiss, beautiful.”

She did, wondering if he had kissed them.

Do a good job, really use that educated tongue of yours, and I won’t cut you, she could imagine him saying. Put your snooty little heart into it.

He held her away from him, his hands on her shoulders. “Stil friends?”

“Stil friends.”

“Sure?”

“Yes. I didn’t cook anything, and I don’t want to go out. Why don’t you change into some grubbies and go grab us a pizza.”

“Al right.”

“And don’t forget to take your Prilosec.”

He beamed at her. “You bet.”

She watched him go bounding up the stairs, thought of saying Don’t do that, Bobby, don’t test your heart like that.

But no.

No.

Let him test it al he wanted.

- 13 -

The sun came up the next day. And the next. A week went by, then two, then a month. They resumed their old ways, the smal habits of a long marriage. She brushed her teeth while he was in the