May Wickens nodded. “We need a few things,” she said flatly. “Jeffrey likes to come with me when I shop. It’s nice for him to get away from the house.” She paused. “Nice for all of us.”

There was something about her eyes. A pleading quality. They were tired, and sad, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why, losing her boyfriend earlier in the week. But there was more than mere grief in May Wickens’s eyes. She had the look of a hostage who doesn’t expect the ransom will ever come.

“I’d just like to say, once again, thank you for dinner last night,” I said, putting the image of the impaled mouse aside for a moment, “and tell you how sorry I am about Mr. Dewart.”

May’s eyes looked down. “Thank you,” she said. She seemed to be wanting to say something else, her lips parting, then closing.

“Jeffrey,” she said, “why don’t you go pick out a cereal and maybe some cookies?”

“Sure,” he said, and scurried off.

I leaned in a bit closer. “Are you okay?”

She raised her head, looked to the side, avoiding direct eye contact. “I, I just…”

I waited. I was about to put a hand on her arm, up by the shoulder, but held back, not sure whether that was the right thing to do, especially in a place as public as this grocery store.

“What is it again that you do, Mr. Walk-Zack?”

“I’m a writer,” I said. “I work for The Metropolitan. I write features, mostly. And I’ve written some books.”

“So you work for a newspaper?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I should be talking to you.” Her eyes darted up and down the grocery aisle.

“I’m not interviewing you,” I said. I gave her my friendliest smile. “We’re just talking. That’s all.”

“I just, I wish I had someone to talk to.”

“Sure. Listen, would you like to go get a coffee? Lana’s is just a couple of doors down. It’s good coffee, and I can recommend the coconut cream pie.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I’d be happy to buy you a coffee. I’d even like to, if it wouldn’t upset you too much, ask you a couple of questions about Mr. Dewart, about Morton. I mean, there’s been so much activity around our place related to what happened to him, but I don’t feel that I know a single thing about him.”

“Maybe, if we went quickly,” May Wickens said, her eyes still scanning. “Let me, let me figure out what to do with Jeffrey. He can’t know, he’ll tell them, I mean-”

“Sure,” I said. “If you don’t want to be seen leaving with me, I’ll just head over and meet you there.”

Suddenly, Jeffrey was back, dumping two boxes of sugary cereal and a bag of Oreos into May’s basket. “What else can I get?” he asked.

“Very nice seeing you again,” I said to May, and then to Jeffrey, “You take care, okay? You get any more cool Star Wars stuff, you show me, okay?”

“I’ve got a Millennium Falcon,” he said.

“And a Han Solo figure?”

“Yup.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “You take it easy, okay? And take good care of your mom. She’s had a tough week.”

“Sure thing,” Jeffrey said.

I got to the checkout and tossed a local paper and a magazine onto the conveyor belt with my few items. While the cashier was ringing them through, the white-coated Mr. Henry reappeared with his clipboard.

“Would you like to sign our petition to-”

And then he recognized me as the son of a bitch who wouldn’t sign it the last time I was in.

“Oh, you,” he said, still looking like he was picking up a bad smell off of everyone around him.

“Still not interested,” I said.

“So you don’t care that our parade, this town’s traditions, are being hijacked by special interests out to promote their agenda?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Those gays, and the lesbians. They want to ruin our parade.”

“I see,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You’ve heard about those starving kids in Africa?”

He nodded.

“Global warming and the depletion of the ozone layer and how the polar ice caps will probably all melt someday and we’ll all be underwater?”

He nodded again, but his eyes were narrowing.

“Crack babies? The shortage of safe drinking water in the next few years? Rogue nations with nuclear bombs? You’ve heard of those things?”

Henry nodded a third time, and this time he spoke. “What’s your point?”

I tapped the petition on his clipboard with my finger. “And this is what you’re collecting signatures for? This is what’s got your shorts in a knot?”

I handed over a twenty to the cashier, grabbed my bagful of items, and said to Henry, “I’d love to chat longer, but my boyfriend gets very pissy if his lunch isn’t on the table on time.”

I walked out of the grocery store, past a phone booth, crossed the street and opened the door to the truck.

“Tell me how much you spent and I’ll reimburse you,” Dad said.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to shop there again,” I said. “In fact, you might not be able to shop there again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Dad, you okay here for a while?” I said. “I ran into someone in the store, I’m just gonna grab a quick coffee, I’ll just be a few minutes.”

“Who?”

If I told him, he might object, or at least have more questions than I had time to answer. “Just sit tight, okay? Here, I bought you The Braynor Times, and a Newsweek.”

“I could stand to pee,” Dad said.

“We all stand to pee, Dad,” I said. “That’s what makes us men.”

“Are you going to be long?”

“Can you last fifteen minutes or so?”

“Just try to be quick.”

I ran down half a block to Lana’s, caught her eye as I walked in, and took a table in the back corner. There was no sign yet of May Wickens.

Lana strolled over. “Where’s your father?”

“I ditched him,” I said, giving her my just-kidding smile. “Listen, could I trouble you for a couple of coffees? I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”

“Comin’ up.”

The door opened and May Wickens came in, head down, jacket collar up, acting like she thought she could make herself invisible. I raised my hand and she slid into the booth opposite me. The seat backs were high, and she slid over to the far side, slunk down so she was barely visible from the window.

“Where’s Jeffrey?” I said.

“My father would kill me, but I gave Jeffrey a bunch of quarters to go to the video arcade at the corner. He’s always begging to go and I’m always saying no. He thinks I’m at the drugstore.”

Lana Gantry showed up with two mugs of coffee. She smiled at the two of us, but no small talk. Her eyes did a little dance as she wondered what I was up to, having a coffee with a young woman. She’d know, of course, that I was married.

“Thanks,” said May. She wrapped her hands around the mug, as though taking strength from its warmth.

“You seem,” I said, trying to find my way, “frightened.”

May tried to take a sip of coffee, but it was still too hot for her. “You don’t have any idea,” she said. “He’s, he’s poisoning my son.”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Not, I mean, I don’t mean that he’s actually poisoning him. It’s with his ideas. He tells me what to teach him.”

“We’re talking about Timmy, your father,” I said, just to be sure.

May nodded. “He decides what Jeffrey will be taught. Not just math and spelling and geography, but history, and, like, social studies, he calls it. Like how homosexuals are trying to lure our children to their side, how the Jews are running everything, how all this talk about the Holocaust is greatly exaggerated, how the Negro is an inferior race, how he has a greater sex drive”-at this she blushed a bit-“and how Negroes, black people, are not as advanced as the white race. I mean, I’ve met Negroes, and I don’t know about their sex drives, but, Mr. Walker, do you believe that sort of stuff?”

She asked it innocently, like she was asking whether I thought it might rain tomorrow.