A Fool and his Honey Page 0,47

and I'd taken my hand out from under the cold running water, I said, "I was just thinking about Darius."

"You were shaking your head, raising your eyebrows in this kind of amazed look, and got this ew expression on your face."

I shook my head, feeling silly. I didn't want to explain my train of thought to Martin. A knock at the front door made me jump again. Martin went to answer it, and a second later a tall young man came with him into the kitchen. I had only to look at his face for a moment to know this was Craig's brother. I wiped my hands on a dish towel, and took Dylan's hand, telling him how sorry I was.

Dylan, who was wearing a John Deere green shirt and some khakis, was dark like his brother, but his build wasn't reedy like Craig's had been. Dylan was more bull-like, solid and stolid, a man who saw his way from Point A to Point B and took the most direct route.

"I would sure like to see the baby," he told me, and seemed surprised when Martin volunteered to take him upstairs to the makeshift nursery. When they came back, Dylan looked like a man with a puzzle in front of him. He accepted a seat at the old kitchen table, folded his hands on it, and began to say what he'd come to say.

"I couldn't set my hands on Rory to bring him with me. Shondra told me you wanted to talk to him."

Since he said this primarily to Martin, Martin nodded. I kept on pottering around the kitchen, feeling this would make the younger man relax a little more. I opened a can of green beans, put them in a very nice saucepan, and began to cook the rice in the microwave (chipped Corningware casserole, aged small microwave).

"My brother Craig," Dylan began, and came to a difficult silence. We both kept our eyes down, waiting patiently. "My brother Craig was not always a good man." Martin made a gesture that could be interpreted as "Who is?" and I made a little noise that was meant to be commiserating. This seemed to encourage Dylan. "Craig likes - liked - things to be easy. But being married and earning a living - being an adult - those aren't easy things." I nodded to myself. That was the absolute truth. "I'm the last person Craig would have told, if he'd had plans to somehow make money off that poor little baby. But I can't help fearing somehow that .was the case. Whatever Craig's plans were, Rory knows them. I hate to speak bad about my wife's brother, just like she didn't like to speak bad about Craig, but the fact is, Rory and Craig are two of a kind, and they deserved each other, just the way I hope Shondra and I deserve each other. If you had Rory in the car with you all the way here, I guess that was your best chance to find out what he knew. I don't pretend to understand why you let him go. Why didn't you turn him over to the police?"

Oooh, good question. I raised my eyebrows inquiringly and transferred my attention to Martin.

"At the time," Martin answered, thinking as he spoke, "I was sure that bringing him here would make things go easier on Regina if the police picked her up. I think - I know - I was sure Regina had killed Craig, and I didn't want to see her in jail, see her stand trial. Particularly since I couldn't understand why. Why she would do that, how she would do that. Regina is the most important thing in my sister's life, she's..." My husband seemed to run out of words. "But letting her get away with murder ain't doing her a favor," Dylan said.

Martin and I blinked and looked at him.

There was not a thing to say.

He was absolutely right.

Chapter Seven

We had more company that evening. After a quiet afternoon we'd had a light supper. I'd just washed the supper dishes. Martin, in between trying to get in touch with the midwife and with Rory Brown (we'd found a working phone), had boiled a used batch of bottles and nipples and set them out to drain on a clean towel. I'd put a load of linens and a few clothes through the washing-and-drying cycle. The isolated position of the farmhouse had begun to make me think of us as