fall in a French braid down her back. The day had turned out to be beastly hot. She couldn’t remove the cardigan or it would be evident to everyone that she was not wearing a bra. She had meant to; she owned several, but none of them had surfaced that morning as she struggled to get ready. The sweat streamed from her armpits. She kept her arms clamped to her sides. It was hardly the effect she had aimed for but it was the best she could do given the circumstances.
She had arrived in plenty of time to intercept Len and the boy, and she came armed with a strategy. It was not sophisticated and she was not remotely convinced that it would work. She had plan B in case it didn’t. Plan B was even less developed. But she was desperate, and willing to entertain desperate measures.
“Excuse me?”
Melody had been resting her eyes while she waited. She opened them to find a young woman blocking the horizon. Melody craned her neck to see around her.
The woman didn’t move. “Could you help me out?” Her skin was wan in spite of too much makeup. “I’ve got this splitting headache? I need to run across the street to the pharmacy for some aspirin, but my kids”—she shot a sidelong look at a boy and a girl hanging upside down on the monkey bars—“they won’t leave? Do me a favor and watch them while I run over there?”
Out of the corner of her eye Melody caught sight of Len’s truck turning onto the block. “Oh!” she said. She shifted to keep it in her field of vision, but the young mother kept moving in ways that blocked the street. She heard two car doors slam and tried to edge toward the sound. “What?” Melody said, growing frantic.
The young woman spoke slower and louder. “I need you to—”
There was Len, crossing the street, clutching Ruth’s blue suitcase in one hand and balancing a brown paper bag on the opposite hip. There was Wrecker. Her heart leapt. He came up to Len’s elbow, now. He’d grown so much. How had she failed to notice? “I’ll go for you,” Melody said quickly. She had to reach Len before he got inside. “What kind?”
The woman reached into her purse and pulled out a dollar. “Any kind,” she said brusquely, jabbing the bill toward Melody.
Melody hurtled down the hill toward the office but the door snapped shut behind Len and the boy before she arrived. She pulled up short. She couldn’t very well burst in there looking for them. For her plan to work, she needed to make a strong impression of competence. It was important that she appear normal. Competent, normal—Christ. The heel of her dress shoe had come loose.
Melody limped across the street to the pharmacy, keeping her eye on the office door. Even inside she could keep track through the plate glass. She located the aspirin and chose the least expensive brand. Then she walked the aisles until she came across deodorant. She chose the spray can with pastel flowers. It advertised fresh scent. She needed industrial strength, but this was probably as close as she could come.
The woman in line ahead of her nodded sympathetically toward the aspirin. She was older than Melody—thirty, maybe, or a little past—and had a pleasant, open face. “Headache?”
“It’s for somebody else,” Melody said. But come to think of it, she did have the start of a dull tightness that wrapped itself around her skull. Maybe she should pick some up for herself. She glanced down at the box in the woman’s arms.
“Humidifier,” the woman volunteered. “My husband gets asthma occasionally. The doctors thought this might help.”
“I used to get asthma when I was a kid. It went away when I got older,” Melody said, scanning the street. “And moved out of my parents’ house.”
The woman looked up quickly and they shared a brief grin. “Sometimes that solves more than you think.” She handed the box to the clerk and turned back to Melody. “Our kids will probably say the same thing about us.”
“If we’re lucky,” Melody said, and blinked hard.
The sun hit Melody square in the face when she stepped back onto the sidewalk and crossed the street to the park. The children eyed her suspiciously. Melody handed their mother the aspirin and a bottle of orange Fanta she had thought, at the last minute, to buy. The woman tossed back two tablets, took a swig of