felt in my bones.
My life might not be much, but it's all I have and it's livable. I've tried other lives; this one suits me best.
I was through at Dr. Sizemore's at 7:30, and I locked the door carefully, then went home to eat a chicken breast, a roll, and some broccoli sprinkled with Parmesan cheese. After I'd cleaned up the kitchen, I fidgeted around the house, tried a library book, slammed it shut, and at last resorted to turning on the television.
I'd forgotten to check the time. I'd turned the TV on during the news. The pictures were among the worst: women holding screaming children, bombs exploding, bodies in the street in the limp grip of death. I saw the face of one desperate woman whose family was buried in rubble, and before my finger could punch the channel changer, tears were running down my face.
I haven't been able to watch the news in years.
Chapter Four
Wednesday mornings are flexible. It's the time I set aside for emergencies (special cleanings for ladies who are going to host the bridge club or give a baby shower) or rare cleanings, like helping a woman turn out her attic. This Wednesday, I had long been scheduled to help Alvah York with her spring cleaning. Alvah observes this rite even though she and her husband, T. L., live in one of Pardon Albee's apartments now that T. L. has retired from the post office.
Two years before, I'd helped Alvah spring-clean a three-bedroom house, and Alvah had started work before I arrived and kept on going at noon when I left. But Alvah has gone downhill sharply since the move, and she might actually need help for the two-bedroom apartment this year.
The Yorks' apartment is on the ground floor of the Garden Apartments, next to Marie Hofstettler's, and its front door is opposite the door of the apartment Pardon Albee kept for himself. I couldn't help glancing at it as I knocked. There was crime-scene tape across the door. I'd never seen any in real life; it was exactly like it was on television. Who was supposed to want to get into Pardon's apartment? Who would have had a key but Pardon? I supposed he had relatives in town that I didn't know of; everyone in Shakespeare is related in some way to at least a handful of the other inhabitants, with very few exceptions.
For that matter, how had he died? There'd been blood on his head, but I hadn't investigated further. The examination had been too disgusting and frightening alone in the park.
I glanced at my man-sized wristwatch. Eight on the dot; one of the primary virtues Alvah admires is punctuality.
Alvah looked dreadful when she answered the door.
"Are you all right?" I asked involuntarily.
Alvah's gray hair was matted, obviously uncombed and uncurled, and her slacks and shirt were a haphazard match.
"Yes, I'm all right," she said heavily. "Come on in. T. L. and I were just finishing breakfast."
Normally, the Yorks are up at 5:30 and have finished breakfast, dressed, and are taking a walk by 8:30.
"When did you get home?" I asked. I wasn't in the habit of asking question, but I wanted to get some response from Alvah. Usually, after one of their trips out of town, Alvah can't wait to brag about her grandchildren and her daughter, and even from time to time that unimportant person, the father of those grandchildren and husband of that daughter, but today Alvah was just dragging into the living room ahead of me, in silence.
T. L., seated at their little dinette set, was more like his usual bluff self. T. L. is one of those people whose conversation is of 75 percent platitudes.
"Good morning, Lily! Pretty as ever, I see. It's going to be a beautiful day today."
But something was wrong with T. L., too. His usual patter was thudding, and there wasn't any spring in his movement as he rose from the little table. He was using his cane this morning, the fancy silver-headed one his daughter had given him for Christmas, and he was really leaning on it.
"Just let me go shave, ladies," he rumbled valiantly, "and then I'll leave the field to you."
Folding the paper beside his place at the table, he went down the hall. T. L. is a big, shrewd gray-haired man, running to fat now, but still strong from a lifetime of hard physical work. I watched T. L. duck into the bedroom doorway. Something else was different about