behind a car that I assumed must be Thea's, which looked dark red or brown in the dim light of the streetlamp. So it didn't exactly seem the driver was paying an official visit; in fact, I concluded, Tom David Meiklejohn, whose car number 3 was parked in the driveway, was inside chitchatting with the rat-plagued Mrs. Sedaka, while he was supposed to be patrolling the streets of Shakespeare to keep them safe for widows and orphans.
Instead, it seemed Tom David Meiklejohn was personal bodyguard to one about-to-be-divorcee.
I had a fleeting desire to make yet one more anonymous phone call to Claude Friedrich, before I reflected that not only would that be sneaky and dishonorable but also that a possible relationship between Thea and Tom David was none of my business.
I began moving again, ghosting silently down the dark, quiet street, thinking hard as I passed from shadow to shadow.
In five minutes, I was on Farraday. Marshall's car was parked in the gravel driveway of the house on the corner, a little house smack in the middle of a small lot needing a great deal of yard work. The rental was definitely a step down from Celia Street.
I wondered if it had been hard for Marshall to leave the Sedaka house in Thea's possession.
The porch light was glowing yellow, but I continued on through the yard and around to the back door, my eyes adapting quickly to the darkness. I rapped three times, hard, and heard Marshall's quick footsteps.
"Who's there?" he asked. He's not a man who likes surprises, either.
"Lily." He opened the door quickly. I went up the step and into the house. And despite what he had said about having an evening of conversation, the minute the door shut, his arms went around me and his mouth found mine. My hands snaked underneath his T-shirt, eager to touch his body again.
I did not have time to marvel at my ability to have sex without fear; I did not have time to wonder if what I was doing was wise, since I carried burdens enough for two, and Marshall was not exactly an unencumbered man. But we did take a moment for protection this time, and I hoped we wouldn't pay for our previous stupidity.
Afterward, it was hard to feel the limitations of my own skin, to feel myself shrinking back into the mold in which I'd cast myself before I'd come to Shakespeare. For the first time in years, it felt confining rather than comfortable.
And yet, as I looked around Marshall's Spartan bedroom - the queen-size mattress and box spring on a frame, no headboard or footboard; a dresser clearly retrieved from someone's attic; a thrift store night table - I felt uneasy at being out of my own home. In many months, I hadn't been in anyone's house except to clean it.
We'd been lying together quietly since making love, my back to his front, his arm around me. Every now and then, Marshall would kiss my neck or stroke my side. The intimacy of the moment both excited and threatened me.
"You know Thea is seeing someone else," I said quietly.
If he wanted to get divorced, he needed to know that. If he wanted to reconcile with Thea, he needed to know that.
"I thought so," he said after a long moment. "Do you know who it is?"
"What will you do if I tell you a name?" I turned over to face him, automatically reaching down for the sheet to cover my scars. Before he answered, he took the sheet, pulled it back down, and kissed my chest.
"Don't hide from me, Lily," he whispered.
My hands twitched with the effort I was making not to grab the sheet. Marshall moved even closer to me so that his body covered the scars, and I gradually relaxed against him.
"Are you thinking I might track him down and beat him up for Thea's honor?" he asked after letting enough time pass to let me know he didn't consider Thea's affair a personal thing.
"I don't know you well enough to know what you would do."
"Thea is a hometown sweetheart, because she's pretty and she was born and bred here. She knows when to act charming and sunny. She's good with children. But the people you won't find talking about Thea with this exaggerated awe are the men she's dated for a while - the men she's dated long enough to go to bed with."
I pulled back a little to look at Marshall's face. He