She stared at them a moment, not comprehending. If her car had been stolen, how could I have the keys?

“It’s around the corner,” I said, softly.

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said. “You were using the car?”

“It’s around the corner,” I repeated, whispering. “I moved it. Everything’s fine.”

Sarah replaced the receiver, her face red, her breathing rapid and shallow. “Why did you move my car around the corner? And why have you got my keys?”

“Okay, you see, what happened is … you know how you thought you’d left your keys in the door?”

Sarah nodded.

“And you know how I’ve mentioned that to you before?”

Sarah nodded again, a bit more slowly this time.

“Anyway, when I came home, a couple of minutes after you …”

“I’d just come in with the groceries,” Sarah said slowly. “I stopped for them on my way home, even though I had a totally crappy day at the office, did five extra hours because Kozlowski booked off sick and we had the variety store thing, and picked up some things so we could have dinner.”

This was not good. Sarah was developing a tone. That meant she was already ahead of me. She knew where this story was going and how it was going to end. But I decided to tell the rest of it anyway. “So when I came up the driveway, I saw that your keys were hanging from the door, you know, where anyone could find them. This is the thing. You know, it’s lucky for you, really, when you think about it, lucky for you that it was me coming up the driveway then, and not some, you know, crazy axe murderer or car thief or something instead, because that’s what could have happened. You know I’ve mentioned this before, about you leaving your keys in the lock, and all I was trying to do was make a point, you see, to help you, so that you wouldn’t do this sort of thing again and expose us to any, I guess you could say, unnecessary risk.”

Sarah was breathing much more slowly now. And just staring at me.

“So, you see, that’s why I did what I did.”

“Which was what, exactly?”

“I moved the car, just, you know, just a little ways down the street. Like, around the corner.”

“Where I wouldn’t be able to see it.”

“Yes. That, that was the plan.”

“And when I went to look for the keys, I wouldn’t be able to find them, and then when I saw that the car was missing, I’d think it was stolen, and would have a fucking heart attack so that you could make a point, is that about right?”

“It was never my intention to give you a heart attack or anything. It was merely intended as a, well, as a lesson.”

“A lesson.”

I swallowed. “Yes.”