A man’s voice boomed from deeper inside the house. “Jessica!”

“Who’s that?” Brian asked, starting to feel overwhelmingly confused. “Is that your dad?”

“No, it is not my dad,” she whispered.

“Whose kid was that?” he asked. He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he was hoping maybe, just maybe, he was wrong. Before she could answer, he said, “Aw, Jeez.”

“You have to go,” Jessica insisted.

“So you’ve got a kid?” Brian said. “And you’re married?”

“Please,” she said. “I was going to—I would have told you—”

“Ah man, I feel like such an idiot,” he said. “My family’s right. I really will fall for anyone’s bullshit. No wonder you didn’t want to be seen around here with me. I was starting to think maybe you were ashamed, but I get it now. You didn’t want to be—”

A hand came around the edge of the door and opened it wider. The hand, Brian quickly saw, was connected to a thin, ropy arm. Jessica’s husband was a good six feet tall, thin and wiry. His eyes were small and set deeply under his brow.

“What’s goin’ on?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Jessica said. “Just someone . . . What is it you’re selling again?”

Brian blinked. Thinking on his feet had never been an area in which he excelled. “Uh, I’m, uh . . .”

The man edged Jessica out of the way and came out onto the step. “Uh, what?”

“Ron, it’s nothing,” Jessica said to her husband. “He’s just going door to door. Is it a charity?” She looked at Brian with wide, hopeful eyes, trying to encourage him to play along.

But he wasn’t getting the message. “I just . . . I had an appointment with your wife and came by to explain why I wasn’t able to make it.”

“An appointment?” Ron cocked his head slightly to one side.

Brian nodded weakly. “You see, something happened to me. I was coming out of Knight’s, and—”

“You should go,” the man said.

“They did something to me,” Brian said, talking past Ron to Jessica, his voice starting to break. “They did something awful to me. I might even have hepatitis. I don’t know if I can die from that, but it could be bad. They’re doing tests.”

“Jesus, so you’ve got some sort of disease?” the man said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

“No,” Brian said, “it’s not something you can catch. At least, I don’t think so. Like I said, I . . . I was at Knight’s. And when I came out, someone—it might have been more than one person, I don’t know—but they grabbed me and—’

“You’re some sort of fucking lunatic,” Ron said. At which point he placed his palm solidly on Brian’s chest and gave him a shove.

Brian was pitched off the step. He hit the lawn on his back, which briefly knocked the wind out of him. He struggled to catch his breath as he got up on his knees. But before he could stand, Jessica’s husband put the toe of his boot into Brian’s chest. He screamed out in pain as he hit the ground.