She heads in through the back gate, along the gangway by the garage, then the small patch of snowed-over vegetable garden. The back door is ajar, Neale’s key ring like a crappy charm bracelet with swipe tags dangling from the lock. Tapping into some vein of instinct, Cate moves quietly into the mudroom. From there she can hear someone talking, loud without quite shouting. A woman’s voice, abraded, punctuated by a stuttery cough. Cate thinks, well, maybe a neighbor.

“She’s just your type,” says the voice. “And look. She’s not fighting all that hard, she’s just teasing you.”

Not a neighbor.

“Hey mama.” A higher voice, but definitely a man. “I can’t get in.”

Cate understands that what she is walking into will be horrible. She presses her back against the cold masonry wall and moves slowly up the short flight of stone steps. Halfway, when her head is level with the kitchen floor, she sees Neale pinned to it by a large man, too large, his back to Cate. He’s wearing a hoodie, bright blue with a low tide of grime around the bottom. He has Daffy Duck tattooed on the side of his neck; he’s the guy she noticed in the library. Neale is squirming under him. He is trying to get her cooperation by slapping her head one way, then the other.

“You don’t simmer down, we might need to do a little dentistry.” He pulls a pair of pliers from a pocket of his hoodie. Warm saliva slides up the sides of Cate’s throat. She swallows hard. This is it. The moment underprepared for.

Scattered around on the linoleum are a bag of chips, some peaches, a block of tofu, a box of spaghetti, a box of doughnuts, a plastic bottle of V8. Neale’s purse with glasses and wallet and a small pack of Kleenex spilling out. A roll of mints. All of this detail Cate registers pointlessly, as though she’s been asked to play an old-fashioned party memory game.

Then she sees the woman, pacing, skinny in jeans with jeweled back pockets, cowboy boots with pointed toes. She is fiercely agitated. She comes over to help subdue Neale, who is twisting harder now. To remedy this, the woman kicks her casually in the side of her head—casually but hard.

“Simmer down, cunt.”

yule log