“No, it’s fine,” Val broke in. “But I need you to look after Nicole for me this morning, just for a couple of hours. Is that OK?”

“Of course!” they said in unison. “What are you going to do?” Peggy added, wrinkling her forehead.

“It’s better if you don’t know,” Val told her. She checked the clock. Five to ten. It was time to go.

* * *

She stopped the car at the end of the street where she had lived for seventeen years and peered down. Tony’s car wasn’t under the carport. He always played golf on Saturday mornings, and she couldn’t imagine he would have changed that routine. She parked in the next street, pulled up the collar of her jacket, and put on her jumbo-sized sunglasses, then walked around the corner, her legs trembling. What if he came back unexpectedly? What if one of the neighbors saw her and came out to say hello, then told Tony she had been there?

She didn’t see anyone except some kids playing football, who didn’t give her a second glance. She walked up the drive and around to the back of the house, peering in the windows for signs of life. No one there. She took out her old keys and tried them in the back door, but as she had suspected, Tony had changed the locks. Probably did that the week she’d left, knowing him.

Beside the kitchen there was a laundry room with a small window covered by a fine-mesh insect screen. Val never used to close the window over the screen so that the room was aired and didn’t smell damp. She was relieved to see Tony hadn’t thought to close it either. She had brought a metal nail file with her and slipped it under the edge of the screen, pulling it away from the wooden frame. The aperture was narrow, only two feet tall and slightly narrower in width, but she managed to slide through headfirst and pulled herself over the washing machine to the floor on the other side. As she landed, she knocked over a bag of clothespins and froze, listening. Was anyone else in the house? Maybe Tony had gotten himself a new woman already and she would come rushing down at the noise . . . but there was no sound.

Val’s heart was hammering so loudly she thought she might have a heart attack as she crept into the kitchen, where the sink was stacked with dirty dishes. Tony’s breakfast plate was on the table, with dozens of ants marching around a spill of marmalade and trudging down the table legs carrying toast crumbs on their backs. You had to keep on top of the ants in that kitchen or they took over in no time.