What frightened her even more was the realization that a mailman was the only person who had access to everyone in town, who dealt daily with each household, each individual. She had never been a religious woman, had not even been sure if she believed in such nebulous and culturally variable concepts as “good” and “evil.” But she believed now. And she thought that evil had chosen a perfect form in which to do its work. If John Smith had been a preacher or a teacher or a politician, he would not have had access to nearly the number of people he did now and would not have been able to insinuate himself so subtly, so easily, so effortlessly into people’s lives.

That bothered her, too. The passiveness of the town. The unwillingness of the people of Willis to face what was happening and do something about it. She and Doug themselves, for all their talk, had done very little to try to block the mailman, to put a stop to his plans. It was as if they were waiting for someone else to take on the responsibility, someone else to solve the problem.

But, then, what could they do? Even though they were aware of what was going on, had tried to effectively gird themselves against it, the mailman had made unwanted inroads into their lives. They had resisted the siren song of the mail, had turned deaf ears and blind eyes to the obvious psychological assaults on themselves, yet the ordeal had still subtly changed the dynamics of their family life. They had not drawn closer in the face of adversity but had, in a sense, retreated into themselves. There were no obvious walls or barriers, relationships were not tense or strained, but the comfortable spirit of joking camaraderie Doug and Billy had always shared was gone, replaced by a friendly but slightly more formal and less intimate set of roles. Her own relationships with Doug and Billy had gone through similar changes. She and Doug were more distant with each other; even their lovemaking seemed less a giving form of loving expression than the gratification of selfish needs, although the outward techniques had changed not at all. And lately she had taken to lecturing Billy in an authoritarian manner she had sworn she would never adopt.