She was right, although he had never come out and said as much. He had not, in fact, talked to her at all about the mailman, not specifically, though he had talked about the mail and obviously must have telegraphed to her his thoughts and opinions. What worried him as much as the lack of bills and junk mail, however, was the sheer amount of letters and positive correspondence they were receiving. Under normal circumstances, they did not get this much good mail in a month, let alone in a few days, and that was not something which could easily be explained, which had an alternate, obviously rational explanation. There were too many factors and variables involved. This was not something that could be attributed to the incompetency of a postal worker.

He remembered seeing the mailman carefully sorting the letters he took from the mailbox.

“I’m going to call Howard,” he repeated.

Howard himself called the next day, ready to take them up on their dinner invitation. Trish answered the phone, and while Doug knew immediately who it was from the sympathetic tone she adopted and from the sudden understanding in her voice, he did not mention anything about the mail. The postmaster was going through a difficult period, and he did not want to make it even more difficult. He would bring up his complaint next week if nothing had changed, and he would bring it up in a business rather than social environment.

Trish set up a date and Howard agreed to come over on Saturday for roast and potatoes.

“You know what?” Doug admitted to Trish that night before they went to bed. “I think I’m actually starting to miss all that junk mail. I used to toss most of those ads and flyers out without reading them, but now that we don’t get them anymore, I feel like we’re cut off from society. It’s almost like not getting a newspaper. I feel like I’m not up on what’s current.”

Trish rolled over and turned off the light. “Shut up about the mail,” she said. “Go to bed.”

6

Lane Chapman lived in a large three-bedroom house on the top of the hill, above the flattened ruins of the old Anasazi village. The house was modern, all wood and glass and angular corners, and the inside looked like something out of a magazine: white throw rugs on white Mexican tile floors, overstuffed white couches, track lights with framed art posters on otherwise bare white walls. Billy stared at the two-story structure as he walked up the paved drive to the front steps. He admired the house, appreciated it, but he didn’t like it. It seemed cold, more like an art exhibit than a home, and the two boys usually spent most of their time at the Albins’ small but comfortable A-frame.