The Lucy episode, and Vivian’s bathroom breakdown, had finally tipped her over the edge. A sliver of new moon shone brightly in the night sky, lighting the usually dark country road that led out toward the Heidelberg Chocolate Factory where McAfee’s office was. It hadn’t occurred to her to question why his office was in the chocolate factory, but if she’d asked, Mr. McAfee would’ve explained that he’d once done some work for Gunther Heidelberg, who’d paid him with the use of the upstairs office in the factory. He’d have also told her that he liked to work around the smell of chocolate.

Vivian sang out loud in awkward jagged bursts as she steered the Buick over the snow-packed road. It wasn’t the joyous kind of singing she liked to do in church, it was something more troubled and halting.

“. . . the cow jumped over the moon . . .”

How did that one go? Was that another one about a farm? Of course the cow lived on a farm.

“. . . the little dog laughed . . .”

Goddamned dog. Was this even a song?

“And the dish ran away with the spoon.”

I know people, Vivian thought, laughing at herself, and imagined all the things she could’ve done differently, if she’d really known people. She could’ve married one of the other boys who had taken her out riding in their cars, or on hayrides out in the country, or for an ice-cream cone at the soda fountain. Someone who wouldn’t have made a damned fool out of her. John Reed! If she’d married John she’d be four-flushing her fancy self in some nice brick house on the north side right now, instead of slinking around Wooster with her head ducked low, from house to work to private eye’s office.

Jesus Christ almighty, why in the hell did it have to be Edward?

If he hadn’t bothered to tell her about his other goddamned wife, what else was lurking out there? Children? Did he have a whole other family living somewhere? A family that didn’t nag him about his nose hair, and who’d let him have a goddamned dog? Vivian never told Edward about Rambles. She’d been seven and Rambles had been just over a year old, really still a puppy, when he’d scrambled off the front porch after a squirrel, out into the road, and into the path of Oscar Buckley’s oncoming new Tin Lizzie, going much too fast for their quiet neighborhood. The pain of that loss was too sharp and too deep and she wouldn’t go through it again. And she wouldn’t have Edward and Charlotte go through it, either. She’d burst into tears every time she saw Mr. Buckley and that godforsaken car, and had crossed her arms with a “Humph!” when it finally went to the scrap heap. It’d been too hard after that to be around dogs; pet them or hold them, stroke their soft ears or look into their sweet faces, so she’d just avoided them altogether. I’m allergic.