Gaits of Heaven

provision of storage space was the original basis of my friendship with Kevin. It was also the origin of Mrs. Dennehy’s prejudice against me, a bias that she abandoned when Kevin started dating Jennifer and I married Steve. In brief, Mrs. Dennehy, who dislikes Jennifer more than she used to dislike me, adores Steve, whose deep kindness she senses and respects and whom she views as a buffer between her son and my refrigerator. Kevin still keeps hamburger and Bud here, but he hesitates to drop in as often as he used to, and, in any case, his mother would rather have him eat meat and drink beer than breathe in the vicinity of Jennifer Pasquarelli.
    Although Mrs. Dennehy had softened toward me, her appearance remained as severe as ever. In particular, her hair was pulled so tightly into a knot on her head that she must have had a permanent headache. When she opened the back door, I could see that she was busy. A vacuum cleaner sat on the linoleum, and by the sink were a bucket and mop.
    “I’m sorry to interrupt you,” I said, “but I need a favor.” Mrs. Dennehy tried to supply me with a cup of herbal tea, which I managed to weasel out of accepting. Still, at her insistence, I took a seat at her kitchen table and outlined my concerns about Caprice. “This was her mother who died,” I said, “and I want Kevin to be the one who talks to her. He questioned her yesterday, just after the mother’s body was found, but someone is going to want to talk to her again, and it really should be Kevin. Not that someone else would be brutal. But this young woman is very vulnerable.”
    “ ‘Suffer the little ones,’ ” said Mrs. Dennehy.
    My face must have reddened. “Actually, that’s part of the problem. Caprice is horribly overweight. I’m sure it’s a response to the problems in her family.” My manipulation was Worthy of a malamute: Seventh-Day Adventism places a high value on health and on family life.
    “The poor girl,” Mrs. Dennehy said. “I’ll have a little Word with Kevin. Love thy neighbor. He’s a good boy. He understands that.”
    “I’ve left messages for him,” I said.
    “He’s being driven crazy! By these psychiatrists.” She stretched out the word and put a heavy accent on the first syllable: PSY-chi-uh-trists.
    “I’ve met them. They are a little... trying.”
    Two minutes after I returned home, the United States Postal Service thrilled and then disappointed the dogs, who were convinced that every package we received contained toys and treats and was thus theirs and not ours at all. The delivery wasn’t a package. It was an overnight Express envelope, inside which was a second envelope, much smaller than the first, thick and cream-colored, with my name written on it in blue ink. Inside was a note in the same ink on matching paper. I recognized the handwriting and hence took offense at the most conventional of greetings, namely, Dear Holly. Dear! How dare that fiend call me dear! I read on. I am very sorry for any harm I have caused , and I am willing to make amends even though I cannot think of a way to do it.
    Well, then, why mention it?
    The note was, of course, signed Anita Fairley.
    I was furious. Make amends ? As if she’d broken a teacup and were willing to replace it but couldn’t find one in the right pattern. I immediately acted on the agreement Steve and I had that either of us would let the other know if we heard from the Fiend. I caught him between patients. He had received an almost identical note. He told me to ignore the whole business. I couldn’t. Consequently, I called the other person who seemed a likely recipient of one of these missives, my stepmother, Gabrielle, whom Anita had helped to defraud of a large amount of money.
    Gabrielle, too, had received a note. “Something is up with her,” she said in that warm, sultry voice of hers. “This nonsense isn’t something Anita would ever have come up with her own. In fact, I’d bet anything that someone has put her up to it.”
    “Who?”
    “Do you suppose she’s become alcoholic? I don’t remember that Anita ever drank, did she? Not to the point of alcoholism. But this business of apologies and amends is very AA.”
    “Yes, it is, now that you mention it.”
    “Maybe it’s some other kind of recovery program. There are twelve-step programs for everything.”
    “Being a vile human being?”
    “For all we know, yes. But whatever it is, Anita obviously hasn’t committed herself wholeheartedly to the