Shallow Graves

room she could see. The parquet floor, the furniture. The house seemed different, a stranger’s home. She didn’t recognize it. There was nothing unpleasant about the sensation; it was one of those moments when you focus on a familiar object—a doorknob, a chair, your own little finger—and it seems absurd and alien to you. This was her house, the house she’d always loved. Hers and Keith’s and Sam’s. Only something was different.
    Meg went into the bedroom, got dressed. She tied her hair in a ponytail. Her hands paused, holding the ribbon above her neck.
    The doorbell rang. She bounded down the stairs like Sam on Christmas morning.
    She swung the heavy door open. She’d already prepared a wry comment for Pellam about Janine and was ready to deliver it.
    But she blinked in surprise.
    Wexell Ambler stood there, looking shy, leaning against the jamb. “I was driving past. Saw your car was in the drive. The Cougar was gone. I couldn’t wait till tomorrow.”
    Meg instinctively looked back into the house to make certain they were alone. Then she glanced behind Ambler.
    “Is it Mr. Pellam, Mommy?” Sam called. She wondered if Ambler could hear what the boy had asked. Didn’t seem he had.
    “No, honey. I’ll be outside for a minute,” she shouted. Her hand still on the doorknob, Meg said to Ambler, “Keith’s at work.”
    “I want to talk to you. I have to talk to you.”
    “I’m expecting some company.”
    Ambler had no reaction to this. She was trying to decide whether to tell him who the company was if he asked. He didn’t. He said, “It won’t take long.” Though he said it slowly, the words full of meaning, as if he wanted their conversation to last for the entire evening.
    She looked behind her again, up the stairs toward Sam’s room, then stepped outside and closed the door behind her. It didn’t latch.
    He kissed her on the cheek and she kissed him back, though he’d have to be drunk or crazy not to sense the hesitancy.
    “I had to see you.”
    “Is everything okay?”
    He looked at her in surprise. “Okay, sure. I was worried about how Sam is. You never called to tell me if he’s all right.”
    “He’s fine. He’ll be fine.”
    “He’s a wonderful boy,” Ambler said.
    They walked to the end of the porch and stood at the railing, looking out across the moist lawn, glistening in slight radiance from the house lights.
    “What is it, Wex?”
    “About what I asked. About marrying me.”
    She turned to him. He was such a tough man. A dangerous man too, she supposed. That bodyguard thug of his, Mark, for instance. Also, the way he liked her to be helpless, almost cowering when they made love. (Meg Torrens believed sex was a window to your soul.) She’d never actually said no to him before and she wondered if there was a risk to her if she did now. She felt a chill colder than the air.
    What should she say?
    She suddenly remembered a line from one of Pellam’s movies. A character has to make a decision about turning a friend over to the police. He says to his wife, “The most important decisions are always made by our hearts.”
    She let her heart answer now.
    “Wex . . .” She looked away, fixing her eyes on a fingernail clipping of a moon over a dark wad of trees. “I can’t see you anymore.”
    She wondered if it would be a total surprise. If he’d nod slowly and walk away. If he’d fly into a rage. She honestly didn’t know.
    He didn’t answer for a moment and she heard his breathing, remembered the deep sound from the times they’d lain together.
    Tension filled her body, turned her to stone.
    “Were you going to come to the place yesterday and tell me that?” he asked. “Or were you just going to let me figure it out on my own.”
    She hesitated and for the first time in their relationship lied to him. “No, I was going to come.”
    Meg glanced toward the house and the driveway and then took his arm. He was shaking. Anger? Sorrow? The cold?
    Will he hurt me?
    She continued. “I’m sorry, Wex. I loved every minute we spent together, but . . .” She was parsing carefully, but she found she had no idea of what words she could attach to her thoughts to express them right. “But it’s just time for it to be over with.”
    “How can you say that?” he spat out.
    “It’s what I feel.”
    “What happened?”
    She couldn’t look into his eyes. “No. It’s run its course. I was searching for something. I—”
    “You’re going back to