Spencerville

weren’t from my girlfriends, and he threw them out.” She added, “I didn’t say anything to him, because I wanted to be a loyal wife. But I knew then, if not before then, that I’d married the wrong man.” She stayed silent a moment, then said, “I have to go now.”
    “Did you leave your things at your sister’s house?”
    She looked at him. “Yes… I was afraid to bring anything home in case he was there. Why?”
    “Good. Let’s go.”
    “Where?”
    “To your sister’s house. We’re leaving. Now.”
    “No, Keith—”
    “Now, Annie. Not tomorrow, not next week or next year. Now. Does your sister like dogs? She just got one.” He took her in his arms and kissed her.
    She pulled away. “Keith, no… I mean… are we really going?
Now?
”
    “Within the minute. Leave your car here. My car is still packed. Call the dog. Sit in my car.” He went into the house, got his keys, and turned off the lights. He took a piece of paper from a pad in the kitchen and wrote, “Cliff, Fuck you.” He signed it, then went outside to the Blazer and asked Annie for her keys, which she gave him. He asked, “Do you want to leave him a note in your car?”
    She glanced at the paper in his hand and replied, “No. He doesn’t leave me notes.”
    “Okay.” He jumped into her car and drove it to the barn, got out, slid open the doors, and drove the Lincoln inside. He left his short explanatory note to Cliff on the driver’s seat, slid the barn doors closed, and went back to the Blazer. He handed her keys back to her and started the Blazer. As he pulled down the driveway, she asked him, “Did
you
leave a note for him in my car?”
    “Yes. It was petty and childish.”
    “What did it say?”
    “Two words, not ‘Happy Birthday.’”
    She smiled but said nothing.
    He pulled out of the driveway, Annie beside him, Denise in the backseat, and his luggage in the rear.
    Keith turned south, toward Chatham County. Neither of them spoke for a while, then Annie said, “I can’t believe this is happening.”
    He glanced at her and saw she was staring straight out the window, looking a little dazed, or perhaps frightened. He asked her, “Are you all right?”
    She nodded, then looked at him. “This is really happening.”
    “Yes, and there’s no turning back.”
    Again she nodded, then slipped off her wedding and engagement rings and threw them out the window. “There’s no turning back.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you.”
    He felt her tears on his face. He said, “I’ve missed you.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
    A little past seven-thirty P.M. , Annie and Keith drove up to the red brick Victorian house, and Annie jumped out of the Blazer as Terry came out the side door. Without a word, except for some squeals and exclamations that Keith couldn’t make out, they ran to each other, hugged, kissed, and jumped around like schoolgirls. Although Keith felt he was the proximate cause of this joy, they ignored him for a while, then Terry ran to him and embraced him. She said, “Well, look who’s back.”
    “Yeah, we got it together this time.”
    “Oh, Keith, I
knew
you would.”
    Annie stood beside him with her arm around him, and Keith had the feeling he was posing for a trophy photo. Annie said to Terry, “We’re going—” She looked up at Keith. “Where are we going, darling?”
    “To New York,” he replied. That wasn’t where they were going, but, in Keith’s mind, this wasn’t the end of a covert operation; it was the beginning of an escape-and-evasion out of enemy territory.
    Annie added, “Then we’ll go to Rome. Right?”
    “Right.”
    Denise, still in the Blazer, began barking, and Annie said to Terry, “It was all such a last-minute… would you mind keeping Denise for a while?”
    “I’d love to. We haven’t had a dog since the kids left.” Annie opened the car door, and the dog bolted out and began running around as if she knew the place, Keith thought.
    The side door opened again, and Terry’s husband, Larry, came out. He was bigger than Keith remembered, over six feet tall, and he’d gained some weight and lost some hair, but still looked like a force to be reckoned with. He greeted his sister-in-law, then shook Keith’s hand and said, “Nice seeing you again.”
    “Same here.”
    Larry was the strong, silent type, Keith recalled, and like a lot of men around these parts, he didn’t waste words. In fact, he didn’t use many of them. Keith remembered