The Husband

hard and cold and convincing.
    If he lost Holly, maybe anything was possible. Because of her, he had come fully to life. Without her, a part of him would die, and he would be less of a man.
    Anson seemed to follow that same chain of reasoning, for he said, "All right. Okay. Four hundred thousand."
    "What?"
    "In the boat. I'll tell you where to find it."
    "We're still two hundred thousand short."
    "There's no more. Not cash. I'd have to liquidate some stock."
    Mitch turned to look at the kitchen clock—11:56.
    "Four minutes. No time left for lies, Anson."
    "Would you for once believe me? Just for once? There's no more in easy cash."
    "I already have to change the conditions of the trade," Mitch worried, "no wire transfer. Now I also have to bargain them down two hundred thousand."
    "They'll take it," Anson assured him. "I know these pigs. Are they gonna turn down a million eight? No way. Not these pigs."
    "You better be right."
    "Listen, we're okay now, aren't we? Aren't we okay? So don't leave me in the dark."
    Mitch had already turned away from him. He didn't switch off the laundry-room light, and he didn't close the door.
    At the table, he stared at the bearer bonds and the cash. He picked up the pen and the notepad and went to the phone.
    He could not bear the sight of the telephone. Phones had not brought him good news lately.
    He closed his eyes.
    Three years ago, they were married with no family in attendance. Dorothy, the grandmother who had raised Holly, had passed suddenly five months previously. On her father's side were an aunt and two cousins. She didn't know them. They didn't care.
    Mitch couldn't invite his brother and three sisters without extending an invitation to his parents. He didn't want Daniel and Kathy to be there.
    He wasn't motivated by bitterness. He didn't exclude them in anger or as punishment. He'd been afraid for them to be present.
    This marriage was his second chance at family, and if it failed, he wouldn't have the nerve to try a third time. Daniel and Kathy were a systemic disease of families, a disease that, allowed in at the roots, would surely deform the plant and wither its fruit.
    Afterward, they told his family they had eloped, but actually they'd had a small ceremony and reception at the house for a limited number of friends. Iggy was right: The band had been woofy. Too many numbers with tambourines. And a guy singer who thought his best trick was extended passages in falsetto.
    After everyone had gone and the band was a comic memory, he and Holly had danced alone, to a radio, on the portable dance floor that had been set up in the backyard for the event. She had been so lovely in the moonlight, almost otherworldly, that he unconsciously held her too tight, as if she might fade like a phantom, until she said, "I'm breakable, you know," and he relaxed, and she put her head on his shoulder. Although he was usually a clumsy dancer, he never once put a foot wrong, and around them turned the lush landscaping that was the consequence of his patient labor, and above them shone the stars that he had never offered her because he wasn't a man given to poetic declarations, but she owned the stars already, and the moon bowed to her, as well, and all the heavens, and the night.
    The phone rang.

Chapter 49

     
    He answered on the second ring and said, "This is Mitch."
    "Hello, Mitch. Are you feeling hopeful?"
    This mellow voice was not the same as on the previous calls, and the change made Mitch uneasy.
    "Yes. I'm hopeful," he said.
    "Good. Nothing can be achieved without hope. It was hope that brought me from Angel Fire to here, and it's hope that'll carry me back again."
    On consideration, the change didn't disturb Mitch so much as did the nature of the voice. The man spoke with a gentleness that was just one station up the dial from spooky.
    "I want to talk to Holly."
    "Of course you do. She is the woman of the hour—and acquitting herself very well. This lady is a solid spirit."
    Mitch didn't know what to make of that. What the guy had said about Holly was true, but from him, it sounded creepy.
    Holly came on the line. "Are you okay, Mitch?"
    "I'm all right. I'm going crazy, but I'm all right. I love you."
    "I'm okay, too. I haven't been hurt. Not really."
    "We're going to pull this off," he assured her. "I'm not going to let you down."
    "I never thought you would. Never."
    "I love you, Holly."
    "He wants the phone back," she said, and returned it to her captor.
    She had sounded