"Lemon chicken," Rod told him. "Help yourself."

"I think she's cool," Lauren said, sitting down and spooning a large helping of fried rice onto her plate.

"You do?" Bonnie made no effort to contain her surprise. "What about her do you find 'cool'?"

Lauren shrugged. "I think she helps people."

"Helps them? How-by exploiting them in front of millions of people?"

"How is she exploiting them?" Lauren asked.

"Can you pa.s.s the chow mein?" Sam said.

"She exploits them because she misleads them into thinking that by confessing their problems in front of millions of people, they can solve them. She offers thirty-second sound bites as solutions. And she provides a forum for every kook and exhibitionist in the country. She legitimizes their highly questionable behavior by making it sound like the norm, which it definitely is not." Bonnie paused, her mind still reeling from her earlier confrontation with Rod, anger fueling her words. "How many twin lesbians are out there who have seduced their mother's boyfriends, for G.o.d's sake? Or Peeping Toms who married their first cousins after spying them making love to their fathers? Do you think that's normal? Do you think that by having these people on her show that Marla Brenzelle, whom I used to know as Marlene Brenzel, by the way, is interested in helping anyone other than herself and her precious ratings? I mean, whatever happened to discretion? Whatever happened to common sense?"

Her unexpected outburst brought silence to the room.

"That was some speech," Rod said quietly.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie quickly apologized. "I'm not sure where that came from. I didn't mean to sound so-"

"Disdainful?" Rod asked, pointedly.

"I'm sorry. I really didn't mean..."

"I hadn't realized you had such strong feelings about what I do every day," Rod said.

"When did you know Marla Brenzelle?" Sam asked.

"We went to school together," Bonnie told him, eyes on Rod.

"Cool," Sam said.

"Look," Bonnie said to her husband, "I wasn't trying to denigrate what you do...."

"Good thing you weren't trying," he said.

"She asked me if I'd like to come on the show someday," Lauren said, dragging a forkful of long yellow noodles into her mouth. "She said it might help me come to terms with what's happened if I were to talk about it."

"It would certainly help you to talk to someone, yes," Bonnie quickly agreed. "But talk to your father. Talk to a therapist. Talk to me," she offered.

"Why would I want to talk to you?" Lauren asked.

"Lauren," Rod cautioned. "Take it easy."

"Well," Bonnie began, the words emerging painfully, scratching against the sides of her throat, "I know what it's like to lose a mother you love."

"I didn't lose my mother. She was murdered. Was yours?" Lauren asked provocatively.

"No," Bonnie said. Not exactly, she thought.

"Then you don't know anything." Lauren pushed her chair away from the table. "I'm not very hungry. Can I be excused?" In the next instant, she was gone.

Rod reached across the table to pat Bonnie's hand. "Sorry, honey. You didn't deserve that." He lay down his fork, stared out the front window at the quiet suburban street. "It's been a horrible day for everyone." He ran his hand through his hair, pushed his plate away. "I'm not that hungry either." He stood up, stretched. "Actually, I'm kind of restless. Would you mind if I went out for a bit?"

"Now? It's after nine o'clock."

"Just for a short drive. I won't be long." He was already on his way out of the kitchen. Bonnie quickly followed him into the hall. "I just need some time to clear my head," he said at the front door.

"Rod, I'm sorry," Bonnie began. "You know I didn't mean to criticize you."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He kissed her gently on the mouth, one hand reaching behind him to open the door. "Want to come along?" he offered suddenly.

"How can I leave Amanda?" Bonnie pictured her daughter asleep in her bed.

"Sam and Lauren are here," Rod reminded her.

Bonnie looked toward the staircase, thought of Sam in the kitchen and Lauren in her room. "Don't even think of using my kids as baby-sitters. They're not here for your convenience," Joan had berated her one memorable evening soon after Amanda's birth.

"I better not," Bonnie said, thinking of how Joan had done everything in her power to keep Sam and Lauren from knowing their half sister. How spiteful and mean and cruel she had been. Certainly not the paragon of virtue Bonnie had heard eulogized this afternoon.

"Be back soon," Rod said, shutting the door after him.

Sam was still sitting at the table, hunched over his food, the light from the overhead fixture picking up the midnight blue of his hair, when Bonnie returned to the kitchen.

"I'm glad that someone has an appet.i.te," she said.

Sam turned around, orange sauce coating his lips like a heavy lipstick, the same shade his mother used to wear, the same shade she'd been wearing when she died.

Bonnie took an involuntary step back, as if she'd seen a ghost. Sam smiled, something dangling from his right hand, like a pocket watch on a chain, except this wasn't a chain, Bonnie realized, clutching her stomach. It was a tail.

"Oh G.o.d," she said. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

"It's just a little white rat," Sam said, laughing. "I let him nibble on some sweet-and-sour pork. Kind of a last meal sort of thing before I feed him to L'il Abner." He stood up, and Bonnie tried not to notice the slight orange halo around the doomed rat's twitching nose and mouth. "Want to watch?"

"No thank you," Bonnie whispered, as Sam left the room. Then she sank down into one of the kitchen chairs, across from Joan's ghost, and waited for Rod to come home.

9.

Bonnie pulled her car into the staff parking lot at the front of Weston Secondary at exactly seven twenty-nine the following Monday morning. "The clock in my car is digital," she remembered telling the police not long ago. And then she'd laughed. Not long, not loud. Just long enough to increase their curiosity, just loud enough to arouse their suspicions. They'd been back over the weekend to question her again, covering the same familiar territory, probably hoping she'd contradict herself, say something suitably incriminating, enough to justify Captain Mahoney clamping the pair of handcuffs always dangling from his belt around her wrists, and taking her away. They seemed unconcerned about whatever danger she and her daughter might be in, the danger Joan had warned her against. They probably think I made the whole thing up, Bonnie thought, frustrated by how little the police had revealed about their investigation, other than the coroner's conclusion that Joan had been killed by a bullet from a .38-caliber revolver, quite possibly the one still registered to Rod.

"Yo, Mrs. Wheeler," someone called as Bonnie reached the front door of the one-and-a-half-story reddish brick building. "Let me get that for you."

Bonnie turned to see Haze running toward her. Well no, not exactly running, she thought, watching him, mesmerized by the easy insolence of his gait. More like loping. A sleek, muscular, white stallion, dressed all in black, and totally tuned to his own body rhythms.

"You look real nice today, Mrs. Wheeler," he said, pulling open the heavy door and standing off to one side so that Bonnie could enter first. "Nice to see you back," he said as they stepped into the cafeteria.

Bonnie smiled. "And what can I do for you, Haze?"

Haze lowered his head, his voice teasingly soft, so that she had to lean forward to hear him. "You're not still expecting that essay for today, are you?" he asked.

She almost laughed, would have if not for the sudden tension in the boy's face, the noticeable stiffening of his smile.

"I'm afraid I am," she told him, the noise and smells of the room crowding around her. "You've had over a month."

Haze said nothing, a subtle smirk replacing his frozen smile, as he slowly backed into a group of students hovering nearby. Bonnie watched him disappear, the rat being swallowed by the giant snake, she thought, feeling somewhat unsettled by their encounter, although she wasn't sure why. She proceeded out of the cafeteria, nodding at several boys roughhousing in one corner, and walked briskly down the corridor. A long fluorescent light ran down the center of the high ceiling, like a single line on a highway, casting shadows on the yellow brick walls, lending an eerie glow to a large framed photograph of recent graduates, their smiling heads severed and mounted in a series of small neat ovals, hanging outside the door to the staff room. Bonnie pushed open the door, heading straight for the pot of coffee percolating on the side counter, quickly pouring herself a cup.

"Hi there, everyone," she said to no one in particular, walking to a chair by the long wall of windows. The view-a small inner courtyard with a single tree-was something less than spectacular.

There were perhaps half a dozen teachers scattered about the predominantly blue and beige room, several grouped in conversation around the water cooler, others seemingly absorbed in the morning paper, all a careful study of casual nonchalance. A smattering of hi's reached her ears. Someone asked how she was; she said okay. "It's nice to be back," Bonnie volunteered, noting that Josh Freeman was nowhere around.

"It must have been horrible," Maureen Templeton, a science teacher with frizzy yellow hair and a p.r.o.nounced overbite, offered, and everyone nodded, further embellishment not required.

"Yes, it was," Bonnie agreed.

"Do the police-?"

"Nothing yet," Bonnie said.

"Rough week?" asked Tom O'Brian, the suitably brooding dramatic arts teacher.

"The pits."

"Well, anything we can do to help...." Maureen Templeton offered, while the rest nodded.

"Thank you."

"Sam's in my third-period cla.s.s," Tom O'Brian stated. "He's a real talent, a natural-born actor. How's he doing?"

"Better than you might expect," Bonnie answered, still not sure what to make of Sam's behavior. The police had released Joan's car, and Sam had happily volunteered to drive his sister to and from her school in Newton for the balance of the school year. "Did you know his mother?"

"I met her at parent-teacher interviews back in November. She seemed nice enough." Tom O'Brian shook his head. "Awful thing. Hard to believe."

There didn't seem to be anything left to say, and the room fell silent. Gradually, everyone returned to whatever each had been doing before Bonnie's entrance. Bonnie reached for a section of The Boston Globe that lay on the Formica coffee table in front of her chair, flipping through it, relieved her name was no longer front and center on the pages. Other murders, bloodier, more sensational, had rendered her old news: a murder-suicide in Waltham; a drive-by shooting on Newbury Street; a couple stabbed while having dessert at a trendy bistro.

Bonnie quickly traded the first section for the Life section, scanning the recipes for low-fat brownies and high-fiber apple crumble, ignoring an article on s.e.x and the elderly, and focusing on "House Calls," an advice column shared by two doctors, general pract.i.tioner, Dr. Rita Wertman, and family therapist, Dr. Walter Greenspoon.

What had Dr. Greenspoon's name been doing in Joan Wheeler's address book?

Dear Dr. Greenspoon, the first letter began. I'm the mother of a hyperactive seven-year-old girl who is driving my husband and me crazy. She refuses to get up in the mornings, screams when I take her to school, and won't eat her supper or go to bed. My husband and I are exhausted, and are constantly at each other's throats. I'm afraid our marriage won't survive this child, and I don't know what to do.

Dear Frustrated Mom, began Dr. Greenspoon's reply. You and your husband need to learn how to act as a unit....

"Excuse me, Mrs. Wheeler," a voice interrupted.

Bonnie looked up, the paper dropping to her lap. Josh Freeman stood before her, tall and lean, a shy smile on his lips, looking appealingly boyish, although there was something about his posture that warned her not to get too close. "Mr. Freeman," she acknowledged, awkwardly.

"You said you'd like to talk to me."

"Yes. If you wouldn't mind." Bonnie nodded toward the chair beside her. Josh Freeman hesitated, then sat down. "How are you enjoying Weston Secondary?" Bonnie asked, not sure how to begin, feeling as awkward as if this were their first date. What was she doing? Why had she asked to speak to him? What exactly did she want to speak to him about?

"I like it here very much," Josh Freeman told her. "Lots of talented, creative kids. I don't have to do much to motivate them. But I don't think that's what you wanted to talk to me about, is it?"

So, he wasn't one for small talk, Bonnie thought, normally a trait she admired. "I was surprised to see you at Joan Wheeler's funeral," she ventured.

Josh Freeman said nothing.

"I hadn't realized you were friends."

Still nothing.

"You're not saying anything," Bonnie said, staring at his lips, almost afraid to look into his eyes.

"You haven't asked me anything," he told her.

She smiled, understanding she would have to be specific if she hoped to learn anything, although what exactly she was trying to learn puzzled her. "How well did you know Joan?"

"We met in November at parent-teacher night. We talked a number of times after that."

"She had your home phone number."

"Yes, she did."

Bonnie took a deep breath, forced her eyes to his, was momentarily startled by their clarity, by the intensity with which he returned her gaze. "You're not making this very easy for me."

"I'm not trying to be difficult," he said. "I'm just not sure what you're getting at."

"Have the police contacted you?"

"I've spoken to the police, yes."

"May I ask what you talked about?"

"You may not," he said evenly.

Bonnie felt her cheeks grow red. "Did you know about my connection to Joan?" she asked.

"I know that you're married to her ex-husband."

"Did Joan tell you that, or did the police?"

"Joan told me."