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you could have called Connie's hospital room--or the nurses' station. I left all those numbers on the board. You could have reached me if you'd wanted to. I'd have flown home right away."
    "Would you have? You've been gone thirty-four days of the last ninety. You love being on the road. Face it, you do."
    "I don't. Especially not when one of the kids is sick. You actually counted how many days I've been gone? How many of those were spent visiting my mother?" I would have counted myself, if I hadn't been so upset. Poor Kikit. I knew how her attacks went. There would have been several hours of panic, followed by a swift physical recovery. The emotional one wouldn't be nearly so swift. Until we identified what had triggered the attack, she would be afraid to eat.
    And I hadn't been there. She must have thought I had deserted her. Furious at Dennis for keeping me in the dark, I ran into the kitchen and lifted the phone to call her at my in-laws. Dennis pressed the Page 20
    Barbara Delinsky - A Woman's Place
    disconnect button before the call could go through.
    "Don't." I tried to remove his hand. "I need to talk to Kikit."
    "You need," he said with deadly slowness and fingers like lead, "to take your things and leave. That's a court order, Claire. If you resist it, I'll call the cops."
    "You wouldn't."
    "I would," he said, and what I saw in his face as I stood there, so close, made me believe him. He was my husband. He knew me more intimately than any other man. But his face held no warmth, no fondness, nothing to suggest I was special to him in any way. I could have been a stranger to whom he had taken an instant dislike, or someone who had offended him and against whom he was taking revenge. Just then, he was a stranger to me, too. "You're scaring me, Dennis."
    "Just leave."
    "This is my home. Where am I supposed to go?"
    "You'll figure something out," he said with an odd expectancy. I waited for him to go on. When he didn't, I asked, "Like what?" It was like he knew something I didn't, like he really wanted to tell me what it was.
    He raised an arm to the wall over the phone and gave me a slanted smile.
    "Kikit told me about your run-in with the window washer."
    "Run-in?"
    "When you came prancing in here in your prettiest Victoria's Secret bra and panties while he was doing that huge picture window over there." I didn't know what that had to do with anything, still I said, "I turned around and ran back out the minute I saw him. I was mortified."
    "You looked good and you knew it."
    "You think I did it on purpose? Dennis, please. That boy is twenty years old."
    "Young flesh. Hot flesh."
    "He's the big brother of Johnny's best friend, which is why I hired him in the first place. He needed the money."
    "And got a nice little thrill for a tip. Kikit thought it was funny as anything. Me, I think it's a lousy example to be setting for an impressionable little girl." He slid his arm down the wall. "I don't think it's funny about you and Brody, either." I drew a blank. "Me and Brody what?"
    "Screwing."
    Screwing? Me and Brody?
    It was a long minute before I could speak, and then it was in a level tone. I couldn't take the charge seriously, it was so absurd. "This is madness, Dennis. What's wrong with you?"
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    "The two of you, eating at my craw for months and months. Did you think I wouldn't notice? You touch him all the time."
    "Touch him?"
    "A hand here, an arm there. And even aside from touching, there's the way you look at each other, the way you talk to each other. Hell, you all but finish each other's sentences. You spend more time with him than you do with me or the kids any day."
    "I doubt that's true, but if you're into counting hours there, too, consider that Brody is my CEO."
    "A convenient arrangement. Like the office at his house."
    "The office is at his house," I argued, "because you didn't want the office here, I wanted it in the attic, could have had a perfect office in the