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and closed it behind her.
    He drove off slowly. He would not be going to Anita's tonight. He drove to his house on the outskirts of Mount Faith Drive and sat in his driveway for the longest while. He looked at its dark unwelcoming bulk in the night. He needed a wife. He needed Anita for that wife. He sighed and hauled himself out of the car.
     
    *****
     
    "You have placed me in an impossible situation," Anita said, the minute she stepped into her house that evening.
    Carol was watching television. She had Chudney in her lap—a black and white heap. He was enjoying the stroking she was giving him.
    "Ah," Carol said, with no concern whatsoever that Anita was glaring at her. "How did I do that?"
    "You listed my name as your next of kin and you are on the run from the police." Anita threw down her briefcase and sat down in a huff in the settee across from Carol. She looked around her living room; it looked less than her impeccable standards.
    Near her foot was a white sock, one of her gym socks. It had teeth marks in it. It looked like it was thrown down on the floor. Chudney must have gotten to it. On the top of her mini bookcase, where she kept all of her favorite books, was a cereal bowl. She could see ants creating a trail to the to the bowls edge.
    "Relax," Carol said, "I didn't do whatever it is that they are accusing me of doing."
    "Argh." Anita ran her hand through her hair. "I should have known that when you showed up last night in the dark that this was bad news. You lied to me."
    "I didn't lie to you." Carol snorted. "I told you I needed a place to crash until I could sort out some things."
    "You came here with your headlights off and frightened me on the verandah. I should have known you were up to no good."
    "You know me," Carol said emphatically. "You know I would never kill anyone."
    Anita grunted. "Carol, I have hardly heard from you in the past twenty years. We are different people now."
    "Literally," Carol said, admiring Anita, "but that doesn't mean that my moral fabric has stretched so thin that I am now a murderer."
    "So what happened?" Anita asked. "Tell me everything; I may as well know. When the police find you here I am going to prison for harboring a fugitive."
    "You did not tell them anything, did you?" Carol asked, a scared look in her eyes.
    Anita shook her head. "No, I didn't."
    Carol exhaled. "Thank you so much. I was framed for Selvin Perth's murder. I got married to him two years ago."
    Anita nodded." I didn't know that you remarried."
    "Well, I did. I took the plunge again. As you know, my first experience wasn't that great. My first husband left me after a year."
    Anita winced. "Don't go off topic."
    Carol laughed, jerking Chudney, who yawned and looked at Anita, giving her a half-hearted tail wag from Carol's lap. He was just registering that she was home.
    "I can't believe how disloyal you are," Anita said shaking her head at her dog. Chudney stood up on Carol's lap, stretched, then hopped over to Anita, putting his paw on her knee in a gesture of supplication.
    "Do you think that your cute face and sorrowful eyes changed the fact that I came into the house and you didn't even acknowledge me?" Anita asked the dog.
    Chudney whined and jumped onto her lap.
    Carol giggled. "Remember our cat, Fritz?"
    "Off topic," Anita growled. "Get back to your story."
    "Well, I got married to Sidney. I met him at a sales meeting my phone company had set up with his company. He saw me at the door, liked me and we started talking. We got married after six weeks.
    I didn't bother to find out the finer details about his life like the fact that he was seventy-five. He didn't look it, I swear," Carol said when Anita raised her eyebrows, "or about the fact that his first wife died from cancer and that there was this whole hullabaloo about her will and money and that he had a step-son who hated him like poison and by extension hated me." Carol raised her fingers, "As you know really well, I generally take the plunge