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thumped her over the head as she dissolved into giggles. The Persian cat huffed off, alarmed, and I fluffed the pillow carefully before returning it to its original position.
    The rest of the afternoon passed uneventfully. The doorbell didn’t ring once, and Margo and I amused ourselves by playing double solitaire on the coffee table. At four o’clock, the designated ending time for the open house, the young owners of the house returned to find us packing up our briefcases and washing teacups.
    “Anything?” the wife, a tense-looking redhead, asked without preamble. Margo shook her head but smiled to soften the report.
    “I’m so sorry, Suzanne. It’s just that time of year. I’m afraid almost nothin ’ happens in this business between Christmas and New Year’s.”
    “Your house looks wonderful,” I hastened to add, “so warm and appealing.”
    The young woman slumped into a kitchen chair, the picture of dejection. “Nobody even came, Dennis,” she told her husband as he came into the kitchen from garaging their car. He, too, showed his disappointment.
    “We’ll give it another try next weekend. We may have to come down on the askin ’ price a bit, but we’ve never had a listin ’ that we didn’t sell eventually,” Margo reassured them.
    “Eventually,” Dennis echoed dully, “and I’m going to find another job eventually, just not right now when I need it.” His wife covered his slack hands on the kitchen table with her own .
    “Don’t worry, honey. I’ve still got my job, and you’ve got unemployment compensation. It’ll be tight for a while, but we can do it.”
    His bark of laughter was humorless. “Guess we don’t have any choice. Man, I never thought I’d be that guy who let his wife support him.” He got to his feet abruptly and left the room. Suzanne sat looking after him, her concern evident. One hand strayed to cover her abdomen protectively. It was the universal gesture of expectant women everywhere.
    Margo and I exchanged a look. “Have you told him yet?” she asked Suzanne quietly.
    The redhead looked startled, then sorrowful. “Would you?”
    We both nodded our understanding of her predicament. Timing was everything in these matters, and the timing for this announcement could not be worse. I couldn’t think of anything that Dennis would want to hear less right now. Still, it seemed a shame that Suzanne couldn’t celebrate such momentous news with her husband.
    “Well, congratulations,” I said with as much warmth as I could muster, “even if mum’s the word for now.”
    Margo winced at my unintentional pun and leaned over to give Suzanne a squeeze. “Your secret is safe with us, and we’re goin ’ to do our damnedest to get this house sold for you two. It seems a shame, though. This is such a cute place for a young family.”
    Sadness engulfed the pretty face. “It would have been,” she agreed.
    After making arrangements for the following weekend, we let ourselves out through the front door and collected the open house sign from the yard.
    “That really stinks,” I said, popping the red balloon more energetically than necessary.
    “It surely does. In fact, I think it’s high time these young people got themselves a fairy godmother, don’t you?” Margo fluttered her arms and waved an imaginary wand.
    I looked at her doubtfully. “ Glinda the good witch, maybe. What are you up to?”
    “Why, Sugar, whatever do you mean?” She winked broadly and headed for her car in the driveway. “See you in the mornin ’.”

 
 
    Four

 
    By ten-thirty the next morning, I had stopped by the Brewster Police Department in response to a telephone summons and typed my statement, such that it was, on a computer in a monitored carrel, then met my daughter Emma near the marsh overpass on Old Main Street. We regularly poured out seeds and berries for the birds that wintered near the open water of the spring-fed marsh before speed-walking down Spring Street to the pond