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you where I was going,” he said to his wife, his high voice sharp and petulant.
    â€œAgain?”
    The glare he gave her chilled the warm room. It made me think of Len, for some reason.
    â€œThis is Ida Miller’s granddaughter.” Martha popped up. “She’s going to stay at the cabin for awhile.” She gestured toward me with tightly clutched hands.
    When he saw me, his manner changed from petulant to oozing and oily, all in an instant.
    â€œHow do you do?” he said formally, bending forward and shaking my hand, sheathing the sharpness he had shown his wife.
    â€œI was going to register her,” his wife said with a sickly smile.
    â€œWell, did you?” He scowled at her.
    â€œUh, no, not yet.”
    Poor woman, I thought. I wondered if he did more than verbally abuse her. Her eyebrows twitched together and she sank back onto the couch, deficient and defeated.
    He turned to me again. “Me and the missus does all the managin’. It’s a big job. Lots of responsibility.” He cleared his throat with a moist sound. It didn’t help. His squeaky tenor still grated on my ears. “No noise after ten o’clock on week nights, now. Garbage is picked up once a week, on Wednesdays, at the foot of the hill. You need to haul your own trash down there. The upkeep of your cabin, your boat, and your dock is your responsibility. You get your own yard mowed, we mow all the common ground. You got any problems, you come see me about it.” At this he thumped himself in the chest with his thumb. I pictured him sticking his hand inside his shirt and striking a Napoleon pose. He did look a bit like the French emperor.
    â€œAnd watch how you drive with all this gravel. The teenagers sometimes go berzook, ‘specially on the weekends, we gotta watch ‘em. They drive like crazy, tearin’ up and down the hill. Throwin’ gravel all over the place.”
    Berzook ? Was that a version of berserk? “Did you know my grandmother well?” I asked, changing the subject.
    â€œSure, I knew her. Knew her from way back.” He quit talking for a moment and the silence was conspicuous without his whining, raspy voice.
    Toombs got some papers out of a corner cabinet drawer, rustled them a bit, and wrote down my name, address, and phone number in Chicago as I dictated them. He opened a door in the upper half of the cabinet. The inside of the door held rows of hooks, each with a neatly lettered label above it. He looked at the hook under the name Ida Miller, from which one key swung.
    â€œOh, that’s right. Gracie came and got the other key.” He gave me a sharp look. “You still have it?”
    â€œOf course.” Did he think I’d lost it already? But, prone to losing things as I am, I was glad to see a spare.
    â€œGuess you’re all set, then.” He dusted his hands together with an air of self-importance.
    â€œI need to run errands. You stay here,” he ordered his wife. She pulled in her head, turtle-fashion, and sank further into the couch, like a dog responding to a “sit” command. Would I have turned into a person like Martha if I’d put up with being beaten by the man in my life? Once was all it took for me, but with a different upbringing, a different outlook… who knows?
    â€œBe back later.” His departing strut needed to be accompanied by Gounod’s comic Funeral March of the Marionettes, the song Alfred Hitchcock used as the theme song for his television show. The room breathed a sigh of relief after he left.
    â€œMo, dear,” said Mrs. Toombs, brightening. “Poor Cressa doesn’t know anyone here. Why don’t you take her to lunch at the bowling alley and show her around?”
    I wasn’t sure I was up to eating yet, but Mrs. Toombs looked so pitifully hopeful, so proud to have had an original thought, I agreed to meet Mo in a couple of hours. I felt some kind of a kinship with