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Marilyn had been walking towards the oncoming traffic. She was less than twelve paces from the crossing when she saw a yellow cement mixer pull up for the man and boy. The driver was jolly and red - faced with an almost comical bushy black moustache. He gesticulated to the pedestrians by sweeping one hand elegantly through the air, inviting their safe passage. Perhaps because of this, because of the truck driver’s smile and the reassuring size of the vehicle, because of the resolute hiss of the air brakes and the torrential rain, the father, his head craned upward as he nodded thanks at the driver, stepped onto the part of the crossing that spanned the opposite lane without really looking to see if it was safe. One minute the man was there, the next he was gone – replaced by the wildly sashaying rear end of the car that had hit him. By some miracle (Marilyn had always been convinced it wasn’t by design) the man had loosened his grip on the boy’s hand and the child was left standing in the shadow of the truck’s huge black wheels, his hand still raised to meet his father’s.
    This memory had embedded itself deeply in Marilyn’s mind – morbidly, Scott said – and now in those seconds as she watched the young woman crossing the road and saw the car approaching at speed she held her breath and felt her stomach grow hollow as she steeled herself for the worst. But the young woman, seeing the vehicle, lengthened her stride and skipped gracefully onto the pavement.
    Marilyn breathed out through pursed lips and felt her body deflate. Now she studied the young woman even more closely than before – with her platinum blonde bobbed hair and slender limbs she looked like a character from a 1950s or 60s French film – Jules et Jim or one of those Eric Rohmer movies or even (if the girl was to come to a bad end) a Claude Chabrol. She carried a small stylish bag that looked like a basket and she’d draped a white scarf or cardigan over it. She had an air of self - consciousness about her – which was manifested as a kind of awkwardness in the seeming naturalness of her movements that somehow made one want to stare at her.
    Obviously she was French, but from one of the larger cities, Paris probably. And she was perhaps a film or fashion student, or so Marilyn imagined, and she was on her way to meet her lover, who was a much older man. No one would think anything of that in France – not if the man was good - looking, rich and powerful, and if the girl was beautiful and over the age of consent.
    Marilyn watched the young woman pause at the entrance to the restaurant and stare directly at their house. Marilyn automatically ducked behind the curtain, afraid of being caught staring. When she looked again the girl had gone.
    Marilyn sighed. She heard Scott say crossly, ‘Hey, no meatloaf for people who can’t behave,’ and remembered immediately what it was she had been doing before the phone call.
    Aaron and Scott were near the door to the downstairs bathroom now. Aaron’s hair looked wet and it stuck up at odd angles, Scott had a big wet patch on the front of his olive green shirt and smaller dark patches on his sleeves. He was angry.
    Sometimes this happened. Invariably it wore them all out, Aaron most of all, so that on this night he was in his bed and sound asleep by eight thirty - five.
    Scott said he had to get out of the house. He was sorry. Did she mind? He’d go mad if he stayed in. He was sorry, sorry, sorry . She gave him her blessing, kissed him.
    She scraped Aaron’s barely touched plate of food into the bin, then did the same with hers and Scott’s. None of them had eaten much of the meal. Prison food, Scott called it, but she knew it wasn’t that bad. It was more to do with Scott’s complex emotions about himself and his family, how he felt caged in by the fact that his younger brother was so damaged, that all his life he’d had to