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you.”
    Prancing around the corner came the little orange dog, followed by a child—flesh and blood.
    Eden gasped.
    The girl held a can of cat food with the top peeled back like a potato chip, and Eden registered the rank odor of compressed meat. She turned her head to keep from gagging.
    â€œHe’s paying me to do it,” said the girl.
    The child was obviously lost or mentally unstable.
    â€œThis is a mistake.”
    â€œAre you Mrs. Anderson?” She cocked her head like a spring sparrow.
    Eden nodded. Her stomach dipped at the cat food smell. Coming off the in vitro hormones seemed to have more side effects than going on: nausea, wild dreams, paranoia, hot flashes. But then, she’d been on the doses for so many years, she couldn’t recall how
normal
felt.
    â€œI live next door,” the girl continued. “Mr. Anderson came over this morning and made me a deal.” She pulled the lid off the can and set it on the ground.
    The dog padded over, took one lick of the mealy meat, and turned away. It was still here, and Jack was gone. This was
not
taking care of it.
    â€œHe’s paying me fifty dollars on Friday if I feed and walk your dog while he’s off wherevers. See?” She held up a shiny silver key. “I’m not a burglar. He told me to come because of your allergies. Doctor says I’mallergic to pollen—just the March and April kind. My face swells up like a fat strawberry. It sucks.”
    â€œMy allergies?” asked Eden. She rubbed her forehead, trying to clear the cobwebs of this nightmare.
    â€œTo Cricket—dander, my doctor calls it.” The girl nodded at the dog, who had gone on to turn the can sideways. Chunks were pressed between the wooden floor slats like brown Play-Doh. She’d have to mop with Pine-Sol to get rid of the stench.
    â€œUh-huh. That’s what Mr. Anderson said?” Eden ran a hand through her hair, and her shirt rode up high on her thighs. First things first: get decent. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
    â€œCleo.”
    â€œCleo. That’s pretty. I’m Eden. As you can see, you kind of caught me off guard. I’m still in my pajamas.” She pulled the Sting T-shirt down. “Can you give me a minute?”
    She went upstairs and stomped around the boxes of clothes in her bedroom. How dare Jack do this to her—leave for the week, give their house key to a child stranger, and ask her to take care of it all for him. If he were standing there now, she’d tell him what a careless,
ridiculous
idea…fifty bucks for a kid to feed the dog cat food? Was that even safe? The child could poison the thing, and then what—then she’d be left to deal with a dead dog while Jack was off playing cowboy in Texas. The nerve.
    The longer it took her to find her clothes, the more spun up she became. Her heart pounded. Her cheeks flamed. Her only calming thought was that he’d learn quickly after she was gone that someone had to clean up his messes; soon she’d look back on this moment after two martinis at an agency lunch and say,
Thank God that’s over, thank God I’m here now, thank God
.
    She pulled on a hibiscus-printed maxi dress, combed her hair once through, and went downstairs again.
    â€œNow then,” she said, but the girl was gone, as was the dog.
    She went out on the front porch. To the right on Apple Hill Lane, a woman in a wide-brimmed hat knelt on a gardening cushion, weedingher yellow begonias. Directly across the street, a man who looked too young to be retired sat on his front porch drinking from a mug and leisurely reading a newspaper. A couple of moms in workout clothes chatted as they pushed strollers at a pace that made Eden tired to watch. She hurried inside and shut the wooden door. The moms with their strollers passed. Their peppy voices filtered through the wall.
    â€œStomach flu. The kids are passing it round like candy. Phil and I