It burns in my hand, burns deliciously, when I clasp it, and I taste something like relief. I can’t control anything in Lilydale, not who comes to my house for dinner, not whether I can drink in public, not anything except this. I have Dorothy Lily’s necklace, and when she comes over for dinner with the rest of the Fathers and Mothers, I will know something none of them do. I will have some power.

The snoring has taken on a different tenor—is it one, rather than both people snoring?—but I don’t look. I keep my face to myself, clutch the locket to my chest, and slip out of the room like a ghost, an exultant ghost.

I am calm when I step outdoors, the air cool, the moonlight shining golden across my skin.

My walk is confident across the driveway. I do not waver as I stride to my own house, not even when I spot the man in the alley, watching me from the shadows, unaware that I can see him, too.

CHAPTER 35

I tape the necklace to the back of the main-floor toilet tank, rinse my feet in the tub, put the man in the alley (Clan, sneaking home late?) out of my head, and sleep like a baby. I don’t even hear Deck leave the next morning.

True to his word, he returns at eleven thirty to take me crib shopping. I lay my head on his shoulder as he drives. It’s a short trip, only one town over, but I soak up this time with him, hanging on his every word. He’s clearly so happy to be back living in Lilydale. He’s pleasantly boyish, gushing about his new clients and the memories that keep rushing back. Football games. An awkward first kiss. His freshman-year job stocking shelves at Wally’s.

I smile and listen. I don’t tell him about Grover or visiting the Lily house last night. I just enjoy him. Deck’s been so busy at the insurance agency that I’ve missed him. We’ve grown apart, but I can feel our hearts knitting back together.

When he pulls up in front of Oleson Furniture and rushes around to open my door for me, I grin and burst out, surprising him with a big, passionate kiss.

“Well now, what was that for?”

“For being the best boyfriend a girl could ask for.”

He smiles. “You’re angling for the largest crib, aren’t you?”

I giggle. I’m smiling up at him, about to make a weak joke (we only need a small one, silly, it’s for a baby), when the color drains out of his face like someone’s pulled the plug in his stomach. I whirl to see what he’s seen.

When I spot her, I gasp, my hand flying protectively to my stomach.

A rapidly breathing woman is hunched beneath a tree just on the edge of the parking lot. She isn’t here to shop, I don’t think. In fact, it looks as if she’s run here, barefoot, her hair tangled with twigs and leaves. She’s glowering at Deck, whether intentionally or because that’s her natural expression, I can’t be sure.

When she steps out of the shadows, I moan.

Her face isn’t right.

Her head is impossibly narrow at the top, eyes melting into cheeks, her nose an unformed lump of clay floating between. Her chin juts out enough to balance a coffee cup on, pulling her bottom jaw so far that I can see every one of her bottom teeth. She looks feral, her chest rising and falling with the breath of effort or a deformity of her heart, I can’t be sure. Her body appears normal beneath her shapeless dress.

I avert my eyes. It’s cruel to stare, would be even crueler to run, but that’s what I want to do, to get my baby far away from here, to protect him from whatever caused that.

“Do you know her?” I whisper to Deck.

“We’re leaving.” Deck pulls me back toward the car.

“But we haven’t even looked at cribs!”

I steal a peep over my shoulder. The heaving woman hasn’t moved, but now she’s grinning, a horrible jack-o-lantern smile that eats the bottom half of her face. And then she darts behind the store, her movements as quick and unsettling as a silverfish.

I shudder, letting Deck guide me to the car. Once inside, I lock the doors, but I hope the woman doesn’t see. I don’t want her to feel bad. I can’t help wondering if it’s contagious, though, whatever did that to her, and if my baby is safe.

I weep on the drive home, but softly, so Deck won’t be alarmed.

CHAPTER 36

The dinner party is that night. Dorothy and Barbara are in my kitchen, as proper as ever, helping me prepare. I am only able to hold myself together by thinking of that enamel locket taped to the back of the toilet tank.

Dorothy is wearing a button-down shirt over drainpipe slacks. This is her work outfit. She’ll be in a smart suit for tonight’s party, I’d bank on it. Her hand keeps going to her bare neck so often that Barbara, who’s also there to help, finally asks her about it.

“Minna’s necklace,” Dorothy says. “I seem to have misplaced it.”

I cough to cover the unexpected burst of pleasure. I stole more power than I thought. “The necklace belonged to Minna Lily?” I ask. “Wife of Johann Lily?”

Dorothy tries to smile, but her lips are too pinched. “That’s right, dear. She brought it over from Germany. It’s a locket, actually, containing dirt from our ancestral homestead.”

I fall against the countertop. It isn’t personal that I’ve taken her necklace. She’s never been anything but nice to me. I realize I’ve gone too far.

Dorothy takes it for sympathy. “You’re too kind, darling, but don’t worry. It’ll turn up.”

She’s mixing a Cool Whip and mandarin orange salad with maraschino cherries. Both she and Barbara were visibly shocked by my hair when they showed up, but they’ve bitten their tongues.

“Barbara, I think you can put the ham in to warm now,” Dorothy says, dismissing talk of the locket with such alacrity that I wonder whether I’ve met my equal in focusing on only the positive.

The thought leaves me strangely cold.

But Dorothy and Barbara are buzzing around my kitchen, so confident, so at home, both of them cooing over my pregnancy and the town happenings and their excitement for the party, that I decide to go with the flow. It’s so cozy, almost like being mothered.

Between them, they’ve brought serving platters and a large ham, already cooked. It only needs to be warmed. Same with the scalloped potatoes. Dorothy even brought a nut-covered cheeseball, Ritz crackers, and sliced olives for appetizers. That leaves me to boil vegetables, set Jell-O salads, and warm bread. It’s pleasant, mindless kitchen work. Our conversation stays on the surface, avoiding all but the easy things.

When the first people begin showing up, the house smells wonderful. The china and sterling flatware Barbara and Ronald left in the built-ins are laid out, a feast served family-style. My own mother would be proud. I feel a sharp ache as I realize I’ve missed the one-year anniversary of her death.

“Joan, come over here,” Ronald calls to me from the front door, where he’s standing next to Amory Bauer. Ronald has been manning the door as if this were still his house. (And unlike his wife, he didn’t keep his opinions of my hair to himself. When he first saw it, his face went tomato red, and he sputtered, “And isn’t long hair a woman’s pride and joy? For it has been given to her as a covering,” before Deck led him away.) “You haven’t spoken to Amory about Paulie Aandeg yet.”