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appeared, which made Martha jerk involun-tarily, even though she was braced for the sight. She hated that picture. Eldon at his most political, his most polished.
    The picture that represented every reason he’d married Bianca Souterman instead of Martha Danvers.
    Kathy Ashcroft, vainly trying to suppress her perkiness, speculated that Senator Cresswell’s wife Bianca, beloved by Vermonters—who compared her to the late Jackie O—would take over his seat in the state senate, but that there had been no official word from the governor’s mansion. VTTV was going live, to Bob Silkwood, standing by with the senator’s wife and three children at their lovely home in—
    Martha grabbed the remote and zapped the set to dark.
    She didn’t need to see the senator’s wife and three children at their lovely home to know how the segment would go. Bianca, beautiful and impeccably dressed as always, would show courage, dignity, and enough sorrow to convey her grief, but not enough to spoil her makeup. The children would be somber and achingly attractive. Hearts would break all over the state, watching the brave family cope with such devastating loss.
    Martha got to wallow in the devastation all by herself, in eye-swelling, face-contorting, all-out grief, over and over again. Eldon could be replaced in the political world. No doubt his frigid wife would make a fine senator in Montpe-lier. She’d meet someone else whose needs suited hers and would live happily ever after, as she had always been destined to live. But no one could replace Eldon for Martha.
    He’d been her true love, best friend, sometimes her only friend, her entire adult life.
    A soft knock sounded. She tamped down the burst of As Good As It Got
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    adrenaline—when would she stop hoping it was him?—
    unfolded her legs and ambled numbly toward the door.
    It was Ricky, his skinny six-year-old body swallowed up by worn hand-me-downs from one of his brothers—or both of his brothers. “I brought up your mail.”
    He handed her the bundle, eyes down, shoulders hunched.
    A streak of dusty gray swooped across one pale cheek. She was glad to see him. She needed to focus on something other than the void inside her. “Thanks, Ricky. You want to come in? I think I have a bag of Snickers bars that needs eating.
    You know, before they go bad.”
    He looked up at that, and in spite of the beginnings of a smile, she could see he’d been crying. Either his selfish parents had been fighting again or his brothers had ganged up on him. “I’ll help. Overripe Snickers are terrible.”
    Same joke every time, and they both still enjoyed it.
    Sometimes she wanted to petition to adopt him on the grounds that his parents were idiots. She’d been considering talking to Eldon about what they could do for Ricky the day before Eldon’s stroke. She knew the answer was “Nothing,” but at least she’d felt good acting as if rescue were possible, and felt good planning to talk to Eldon.
    She always felt good around Eldon, even when she was just watching him on TV or standing anonymously in the crowd at one of his public appearances. He had the kind of powerful personality that made people believe he could fix everything and everyone. It didn’t seem possible she’d never feel good with him again, so she’d believe instead that he was going to wake up. All she’d have to do was wait. After twenty years of making do with the bits and pieces he could give her out of his manic schedule, sometimes no more than 28 Isabel
    Sharpe
    his special wave on TV, seen by thousands, meant only for her, Martha understood how to wait.
    She ushered Ricky in, happy that her spare, too-brown, three-room apartment could be her constant gift to him, a place he could feel safe and cheerful. She took the pile of mail from his grubby fingers, paused over one handwritten envelope with no return address, and set it aside on top of her TV to open when he left. The rest, the usual bills and junk, she’d toss