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Molly a gentle nudge toward the kitchen door, Kim opened the cupboard that held the luncheon china Janet's mother had given her for a wedding present.
"You don't need anything more formal for a few years, dear,"
Janet could still hear her mother saying, and she'd certainly turned out to be right. "Is Pa going to be here for dinner?" Kim asked.
    Janet heard the same tension in Kim's voice that she'd caught a few minutes before in Jared's. "I'm not sure," she said carefully, maintaining the fiction that all was well within their family. "But let's set a plate for him. I know he'll be here if he can make it." Kim shot her a quick glance that Janet had no trouble reading:
You mean if he's sober enough!
But like Jared, Kim didn't push the issue. "We'll give him a few more minutes," Janet said.
     
    But it was far more than a few more minutes before Ted came home that evening, and when he did-a little after eleven-his face was flushed, his step unsteady, and his eyes bloodshot from the long hours of drinking. Janet was alone in the living room, trying to concentrate on one of the books she'd gotten from the library that afternoon. Molly had been tucked into her crib hours earlier, and Kim and Jared had escaped the heat and uneasiness in the house by going to a movie. When Ted didn't call out to her as he came through the back door, Janet's suspicion that he'd been drinking all evening was confirmed. Steeling herself to cope with the argument that was surely coming when he finally appeared in the living room, she set the book aside.
    "I quit that stinkin' job today," Ted announced without preamble as he confronted her, a beer clutched in his right hand.
    Janet felt a sinking sensation in her stomach: she knew that whatever she said would be the wrong thing, but not saying anything at all would be even worse. "Did someone offer you something better?" she asked, choosing her words carefully, and keeping them free of any inflection that might trigger Ted's temper.
    He dropped onto the sofa, his free hand landing on her thigh. "Just couldn't take Frank Gilman any longer. Man's a dumbass!"
    "Well, I'm sure you'll find something else," Janet offered, but even through his drunkenness, Ted recognized her ploy.
    His eyes narrowed to puffy slits, and his hand tightened on her thigh. "Don't patronize me."
    Janet's mind raced, remembering the night two years ago when Ted came home even drunker than this, and decided he wanted to make love to her. She'd tried to put him off, but it hadn't worked, and rather than fight him, she'd given in.
    It had been a horrible night for her. When she discovered she was pregnant, she'd toyed with the idea of getting an abortion, but only for a moment. And when Molly was born, Janet knew she'd been right. But she didn't want it to happen again. "I'm very tired, Ted," she began, but Ted only leered.
    "Then let's go to bed."
    She cast around in her mind for something else-anything to put him off-when the phone rang. The surprise of it startled Ted as much as Janet. His hand fell away from her leg as she stood up to answer it, thoughts of some accident to Kim and Jared already leaping into her mind.
    "May I speak to Ted Conway, please?" a woman asked.
    There was an official-sounding tone to the voice that raised Janet's apprehensions even further. But whatever news this caller possessed, Ted was in no condition to deal with it.
    "This is Mrs. Conway," she replied.
    "I'm sorry to call you so late," the woman said, and Janet's fear ebbed slightly. Surely no one would apologize if it was about her children, would they? "This is Lucille Mathers, from the Willows in St. Albans?" Janet felt the worst of her fears instantly abate. It wasn't the kids-it was Ted's aunt. "I'm calling about Cora Conway," the woman went on, confirming Janet's thought. "I think your husband should come down here."
    Janet's mind raced. Right now? St. Albans was 140 miles southeast of Shreveport; even if they left right away, they wouldn't get