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so?”
    “Would you have married me if I had?”
    A long silence followed.
    “Anthony, answer me. Would you?”
    “Probably not. I’ve never been married, Madeleine. Family life never appealed to me.”
    “So isn’t it about time? You’re not getting any younger.”
    “I’ll think about it, Madeleine. You’re the dearest thing in my life.”
    When Madeleine began to shiver, Anthony got up to drape a throw around her shoulders. “Do you want to go in? It’s getting chilly.”
    “No. Not yet. I’m too wired to sleep. But promise you’ll go with me to the awards ceremony.  Awards mean nothing unless I see a familiar face in the audience. And I hope Kimmie chokes to death on her lies.”

Chapter 7
Tricky Dick
Sunday, May 5, 2013

    Though Madeleine did not treat the Sabbath as a day decreed by God for rest, she nevertheless viewed it as a special day of personal indulgence. She might spend it shopping, or attending a matinée, or strolling through an art museum, especially if she was out of town. In the summer when she was in Fort Wayne, she sunbathed in the backyard. On dark, cold afternoons in the winter, she curled up in a window seat to read the novels of Paul Doherty and Anton Gill, mysteries set in ancient Egypt and Babylon.
    But today she would indulge in another favorite routine.
    First, she would attend to her beloved father. While Nettie was downstairs preparing Chester’s breakfast tray, Madeleine sat with him awhile in the little alcove off his bedroom. It had a view of the old family cemetery beside the barn where she had her studio. With as much animation as she could muster, given the hangover that had dulled her mind, Madeleine, ever the dutiful daughter, told him all about the Kentucky Derby party.
    Chester had always liked her stories, even when she was a child.
    Years ago, after the accident in the Dunes, Madeleine slipped into a deep depression. Chester had been her rock, her only comfort. She’d nestle beside him in his recliner, entertaining him with accounts of school triumphs and boy crushes and prom parties. Though she told him nothing of her nightmares or her early visits with Dr. Beltrami, she recounted every fantasy she had for her future. She read him stories she had written and showed him her art work. He told her she was brilliant.
    In those days, before he suffered a series of strokes, Chester had his own stories, of course. His best ones were about the mules his father owned. “Pop’s favorite was a young beast, very handsome with intelligent eyes, who we called Tricky Dick. At half a ton, he was huge for a mule, smarter than the buggy horses and most of our field hands. We’d get him harnessed to the plow, work him a few hours, and then he’d suddenly go lame, so we’d unharness him and lead him to the pasture. There he’d stand with his head down, not grazing, not moving except to flex his leg as if it had been injured. A few days later, he’d be fine, so Pop would put him back to work. Then, after a few hours in the field, he’d go lame again. The vet couldn’t find anything wrong. So one day, after Tricky Dick once again went lame, Pop circled back to the pasture and stood in the grove. Twenty minutes went by and Pop was just fixing to leave when Tricky Dick began galloping and leaping around like a foal, making that peculiar braying/whinnying sound mules make and generally acting the fool. Nothing wrong with his leg at all.”
    “So what happened?” Mattie asked, entranced despite having heard the story many times before.
    “At first, Pop was angry. Then he began to laugh. He rounded the beast up and put him back in harness. A few months would go by, and Tricky Dick would work the fields just the way he was supposed to. But then would come another day when he’d pretend to go lame again. Pop wasn’t a patient man, but for some reason he let that mule have his little game. I think they both enjoyed it.”
    “How did it end, Daddy?”
    Chester ruffled his