The Devil's Wire by Deborah Rogers Page A

divorce I realized it was the best thing that could've happened to me. Now I can do whatever I please. I only have to cook for myself and do my own laundry. It was like being set free from an awful burden I didn't know I was carrying."
    "Your eyes look good. You must be using the drops diligently."
    "You were worried because of the socks. I saw you looking. But I've been using the medicine every day like you said."
    "Good."
    Jennifer unlocks the cabinet and gives Mrs. Mendoza two more bottles.
    "I'd like to see you in another six months, and even though you're doing well now, I think it's still a good idea if you did a course at the sight clinic to prepare."
    "So I don't set fire to my arm when I'm cooking?"
    "Something like that."
    Mrs. Mendoza gets up and puts on her coat, retrieving a knitted peach-colored hat from the pocket. She pulls it down so it covers her ears.
    "The photograph's gone," she says.
    "Sorry?"
    Mrs. Mendoza nods at Jennifer's desk. "The one with your daughter and husband."
    She tucks curls of brown hair into the hat, first the right side then the left.
    "Just goes to show, you never know," she says.
    "Never know what?"
    "When there's a snake in the grass."
    *
    That night Jennifer doesn't dream of snakes but of cats, one cat, its grey feather-soft pelt, the black tip of its tail, her arms encircling its warm cat body until it yields against her like an infant, heart pacing through its chest like footsteps. And she could be anywhere. But then he's here.
    "I don't know what's wrong with me, Jen."
    She opens her eyes. Hank is standing at the foot of her bed. Fear floods her bones and she scrambles backward to the other side of the mattress.
    "I need help," he says, looking down at his gloved hands, cheeks glistening with tears.
    Somehow she finds her voice. "Leave now."
    "A divorce?" he says, pained.
    "Hank, I don't want you here. Get out."
    He begins to sob. "You're all I have."
    She reaches for her cell phone but it's not there.
    "God, I'm so disgusting." He hits his head with a closed fist. "I make myself sick."
    Jennifer searches for an escape route, but any way she plays it, he can get her.
    "This is the end for me," says Hank.
    Jennifer's fear turns to anger. "Don't be a child."
    "Without you and McKenzie, what's the point anymore?"
    "Don't you dare leave McKenzie with that guilt."
    "I'm begging you, Jen. I can't go on without you."
    "If you love us so much, you'll leave us alone," she says.
    He seems to calm himself and wipes each eye with his forearm. He takes two steps forward, bends down and drags his knuckles against her cheek.
    "We'll see," he says.

 
    16
    The locksmith is late. He'd promised Jennifer to be here by 7am, but it's nearly a quarter after. Normally fifteen minutes wouldn't matter, but right now, this morning, fifteen minutes seems like the difference between life and death.
    She waits at the window, guzzling coffee, double strength and black, her third of the morning. The caffeine has lost its punch and tastes unpleasantly bitter, but it's better than nothing and gives her something to do with her trembling hands.
    This can't be good for a person's heart, all this stress, the pulse doing circuits around her system like a cyclist in a velodrome. She can't stop thinking about how his face looked like him but didn't. It was as if someone else was occupying the suit of his skin. She's never seen that look before, that tortured but slack affect, like he was having some sort of turn or there was a tumor bearing down on his cerebral cortex.
    It was hard to believe this same man had proposed to her on Bascom Hill all those years ago, near the Abe Lincoln statue, the alabaster dome of Capitol Building glowing like a second moon in the distance. He had told her she was the best thing that had ever happened to him then whispered something so quietly she had to ask him to repeat it, "Will you marry me," he said. And afterward, when Jennifer lay against his shoulder in bed, he told her he