Too Easy by Bruce Deitrick Price Page B

shivering a little. At what she’s become. Disloyal? Oh, yes. And scheming? That, too. And wasteful? The damned thing cost $368.
    And why? There’s still no evidence. No real evidence.
    She drives the Volvo toward a friend’s house. Stop there, kill time. Oh, Sally would be so shocked if she knew about that little box beneath the kitchen floor. Well, who wouldn’t be shocked? Everybody I know would turn pale, and then probably disown me.
    Or would they all say, “Well, of course, dear. We know all about Robert. We tried to tell you. . . .”
    No evidence at all. And yet everything feels different. Is this because I’m thinking horrid, unthinkable thoughts? And I’ve somehow settled down to their morally debased level. Or is it simply that my instincts are right? And I am now, already, a woman who used to have a loving husband?
    Anne pounds the steering wheel with her left hand. She can’t remember feeling this sort of frustration.
    â€œIt’s intellectual,” she says aloud, waiting for a light. “You know two things. But you don’t know three others. And you might never. . . . But, but they are knowable. Heck, Robert knows all of them. So the answers are all around me. . . . And I just can’t quite reach them. . . .”
    She thinks of the way he followed her into the shower that morning. “Oh, you look good,” he said. And he kissed her and hugged her, and finally he got behind her and, well, it was very nice. Well, what is this? A lusty, attentive husband. And I can’t enjoy it for what it might very well be. And why? She thinks over the details. Robert has followed her into the shower before. He’s made love to her almost that same way.
    But it wasn’t the same. That’s just it.
    He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t ask. He didn’t—what?—test the waters. That’s the way he would do it before. He’d feelout the situation, circle around me a little. Wait for me to respond, to indicate one way or another, Sure, Robert, we can do it.
    Ah, the Bold New Robert. That’s just what is terrifying me. Something has changed. Robert has changed.
    She waits too long to make a left turn, then accelerates in front of an oncoming truck. She hears a horn and brakes in the same instant. She sees the shadow of the truck rush by behind her right shoulder. She tenses . . . but there’s no crash. She got away with it. She presses on the gas, keeps going. Too embarrassing to deal with. She’s not paying attention, and she almost got killed.
    â€œAnne! Please!” she scolds herself.
    She sees a supermarket ahead on the right and turns into the big parking lot. Just sit perfectly still and say a little prayer, she thinks. Don’t drive for ten minutes. Try to think clearly, for a change.
    And the way Robert started to say something the other night, then he didn’t. It just isn’t like him. He’s good with words, they’re his business. He speaks in sentences and paragraphs. My husband does not say, “I’ve been meaning to mention something,” and then forget what it is. Maybe in thirty years. Not now!
    So what happened there? I remember, I heard a tone in his voice. I was alert, ready. But I was being very careful—I remember this clearly—not to react prematurely. Not to anticipate. Way back in my head I thought, Well, maybe he’ll mention another woman. Then, a second later, I thought he could mention some pretext, a trip or something. Yes, I would have been very suspicious of a trip.
    But mainly I was trying to be very neutral. Just washing the dishes. Just chatting. An ordinary wife who has no suspicions about anything whatever. I’m sure that’s how I acted. There was no reason for him to stop like that.
    So what happened?
    Do I look different? Am I different? Is it me who’s changing? Not Robert?
    She leans forward until her