What do you want?

She started dusting the bookcase and came across Atlas Shrugged, a novel Alexandra had bought and read a few months before Harold died. She’d raved about it, but Charlotte had no wish to read about a self-involved businessman who thought he was better than everyone else. She picked up the book, wondering if she might understand Harold a little better, but she detested everything she’d ever heard about Ayn Rand’s philistine politics. When she put the book down, she tore her left index fingernail on a bare hook. She pulled the loose end off and drew blood. Her finger throbbed.

Why hadn’t she trimmed these last week? She’d been preoccupied with work, Sean, and the household, of course. She washed her hands and resumed dusting. But she couldn’t concentrate. What about her job? Her move? What about Alexandra and Sean, how would they react? What about the children? What about the dog? Too much to resolve, really. These days her brain was a jumble of mixed emotions. Nothing organized, nothing added up, nothing made sense.

The telephone rang and her nerves jumped. A quiet moment gone, an opportunity wasted to reach some sort of decision – any decision, really.

“What is it?” she answered at the kitchen desk. “What do you want?”

Maria’s scratchy alto came from the other end. “Has someone kidnapped Charlotte? She doesn’t answer the telephone like that.”