Donna decided she was going to have to pull over and stop; there was nothing else for it. She began to steer toward the shoulder, using the last of her forward motion to get there. They could use

Tad's wagon to pull the groceries up to the house and then decide what to do about the Pinto. Maybe

just as the Pinto's offside wheels crunched over the sandy gravel at the edge of the road, the engine backfired twice and then the jerks smoothed out as they had done on previous occasions. A moment later she was scooting up to the driveway of the house and turning in. She drove uphill, shifted to park, pulled the emergency brake, turned off the motor, leaned over the wheel, and cried.

'Mommy?' Tad said miserably. Don't cry no more, he tried to add, but he had no voice and he could only mouth the words soundlessly, as if struck dumb by laryngitis. He looked at her only, wanting to comfort, not knowing just how it was done. Comforting her was his daddy's job, not his, and suddenly he hated his father for being somewhere else. The depth of his emotion both shocked and frightened him, and for no reason at all he suddenly saw his closet door coming open and spilling out a darkness that stank of something low and bitter.

At last she looked up, her face puffy. She found a handkerchief in her purse and wiped her eyes. 'I'm sorry, honey. I wasn't really shouting at you. I was shouting at this ... this thing.' She struck the steering wheel with her hand, hard. 'Ow!' She put the edge of her hand in her mouth and then laughed a little. It wasn't a happy laugh.

'Guess it's still kerflooey,' Tad said glumly.

'I guess it is,' she agreed, almost unbearably lonesome for Vic.

'Well, let's get the things in. We got the supplies anyway, Cisco.'

'Right, Pancho,' he said. 'I'll get my wagon.'

He brought his Redball Flyer down and Donna loaded the three bags into it, after repacking the bag that had fallen over. It had been a ketchup bottle that had shattered. You'd figure it, wouldn't you? Half a bottle of Heinz had puddled out on the powder-blue

pile carpeting of the hatchback. It looked as if someone had committed hara-kiri back there. She supposed she could sop up the worst of it with a sponge, but the stain would still show. Even if she used a rug shampoo she was afraid it would show.

She tugged the wagon up to the kitchen door at the side of the house while Tad pushed. She lugged the groceries in and was debating whether to put them away or clean up the ketchup before it could set when the phone rang. Tad was off for it like a sprinter at the sound of a gun. He had gotten very good at answering the phone.

'Yes, who is it please?'

He listened, grinned, then held out the phone to her.

Figures, she thought. Someone who'll want to talk for two hours about nothing. To Tad she said, 'Do you know who it is, hon?'

'Sure,' he said. 'It's Dad.'

Her heart began to beat more rapidly. She took the phone from Tad and said, 'Hello? Vic?'

'Hi, Donna.' It was his voice all right, but so reserved ... so careful.

It gave her a deep sinking feeling that she didn't need on top of everything else.

'Are you all right?' she asked.

'Sure.'

'I just thought you'd call later. If at all.

'Well, we went right over to Image-Eye. They did all the Sharp Cereal Professor spots, and what do you think? They can't find the frigging kinescopes. Roger's ripping his hair out by the roots.'

'Yes,' she said, nodding. 'He hates to be off schedule, doesn't he?'

'That's an understatement.' He sighed deeply. 'So I just thought, while they were looking . . .'

He trailed off vaguely, and her feelings of depression - her feelings of sinking -feelings that were so unpleasant and yet so childishly passive, turned to a more active sense of fear. Vic never trailed off like that, not even if he was being distracted by stuff going on at his end of the wire. She thought of the way he had looked on Thursday night, so ragged and close to the edge.

'Vic, are you all right?' She could hear the alarm in her voice and knew he must hear it too; even Tad looked up from the coloring book with which he had sprawled out on the hall floor, his eyes bright, a tight little frown on his small forehead.

'Yeah,' he said. 'I just started to say that I thought I'd call now, while they're rummaging around. Won't have a chance later tonight, I guess. How's Tad?'

'Tad's fine.'

She smiled at Tad and then tipped him a wink. Tad smiled back, the lines on his forehead smoothed out, and he went back to his coloring. He sounds tired and I'm not going to lay all that shit about the car on him, she thought, and then found herself going right ahead and doing it anyway.

She heard the familiar whine of self-pity creeping into her voice and struggled to keep it out. Why was she even telling him all of this, for heaven's sake? He sounded like he was falling apart, and she was prattling on about her Pinto's carburetor and a spilled bottle of ketchup.

'Yeah, it sounds like the needle valve, okay,' Vic said. He actually sounded a little better now. A little less down. Maybe because it was a problem which mattered so little in the greater perspective of things which they had now been forced to deal with. 'Couldn't Joe Camber get you in today?'

'I tried him but he wasn't home.'

'He probably was, though,' Vic said. 'There's no phone in his garage. Usually his wife or his kid runs his messages out to him.

Probably they were out someplace.'

'Well, he still might be gone -'

'Sure,' Vic said. 'But I really doubt it, babe. If a human being could actually put down roots, Joe Camber's the guy that would do it.'

'Should I just take a chance and drive out there?' Donna asked doubtfully. She was thinking of the empty miles along 117 and the Maple Sugar Road ... and all that was before you got to Camber's road, which was so far out it didn't even have a name. And if that needle valve chose a stretch of that desolation in which to pack up for good, it would just make another hassle.

'No, I guess you better not,' Vic said. 'He's probably there ... unless you really need him. In which case he'd be gone. Catch-22.' He sounded depressed.

'Then what should I do?'

'Call the Ford dealership and tell them you want a tow.'

'But –‘

'No, you have to. If you try to drive twenty-two miles over to South Paris, it'll pack up on you for sure. And if you explain the situation in advance, they might be able to get you a loaner.

Barring that, they'll lease you a car.'

'Lease ... Vic, isn't that expensive?'

'Yeah,' he said.

She thought again that it was wrong of her to be dumping all this on him. He was probably thinking that she wasn't capable of anything ... except maybe screwing the local furniture refinisher.

She was fine at that. Hot salt tears, partly anger, partly self-pity, stung her eyes again. 'I'll take care of it,' she said, striving desperately to keep her voice normal, light. Her elbow was propped on the wall and one hand was over her eyes. 'Not to worry.'

'Well, I - oh, shit, there's Roger. He's dust up to his neck, but they got the kinescopes. Put Tad on for a second, would you.

Frantic questions backed up in her throat. Was it all right? Did he think it could be all right? Could they get back to go and start again? Too late. No time. She had spent the time gabbing about the car. Dumb broad, stupid quiff.