Latimer's Law. Mel Sterling

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      Marsh’s gaze roved the large living room, where most of the people Abigail and Gary took into their home each day were playing board games. Rosemary, who should have been seated with Stephen playing checkers, was roaming the room looking for the television remote, which Marsh had in his pocket. She loved to get possession of the remote and blast the volume, hooting with excited glee when the others moaned in reaction. Abigail let her have it far too often. Marsh saw no need for such indulgence, not when it resulted in only more noise and agitation for the other people. He was in charge now; Gary was gone.

      Marsh missed his brother, but he knew he was better suited to Abigail than Gary had been. Gary had always catered to Abigail’s whims, which meant the business floundered. Small businesses, and women, required steady direction and a firm hand on the tiller. No wonder the adult day care hadn’t been delivering much more than a basic living for his brother and his brother’s wife. Together Marsh and Abigail would fix that, though. It wasn’t Marsh’s first choice for a living, but it was a start.

      All the clients seemed quiet enough, but Marsh knew they’d be asking for Abigail before too much longer.

      He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain that shielded the clients from the nosy stares of passersby and blocked some of the summer heat. The placement of the window didn’t give him much of a view to the street, but Abigail wasn’t walking up the driveway.

      Behind Marsh, someone was slapping wet clay at the art table. Over and over. The flat sound reminded Marsh of the noise of skin on skin, the noise of two bodies in bed. And just like that, his brain revealed the explanation, the reason why Abigail hadn’t come home yet.

      She was meeting someone else.

      His gut knotted. His fingers knotted in the fabric of the curtain, and he yanked it closed, sending the wooden rings rattling along the rod. Behind him the slapping continued. His fists wanted to knot, too.

      She was probably sleeping with the man even now, leaving Marsh to deal with everything by himself, when she knew perfectly well state regulations required a minimum caregiver-to-patient ratio. She knew they were violating those very regulations, with only Marsh at hand to tend her clients. She knew it was nearly lunchtime when she left. She knew they’d be getting agitated, hungry and bored.

      She’d told her clients she’d be right back.

      Abigail had lied. Bald-faced lied. Lied to him.

      Marsh turned from the window, glaring at Joe, the middle-aged man with pimples, who was slapping the clay mindlessly while he rocked back and forth in his chair, his eyes roving back and forth at high speed. Any moment now Joe would start moaning, overstimulated by whatever was going wrong in his neurons.

      Abigail had left Marsh to cope with her pack of misfits, while she was off doing God knew what, probably with the idiot clerk at the store, maybe in the back room, maybe behind the store, up against the concrete wall where she could be seen from any passing car—

      Rosemary bounced up to Marsh. “Lunchtime!”

      Marsh gritted his teeth. “That’s right. Almost lunchtime, as soon as Abigail comes back.”

      “I’m having peanut butter and grape jelly!” Rosemary said. Joe moaned a little, but Marsh could tell Rosemary’s outburst had settled Joe in some way, opened a pressure valve. That was a good thing—Joe was damned strong, and without Abigail’s soft voice and hands to calm him down, it would be a problem if Joe acted out his disturbance and became physical. Joe’s eyes slowed their frantic flicking.

      The old guy, Smith—Marsh never remembered his first name—who varied between utter stillness and manic activity, looked up. “Tuna fish. Tuna fish.”

      “Peanut butter!” Rosemary said, her mouth tightening as if Smith’s preference would overrule her own.

      Joe moaned again. His eyes started to flick.

      Stephen joined the general ruckus, sending a hand across the checkerboard and scattering the game pieces. “Abby, Abby, where’s Abby, where’s lunch, where’s Abby to make our lunch and pour the milk, lunch and milk, lunch and milk?”

      Damnation, how all of them repeated themselves. It made Marsh nuts. If only he didn’t have to put up with them—if only Abigail were here, as she should be. Next time he’d go and do the shopping, since she couldn’t manage to get it right. Couldn’t get herself home to feed the people she was responsible for.

      “Shut up, Stephen!” Rosemary scrabbled after the checkers on the floor. “You messed me up. I was winning. You messed me up!”

      Joe threw the pancake of clay at Rosemary, who shrieked in fury. Smith got out of his chair and started to walk in a circle in the center of the room, coming too close to Rosemary. Marsh was just in time to get between the two of them before Rosemary decided to slap.

      “I know what, we’ll all have popcorn for lunch!” Marsh said, with false cheer. He cursed Abigail silently. She had a lesson coming when she did get home, after causing all this mess. “Let’s go in the kitchen and put a bag in the microwave. It’ll be special, real special.” Just like the special words he’d have for Abigail later that night, once everyone had gone home to their families.

      “Special,” repeated Joe, getting to his feet.

      “And a movie. I get to pick!” Rosemary chanted. She stepped on the pancake of clay and ground it into the short-loop carpet. Marsh closed his eyes for a second, not nearly long enough to count to ten, but enough to allow him to ignore the newest mess. Then he got hold of Smith by his elbow and brought him along to the kitchen. The only way to stop Smith from walking in circles for the rest of the day was to completely change the scenery and give him a new focus. No way was Marsh going to let Rosemary pick the movie, though. He was damned sick of Finding Nemo, her latest favorite.

      The afternoon wore on, full of countless exhausting and infuriating outbursts from the entire group. Marsh’s patience thinned with each passing minute that Abigail didn’t arrive. Rosemary and Stephen both had meltdowns ending in tears and thrown objects, events that wouldn’t have happened had Abigail been present instead of shirking her responsibilities, wherever the hell she’d gone.

      Marsh couldn’t shake the idea that she was with another man. Where would she have met someone else? The produce aisle at the grocery store? It wasn’t like Abigail went very many places without Marsh. He could hardly think. He tried to keep himself from going to the window every few minutes, because the clients were starting to notice his own agitation. He popped more bags of popcorn and got out crackers and cheese, and settled the group for a long afternoon of movie watching. It was easier than doing art projects or baking cookies in the kitchen, though both activities were favorites with the group.

      Finally, at four in the afternoon, just ninety minutes before family members were due to retrieve their grown-up children, Marsh dug out the telephone book and wetted his finger to flip through the yellow pages. God help Abigail if she was still at that store.

      Marsh dialed, keeping an eye on the group, who were quiet at the moment, engrossed in the umpteenth repeat of Finding Nemo. Stupid film.

      When someone answered on the third ring, Marsh had to swallow down a growl of anger. “I’m looking for someone who was headed to your store a little while ago. I...uh, forgot to tell her to get a gallon of milk. She’s about five feet six, and she has a long light brown ponytail. Wearing jeans and a blue cotton shirt. Is she there?”

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