Abby would never have found it without the map Hank had drawn for her. He’d said the house was a yellow brick one-story, but pulling into the driveway, she thought the color was more drab. She thought it was as drab and sad-looking as Hank himself. Apprehension knotted her stomach. She wondered if she could go through with it, her fool’s errand. It’s not like you, Abigail…. Her mother’s caution rattled through her mind. Her ordinarily rational mind. But that word...ordinary...what did it mean anymore? Abby got out of the car into air that was thick and still and too warm for November. The cloud cover had thickened, too, and grown darker like a ripening bruise. It would rain later just to spite her. She picked her way across the haphazard row of stepping-stones that led to the front door and paused at the front stoop, a misshapen, flatish chunk of rust-stained concrete pushed against the house. It looked like leftover construction, as if it might have fallen off the back of a truck bound for the city dump.
