Chapter One My husband accused me of embezzlement just before lunchtime on a Tuesday in early September. His aged and partially deaf Uncle Seymour sat at the sales desk a few feet away, straightening a stack of credit card brochures and reorganizing a jar of pens."You are robbing us blindly," Leon said. He held a sheaf of papers that might have been the most recent bank statement. He waved his arm maniacally. "Almost two thousand dollars are missing.it is like you are embezzling from your own family. Stealing from yourself, even!"Delia, the patio furniture buyer, stood loyally by his side clutching a notebook.

Her porcelain skin seemed to mock my own ruddy complexion. A middle-aged customer in a sleeveless orange dress pretended not to notice that an incident -- still vague in nature but clearly not congenial -- was unfolding before her, blocking her way as she studied the price tag for a queen-size sofa-bed. An aria intended to enhance her retail experience poured from the ceiling."You're totally exaggerating," I protested. "We had huge bills last month. I can explain each one of them." There were many other, more private things I longed to say. Leon and I were long overdue for a somber conversation, for some sort of major marital reckoning.

We had just muddled through the worst summer in the history of our seventeen-year marriage, struggling to keep our troubles private in an effort to give our son the illusion of a happy, or at least stable, family life. We had never before let our personal problems spill into the workplace. Maybe this was really it, the beginning of the end of us, at last.Or maybe it was just the heat. The entire region had been teetering on edge for weeks. The very ground under our feet showed signs of distress; the parched landscape around the store had been subject to a series of underground tremors thought to be related to the record-breaking temperatures. Manhole covers kept exploding off the street, injuring passersby, causing electrical failures, and baffling teams of experts recruited by the local utilities. It was an unfamiliar sort of atmosphere for Washington: hot and dry, with a sharp flammable breeze, not unlike the Santa Ana winds that blow through Los Angeles, sending the murder rate soaring in detective novels.

Instead of looking Leon in the eye as I spoke, I stared down at my new sandals, purchased just the day before. They were an unnecessary splurge, equivalent to the amount of money I had saved by bringing my lunch to work each day for a month, according to my rough calculations. This retail therapy increasingly required a bit of creative financing as our resources dwindled. My toenails poked through the top strap, advertising the need for polish.Our personal bank statements were usually about $1,000 in the red, and had been for years. This past month was only slightly worse than usual and there were legitimate reasons for the expenditures. The more alarming financial problems, in my view, had to do with the store. Not only were we just skirting bankruptcy, but money kept disappearing from the cash register.

Twenty dollars here, thirty dollars there. Small amounts that were beginning to add up. I had no desire to discuss this in front of Uncle Seymour, Delia, and the middle-aged customer in the sleeveless orange dress, so I turned, without speaking, and left the store. I realized only after I had made my dramatic exit that I had forgotten to grab either my pocketbook or the keys to the van. A crumpled wad of cash in my pocket amounted to ten dollars, which, for better or worse, limited the possibility of permanent escape.I had been seeking refuge at the graveyard for years. I went there to eat in silence, sometimes walking a block in the wrong direction to the sanctioned crosswalk, other times dashing impatiently across nine lanes of midday traffic -- my private flirtation with suburban suicide. Pedestrians were few, leaving the side.