Blood to Blood by Elaine Bergstrom

after dark, he found himself on the river road and guessed his destination.
    He had not visited Mina's house before, though the infamous address was already fixed in his memory. Fortunately, the sky was clear, the half moon bright, and the polished brass numbers on the gate stood out like a beacon, calling him home.
    The gate was half open, and he slipped through it. From the outside, the house seemed less the den of sin it had been rumored to be when Gance owned it than a charming cottage. He walked to the door but decided not to knock, not yet. Trying not to tread on the violets and lupine that marked the narrow path, he went around the house to the back and into a rose garden.
    Moonlight glittered off the water in the fountain and the little white stones that marked the path to the water's edge. The space smelled lovely in the still damp of this warm summer night—of wild roses and wysteria and other, less familiar blooms. In a place like this, he half expected to see the woman in his dreams, waiting with pale arms outstretched.
    Shaking off the thought, he approached the little house. Work was under way on one side, the wooden shell of an addition already in place. He avoided it and moved toward the vast expanse of glass that made up almost all of one corner, where he tried to peer inside.
     
    Until an hour before Jonathan's stealthy arrival, Mina had been lying awake in bed, reading the morning paper she had not had a chance to look at earlier. It had been a hectic day, one of many in the past week.
    Two days after Arthur's visit, carpenters had come and begun the addition, a larger one than she'd planned on, since she realized that she might want an occasional guest to stay over and would need at least one extra room besides Essie's. She and Essie had been trying to keep the dust at an acceptable level and the knicknacks from being destroyed by the pounding. At the same time, they were attempting to set up the house for full-time use rather than an occasional quick visit. Mina sent Essie shopping for pots and pans while she handled the more delicate task of picking out china and silver, and a dining table and chairs small enough to use in the solarium.
    Like Jonathan, she was trying to find consolation in her work, and at last she was succeeding.
    She had just drifted off when she heard Essie's frantic whisper coming from the hall outside her door. "Wake up, mum—Mina! There's someone prowling outside!" By the time Mina opened her eyes, Essie was already in the room, shaking her.
    Mina put on a robe, handing a second to Essie, who came upstairs wearing only a thin slip. Mina felt oddly calm as she pulled the revolver from the bed-table drawer. With Essie close behind her—"I couldn't bear to be left alone now, mum!"—they went downstairs.
    There was a man standing outside the doors, his face hidden by the dark, his form outlined by the moonlit landscape behind him. As Mina walked through the dark room, with the gun aimed at his chest, she recognized the form. Confident that she was right, she lit a candle and threw open the doors.
    "Please, mum!" Essie begged.
    "It's all right, Essie," Mina said as she lowered the weapon. "It's just my husband." She pulled open the door and drew him inside.
    "Go sleep in my bed, Essie," she added. "I think I should talk to him here."
    Essie looked at her a moment, frowning, then obeyed.
    Once they were alone, Mina lit a lamp, then studied her husband more carefully. He was blushing, justifiably so, and looked ready to bolt from the room if she said a word of reproach. She noticed that his hair looked uncombed, his suit a bit rumpled, and his face lined from care or exhaustion. It was so unlike meticulous Jonathan that she wanted to laugh, but she knew it would be cruel to do so when he seemed so obviously miserable.
    She went to the settee where Essie had been sleeping, folded the girl's blanket and sheet and laid them on top of her pillow. She sat on the edge of the settee and