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That night, as the staff got ready to leave, Arlene asked me if I could baby-sit for her the next evening. It would be an off-day for both of us, and she wanted to go to Shreveport with Rene to see a movie and go out to eat.

“Sure!” I said. “I haven’t kept the kids in a while.”

Suddenly Arlene’s face froze. She half-turned to me, opened her mouth, thought the better of speaking, then thought again. “Will . . . ah . . . will Bill be there?”

“Yes, we’d planned on watching a movie. I was going to stop by the video rental place, tomorrow morning. But I’ll get something for the kids to watch instead.” Abruptly, I caught her meaning. “Whoa. You mean you don’t want to leave the kids with me if Bill’s gonna be there?” I could feel my eyes narrow to slits and my voice drop down to its angry register.

“Sookie,” she began helplessly, “honey, I love you. But you can’t understand, you’re not a mother. I can’t leave my kids with a vampire. I just can’t.”

“No matter that I’m there, and I love your kids, too? No matter that Bill would never in a million years harm a child.” I slung my purse over my shoulder and stalked out the back door, leaving Arlene standing there looking torn. By golly, she ought to be upset!

I was a little calmer by the time I turned onto the road to go home, but I was still riled up. I was worried about Jason, miffed at Arlene, and almost permanently frosted at Sam, who was pretending these days that I was a mere acquaintance. I debated whether to just go home rather than going to Bill’s; decided that was a good idea.

It was a measure of how much he worried about me that Bill was at my house about fifteen minutes after I should have been at his.

“You didn’t come, you didn’t call,” he said quietly when I answered the door.

“I’m in a temper,” I said. “A bad one.”

Wisely he kept his distance.

“I apologize for making you worry,” I said after a moment. “I won’t do that again.” I strode away from him, toward the kitchen. He followed behind, or at least I presumed he did. Bill was so quiet you never knew until you looked.

He leaned against the door frame as I stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, wondering why I’d come in the room, feeling a rising tide of anger. I was getting pissed off all over again. I really wanted to throw something, damage something. This was not the way I’d been brought up, to give way to destructive impulses like that. I contained it, screwing my eyes shut, clenching my fists.

“I’m gonna dig a hole,” I said, and I marched out the back door. I opened the door to the tool shed, removed the shovel, and stomped to the back of the yard. There was a patch back there where nothing ever grew, I don’t know why. I sunk the shovel in, pushed it with my foot, came up with a hunk of soil. I kept on going. The pile of dirt grew as the hole deepened.

“I have excellent arm and shoulder muscles,” I said, resting against the shovel and panting.

Bill was sitting in a lawn chair watching. He didn’t say anything.

I resumed digging.

Finally, I had a really nice hole.

“Were you going to bury anything?” Bill asked, when he could tell I was done.

“No.” I looked down at the cavity in the ground. “I’m going to plant a tree.”

“What kind?”

“A live oak,” I said off the top of my head.

“Where can you get one?”

“At the Garden Center. I’ll go sometime this week.”

“They take a long time to grow.”

“What difference would that make to you?” I snapped. I put the shovel up in the shed, then leaned against it, suddenly exhausted.

Bill made as if to pick me up.

“I am a grown woman,” I snarled. “I can walk into the house on my own.”

“Have I done something to you?” Bill asked. There was very little loving in his voice, and I was brought up short. I had indulged myself enough.

“I apologize,” I said. “Again.”

“What has made you so angry?”

I just couldn’t tell him about Arlene.

“What do you do when you get mad, Bill?”

“I tear up a tree,” he said. “Sometimes I hurt someone.”

Digging a hole didn’t seem so bad. It had been sort of constructive. But I was still wired—it was just more of a subdued buzz