Van looked at his wife. He knew instantly, in his gut, that Dottie was about to tell him something dreadful. She was using her kindest, sweetest voice, the kind she used when tactfully urging him toward something that would have great rusty fangs like a bear trap. Dottie looked pained and greenish—she’d hardly been eating in the mornings, maybe a sip of coffee, a nibble off a stale doughnut.