Our family had been farmers for a century, right down to my mom, until Ben killed her off. I finally thought, of course, about farming. I didn't like dogs, though, they scared me. Data entry, wasn't that some sort of job? Customer service, maybe? I'd seen a movie once where a woman walked dogs for a living, dressed in overalls and sweater sets and always holding flowers, the dogs slobbery and loving. I tried to come up with realistic occupations-something with computers. And even as I was thinking it, I saw myself writing ABCs on a chalkboard in front of bright-eyed first graders. Your idea of adulthood still comes from picturebooks. That's how screwed up you are, I thought.

I imagined myself in a nurse's cap, holding a thermometer then in a snug blue cop's uniform, escorting a child across the street then wearing pearls and a floral apron, getting dinner ready for my hubby.

I tried to picture things I could do for money. Kansas City's skyline glimmered to the east, a modest, mid-rise Monopoly scatter, radio towers spiking here and there. I headed back home, several cars blinking their headlights at me until I realized I was driving dark. Your truly, Libby Day.' It really did say 'your' truly, a misspelling that Jim Jeffreys thought people would find poignant.īut the shoe boxes of donations were gone, and I was left with a mere three letters and the rest of the night to kill. It is people like you who let me look forward to a brighter future. I'd sign the check over to him, and then the donor would receive a form letter in my blocky handwriting. Jim Jeffreys used to hand me bulging shoe boxes full of mail, most of them letters with checks inside. He left me with three pieces of mail and a grin that was supposed to be optimistic. Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn, Hardcover, 368 pages, Shaye Areheart Books, List Price: $24

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