Walter drew slowly up the slight blacktopped incline from Clark Street in suburban Maryland, stopping his truck tight behind his teenage son's red Camaro. He cut the engine.

Walter paused for a moment, staring at the closed garage door beyond Mike's sports car. The weak 1950s-style overhead bulb that hung next to the frayed, unused basketball net threw amber shadows across the weathered beige garage door.

He was late again.

Penny would be mad at him. Again. But that seemed to be a given lately. This just happened to be one of the busiest times of year for the construction firm he owned. What did she expect him to do-sell the business? The whole argument was stupid and was always the same. But Walter never heard her complain about the money. Oh, no. Sometimes he'd point this out, but it only provoked more yelling. Tonight he just wasn't in the mood.

Walter let out a sigh that reeked of his threepack-a-day Marlboro habit and climbed wearily from his truck.

The flagstone path had been installed in the 1960s and was showing definite signs of age. Walter noted dozens of cracked stones between the slowly disintegrating mortar as he trudged toward the front door.

She'd been on him to fix the walk for at least five years. "You build buildings, for Christ's sake, Walter," Penny berated him with clockwork frequency. "With dozens of men working for you, you can't spare one mason to patch the goddamn walk?"

Heading for the front door for what would be the last time, Walter decided to fix the walk. Just like that. Walter Anderson-a man who hadn't gotten his hands dirty in construction for more than a decade-would go to the hardware store and get a couple of bags of concrete mix. He would personally rip up and redo the walk this weekend.

A spark inside him wanted to be nice. To do something decent for the mother of Mike and little Alice. But mostly he was just tired of hearing her nag. He wouldn't get one of his guys to do it. He'd do it himself.