On this overcast January Saturday afternoon, I open the shades in my wife’s home office to encounter a slate gray sky. More snow on the way, but not that much, and I should be able to make it down the shore before the flakes appear.

One of the neighbor’s inflatables lies spent upon a frosted lawn, a weary remnant of the recent holidays, a kitschy totem of a Santa that had waved at passersby now waiting to be dragged back into storage. I am inviting outside light into the room, but it keeps its distance, for the most part. Two lamps’ bulbs popped when I’d turned the switches; what are the chances? But the other lights function, so I’ll work among the shadows with what illumination I’ve got.

I step back.

On the bookshelf sits one of the many awards my wife’s collected over the years. “To Barbara Bellini Clearwater for excellence...” And there’s me framed, arms raised at the end of a marathon I’d run a good decade and a half ago. Fastened to the top, the homemade dedication from our daughters: “To Mack Clearwater, for finishing the race and being the best Dad ever!” I smile. That’s new since the last time I’d been in here. I don’t go into Barbara’s home office; Barbara doesn’t go into mine. Good boundaries make good marriages.

And just why am I here?

Because I answered the damn landline phone on Barbara’s nightstand in our bedroom. We hardly ever pick that up. It’s a spam magnet. We keep it in case we lose electricity in, for instance, a snowstorm and it’s a way the kids can reach us in such an emergency.

I’d just gotten out of the shower after my morning rendezvous with treadmill torture and been toweling off.

Brrring! Brrring!

“Hello?” A girl’s hesitant greeting.

“Yeah?” Already about to slam the receiver down on a sales pitch.

She clears her throat.

“I am looking for Barbara Clearwater? Barbara Bellini...”

“Yeah, yeah. How did you get this number? I’m her husband.”

She gives her name — Andrea Lawson. She’s one of the bookkeepers in the university’s comptroller office.

Barbara’s the director of auxiliary accounts. She oversees food services, on-campus catering, mail distribution, and the school store. They pay her well; she makes more than me — way more — and maybe once or twice in all these years one of the guys on a job ribbed me about it (they can count; two halves of what I make couldn’t support our lifestyle) but that’s OK. I know who I am.

To this Andrea Lawson, I now say: “oh” as an apology for my rudeness.

“Barbara’s not answering her cell,” Andrea hurries on. “And I looked through all her records and found this number.”

“No worries, Andrea. Just give me the message that you were going to leave on the machine.”

“It’s that I can’t find the recent invoice for Cactus Cuts. Barbara’s usually very organized about invoices. She can just take a picture and text it to me.”

Sounds like a deadline’s been missed.

“I will give her the message,” I say. “Also, I’ll look for it, and I’ll text you the pix.”

Cactus Cuts, eh?

I think of when our kids were little and running barefoot in our backyard with their squirt of a dog yipping and chasing about.

Barbara and I each brought daughters into our marriage: one with me, two with her. Tweens when we took vows, and we bought them that dog, a little Australian terrier named Cactus, that they swore they’d be responsible for but ... well, you know how that goes.

Now, Barbara and I are in our mid-50s and find ourselves at a point where we can cherish the challenges of work without being slaves to jobs. Though we savor the fruits of capitalism we don’t much like capitalists and absolutely loathe the soulless corporations and other organizations that run things. I don’t know what you’d call us: perhaps sellouts, perhaps survivalists, perhaps all too normal.

Me myself, you can call lucky, because Barbara still turns heads. She could pass for 35. Her curves demand attention, asserting themselves even in loose clothes or business attire, and her legs could be those of a runway model. Her auburn red hair cascades over her shoulders onto her back. She sometimes floats the idea of getting a more “sensible” cut, to which I’ll offer a noncommittal, “OK.”

“Hmm,” Barbara responds, meaning that that decision’s been put on hold yet again.

But it’s not just her looks. She moves through the world like answered prayer. Her smile warms rooms. Her laughter dispels darkness. Her...

Hold on. The above litany might suggest that we’re not very much anchored to the practicalities of a relationship. Not so. It’s a marriage, man. We disagree, sometimes bicker as every couple does. But all things considered, not bad. Not bad at all.

Still, Cactus. A bit of a mystery.

What are the chances that Barbara deals with a vendor whose name is the answer to security questions for all the websites that our daughters need to access?

What was the name of your favorite childhood pet?

I’m a construction manager so I can imagine a situation where I see a name like, say, Cactus Industrial Lift Equipment. I’d at least have to check it out.

The invoice lies on the floor right under where Barbara packed her briefcase. That’s the last thing that she takes care of before she flies off. She loads her clothes and toiletries with care. But the business papers she stuffs inside like afterthoughts. When she returns home, she’ll sometimes mention that she misplaced some work item, and first thing goes to her office to conduct a search.

I’ve occasionally asked: “Need help?”

“You wouldn’t know what to look for.”

Not this time. Every company’s invoices look a little different, I suppose, if for no other reason than there’s a unique heading and address. But basically, an invoice is an invoice is an invoice.

Now, standing in her office as the sky outside grows heavier, I make sure it’s the right one. Yep: $3,462.34 for ground beef from Cactus Cuts. Direct deposit. Well, mystery solved. I lay it on her desk, take the pix. However, before I text it to Andrea Lawson I notice the address.

It’s in Ocean City, New Jersey. That’s where we have our shore house, right on the beach. We’re at 1786 Boardwalk. Barbara’s bonuses paid for the lot and the building material, of course, but I oversaw the construction and also put up a couple of the main rooms myself.

The address for Cactus Cuts is 1788 Boardwalk. Nothing there but sand and dune grass.

Must be a typo.

I text Andrea Lawson: “This is Mack, Andrea. Still looking for that invoice.”

Immediate response: “Thank you so much, Mr. Clearwater!”

In the next hour or so I sleuth. I inspect the Cactus Cuts website. Just a logo and not much else. Under “contact us” is the same phone number that’s on the invoice. I call three times, always getting kicked to an answering machine. I don’t leave a message. I need to be careful. I’m messing with Barbara’s job here. And I am violating her privacy.

Still: 1788 Boardwalk, Ocean City, NJ, 08226.

It just doesn’t exist.

My cell vibrates. A text from Barbara.

“Leave, yet?”

I start to text back, but my impatience kicks in and I call.

“Did you, babe?” she asks again, above the airport cacophony.

“Passengers for flight yada, yada, yada, please board at gate yada.”

Greetings. Farewells. Laughter. Children being told to behave. Hurry ups. Slowdowns. Luggage being bumped about. Tidbits of detail that break the surface for a second and then get pulled back down into the nondescript.

“You know about the snow, right?” Barbara asks.

“I’ll be sitting by the fire watching the ocean when it comes.”

“Lucky dog.”

Two things Barbara loves: snow and the ocean. Snow on the ocean makes her want sex.

“Yep, babe,” I say. “Gonna kick my feet up, quaff a few, turn on the fireplace, maybe order me some Chinese. And tomorrow I’ll be watching the Eagles.”

“Text me a picture of the ocean? At sunrise?”

“If I’m up.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

She means the sunrise, but probably also the time off I’ve got because of a lull in the construction business for which I am currently collecting unemployment.

Overcome by a need to feel useful, it’s at this moment that I am tempted to tell Barbara about the call from the university and the Cactus Cuts invoice with the wrong address. But I don’t, because the explanation might be so obvious that I’ll look dumb.

“All well there?” I ask.

Long pause.

I say: “You still there?”

“I love you very much, Mack Clearwater.”

This is different. Her tone embraces and pushes off at the same time.

“Honey? Barbara?”

“I am here.”

No, she’s not.

“What?” I ask.

“I’m just nervous. Just nervous about my presentation tomorrow.”

I hear a tremor. She is nervous.

I say: “You’re presenting?”

“Oh, the dork who was going to bailed on them, and they asked me to fill in.”

“You’re allowed to say ‘no.’”

Especially to a professional organization that you owe nothing to — really — but Barbara hardly ever says “no” to any request for help. In her mind that’s weakness. I long ago stopped trying to convince her that it’s not.

I say: “You’ll knock ’em dead like always.”

“Hope so.”

Passengers on flight...

Barbara says: “That’s me. Gotta go. Love you.”

“Me too. Make more money!”

“Ha, ha.”

I grew up poor in the West Oak Lane section of Philadelphia and dismiss people who don’t have to worry about money, but who preach that money isn’t everything. It’s a false god. OK. I don’t worship it. But I want it and I’m not one bit ashamed to say that I enjoy spending my wife’s money because we do everything together and I love her.

Barbara grew up even poorer than me. She alludes to it rarely, but I’ve pieced the outline together from what in-laws have let slip at gatherings. The old man was an abusive drunk who eventually deserted the family, and then the old lady went crazy, and then Barbara — all of 18 — had to take legal custody of her two younger siblings and raise them.

Barbara vowed: Never again would she go hungry. Barbara vowed: Never again would she be chased by creditors. She would always earn a lot of money. And she certainly does. I knew she made a good living, and then they started giving her bonuses, which hadn’t originally been built into the compensation package for her position. I call it the Barbara Bellini Clearwater Annual Overachievement Award.

So, yes, some of the exorbitant college tuitions for which people must take loans get funneled to professionals like my wife who keep the administrative gears of higher education grinding. And she’s worth every damn penny.

“I wish I got bonuses like that,” I say sometimes.

“Do you want the bullshit that comes with it?”

No, thanks.

We don’t rent the house in the summer like most owners down the Jersey Shore do, but it’s an option for when we retire. A place like ours? On the beach? Five bedrooms, three bathrooms, and jacuzzis on all four levels ? Grand and unobstructed view of the ocean? An elevator? We could charge $15,000 a week in season. But the girls use it now and then year-round including the summer; and we sometimes join them; get to see the grandkids, the two sons-in-law and what appears to be a third son-in-law in the making. (I’m not so thrilled about this one, but the daughter will never know that.)

Before I exit Barbara’s home office, I close the shades and see that the sky continues to darken.

Time to go.

I pack light; I’ve got clothes at the shore house. I’ve about an hour and a half ride in store. As I head out to my car, I can taste the threat of snow. I start the engine while buckling my seatbelt, back out of the driveway and roll on off. I turn on the Beatles station, but the disc jockey insists on playing rarities that never made it onto any of their albums and with good reason: They suck. I turn it off, ride in silence.

I cross the Walt Whitman Bridge with the skyline of Philadelphia in my rearview and as the day’s shadowy grip continues tightening, muting the outlines of the cityscape.

My mind wanders because that’s what minds do.

I’m humming “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” a ditty on Abbey Road about a guy who bashes in heads. So much for “All You Need Is Love.”

I think about the real Maxwells out there: sociopaths, psychopaths, narcissists.

And evil people.

I went to Catholic school. “The evil one will sneak up on you and steal your soul!” my first-grade nun warned with such intensity that one kid fainted and had to be sent to the nurse’s office.

But that didn’t stop the lesson. Judas, she told us, starts out small, stealing a little bit of money here but then more and more until finally he takes the 30 pieces of silver.

And a real Maxwell wouldn’t have bashed in heads as a kid. He would have probably started out smashing windows and throwing stones at stray animals.

Yeah, it starts out small.

Think about those governmental officials or company accountants who wind up in jail for embezzlement. What began as a minor snow job — they often start out by “borrowing” and then reimbursing, until they skip a payment or two — becomes an avalanche of millions of stolen dollars, crushing their reputations and destroying their lives.

Speaking of snow….

I’m a bit surprised by the first flakes, which seem to dart out of my way as if playing a game of chicken. The snow’s come a good six hours before they said it would. But then I hadn’t been looking for updates.

Bare branches of trees along the Atlantic City Expressway stretch toward the sky like converts at a revival meeting. As the snowfall quickens, the brake lights ahead and the headlights behind glimmer weakly, and I fight off a loneliness that urges me to call somebody. Maybe one of the kids. Maybe an old friend. Not Barbara. She’d say she’s prepping. I shake it off. I need to concentrate on driving, a decision I know Barbara would approve of.

The snow not only comes earlier than expected but also harder. It’s now officially a storm and they’re saying seven inches in Philly, and about three down the shore. The car begins to miss a beat of traction, like a song on a flawed CD that skips maybe once or twice, but that’s enough to drive you crazy. I catch up to the sprinklings of the salt trucks and follow the treated lanes until the exit ramp that spills me out onto the Garden State Parkway. In about 15 minutes I turn off the superhighway onto a generic throughway with red lights and traffic circles, merging into a cautious flow of vehicles heading toward the sea.

I’m almost home.

The wind adds potency to the salt air. I can taste it even more than usual as I cross the Ninth Street Bridge into Ocean City. I ride to the top of the arc and despite the conditions I glance to either side down at the brownish wharfs jutting out, the brighter piers holding back. Boats covered for winter bounce in place and the pastels of the houses and buildings quiver in and out of view.

Years ago, Barbara and I would drive into town, park on Palen Avenue, and then jog the two and a half miles over the bridge to Somers Point, turn and jog the two and a half miles back. We ride bikes now, or power walk. The girls and their mates run the bridge: “We don’t jog,” they pronounce.

The water in Great Egg Harbor Bay heaves and slaps about as it plays with some of the small boats making their way back to slips and wharfs. I spot two seagulls bouncing about the sky fighting to get to wherever seagulls hide when it snows.

And still the mind wanders.

Barbara and I met at a wedding. She, an acquaintance of the groom. Me, an acquaintance of the bride. At the reception, we’d both been seated at a table of singletons; random cousins, school chums, an older friend of the bride’s parents.

Barbara and I sat opposite each other but as the drinks came and people got up to dance or mingle, we moved unoccupied seat by unoccupied seat closer until we were next to each other and chatting. And not because either of us was on the make. In fact, the opposite.

We’d both just gotten out of bad marriages and had young children to raise. Both had decided to keep things simple until the kids went off to college in about a decade. Maybe a date here or there, though we shared a mutual dread of the dating scene.

At one point, I raised my beer and tapped her vodka martini.

“To being single!” I said.

She laughed. “Hear! Hear!”

A year and six days later we married.

The transition presented challenges. For the most part, we didn’t live under the same roof for the first two years. Her girls didn’t want to move out of Barbara’s house, my daughter didn’t want to move out of mine.

When the girls started middle school, Barbara and I acted quickly, selling our houses, pooling resources and buying a much bigger home that included several bedrooms with adjoining bathrooms (in other words, each teenage girl with her own bathroom — they loved that) and a pool in the backyard. Everybody had their space.

This unorthodox start to married life meant that in the beginning Barbara and I, out of necessity, kept our finances separate and over the years — for one reason or another, but mostly to avoid the hassle of marital incorporation and any complications about inheritance (her daughters would get Barbara’s worldly goods, mine would get mine) — we never bothered to change that arrangement.

Separate banking accounts, separate credit cards and credit ratings, separate ownership of cars, separate tax filings overseen by separate creative accountants who ensured that we didn’t pay more because of those separate filings.

Now, driving into Ocean City, I turn too abruptly onto Palen Avenue. The backend swerves a bit, threatening a tailspin, but I steady it, saying quietly “Whoa!” like a movie cowboy calms a movie horse. I motor at a crawl the rest of the way to the shore house. I turn down the alleyway, skid again, open the garage, and head into shelter.

When I get upstairs, I immediately jack up the heat. I throw my backpack on the bed and start inspecting, going from room to room testing lights; turning spigots on and off; flushing toilets; eyeballing the washer, dryer, heater, and air conditioner; riding the elevator. I run the vacuum. Then I pull the shades aside on the sliding doors and stand for a second just taking in the scene. The snow. The ocean.

I turn on the fireplace, grab a beer, pull one of the kitchen chairs around to face the view and watch winter unfold. And hear it unfold, as well, for the waves crash like drums keeping bad time, and the wind whistles tunelessly. The whitecaps roll upon each other, too impatient to wait their turn. And the snow falls faster.

So beautiful.

The house whispers my name. At least that’s what I think I hear just before I doze for a few minutes, but in those moments something happens. Dread jolts me like electricity and I yell in terror, waking myself. This — whatever this is — confronts me like an intruder, it feels that real and malignant. I am gasping. I hold my face in my hands, fighting an urge to sob. And I remember that kid who fainted back in first grade when the nun talked about Judas the Betrayer.

Just a horrible dream.

But it wasn’t a dream. Or at least not one that I remember. A feeling had assaulted me, an explosion of fear that still bubbles through my veins. Extinction showed itself, as if I’d become an animal in line in a slaughterhouse who glimpses what’s in store, discovers the source of the sacrificial bleatings.

I think I know what’s going on.

A wandering mind doesn’t mean purposeless thinking. Somewhere during this day’s journey my subconscious rolled right up to the gates of ugly probability. Nodding off as I did allowed what lurked beyond the barrier to come crashing through, sweeping away denial that I hadn’t even realized I’d been clinging to.

But now I know. I must have known since my conversation with Andrea Lawson. Maybe I’ve known for a long time but had buried that knowledge.

I look at my phone. I’d missed a call. I listen to the message.

“Hello, Mr. Clearwater? This is Andrea? I still can’t get a hold of your wife? Did you find the invoice? There seems to be... Could you just tell Mrs. Clearwater to call? I tried to reach her at the conference?”

Of course you did.

She continues haltingly: “Um. And she isn’t... Um. Well, if you could just do that, Mr. Clearwater? Tell her to call me?”

Andrea doesn’t want me to worry, but too late. I know what she’s not saying. Barbara isn’t at the conference. There’s no record of her signing in.

My breathing labors, my joints ache, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think that I’ve come down with the flu. But I do know better. I know my body and know that it’s a panic attack. I’ve had them before, just never this intense.

I look out at the ocean and the snowstorm, the elements shifting and tumbling and rushing first here, then there, and striking against each other like mobs. I see something on the water, a light etching a straight line between mystery Points A and B. Is it real?

Time to confront my future.

I text Barbara. “What now?”

In about an hour and some amount of beer later, my cell buzzes. It’s a number I don’t recognize, one I wouldn’t ordinarily answer. I stand, go over to the sliding doors as if trying to avoid being overheard in this big echoey house. It’s still snowing in the gathering dusk.

“I really do love you, Mack Clearwater.”

“Barbara, please. Come home.”

“I haven’t decided, yet.”

“Where are you?”

She could be anywhere.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

But she has. And knowing Barbara, the cops will never find her.

“Come home. We can get through this. I know about a guy....”

A guy who’d embezzled about $6 million over two decades and he got just four years in federal prison. Of course, he’d given about $4 million back and turned state evidence. Still, she could get a relatively light sentence. I’d visit. The girls would visit.

“They’re going to take everything, Mack,” Barbara warns. “I am so sorry. The shore house. All the stocks and annuities. Possibly even the other house. They’ll freeze my assets, at least the ones they can get their hands on.”

“They can’t stop me from working. The girls are launched. They’re OK.”

Are they? I think about how we helped them buy their houses. How Barbara helped them buy their houses. Where did that money come from?

“So, I start over,” I continue. “I can do it.” I tick off names of family members who’d probably let me live with them for a while.

“Barbara?”

“My darling, I am so sorry.”

“Come home. Please.”

“Andrea Lawson. I can’t believe it. Done in by that little twit.”

“She called me.”

“She called me. So did my boss. And the provost. And campus security. I’m sure by now the FBI and other people I don’t want to talk to have called. They might find my phone, even though I destroyed the SIM card and the memory card. But nothing ever really dies, does it? They’ll find what they need to find. Build an even stronger case against me.”

“Come. Home.”

“I don’t want to go to prison.”

“So, you choose that I’ll never see you again? That the girls will never see you again? Our grandkids?”

“No, not really.”

“Sounds very convincing.”

“I will figure a way to keep in contact.”

“Lie.”

“Don’t be like that, sweetie.”

“Like what? Betrayed?”

Then, as if she’s talking to herself, she says, “It’s like I died. And I did in a way.”

“Where are you?” I ask.

“Somewhere. Nowhere.”

An airport? A train station? I can hear announcements.

“Where are you?”

“The less you know, the better, darling.”

“How? Why?”

She chuckles, and even after all these years of being married, the sound emitted surprises me. I’d never heard her make a noise quite like that. It’s not evil. It’s not good. But it’s not Barbara, either. Who is this person?

She says: “You never asked ‘how’ and ‘why’ before, sweetie. You never asked how we could afford the things we bought, Mack. The trips we took. The way we lived. Did you really think I made that much money? Can you tell me that you never had an inkling about just what was going on?”

I don’t respond.

“The less you know the better,” she says. “They’ll want to arrest somebody. Tell them all about this conversation. Tell them how you never suspected. How you were blindsided. About how you tried to talk me into giving myself up.”

I flop into the chair, suddenly so exhausted that I can’t hold the cell phone against my ear anymore. I press “speaker,” place the gadget on my lap.

“You would love this view, Barbara,” I say. “The waves. The snow. The wildness. The way light reflects off the breakers. And the sounds. Sounds I never heard before. Of course I’ve got the fireplace going. And, yeah. Almost forgot about the...”

And I continue in this manner for I don’t know how long until finally I look down, see the darkened screen, and realize that she’s gone.