Summary

Chapter 9 begins when Addie dropped her elderly neighbor, Ruth, off at her house after a trip to the grocery store. While at the store, the clerk made a snide, but veiled comment about Addie and Louis. Ruth responded saying that the clerk had a spot on her blouse. Ruth told Addie that she knew about her and Louis’s nightly visits because he walked across Ruth’s lawn to get to his house every morning. Addie said he was a good man. Ruth agreed, but she mentioned that he was unfaithful to his wife.

Addie questioned Louis about the woman with whom he had an affair in Chapter 10. He told her that the woman, Tamara, was married and worked at the high school as an English teacher like Louis himself. After filing his taxes in mid-April, Louis went to Tamara’s house and...