Tapestry of Fortunes A Novel

IN THE MORNING, I AM MUCH MORE AT EASE ABOUT SEEING DENNIS. I am, in fact, full of optimism. In a worst-case scenario, it will be interesting to see him again, and I know I’ll at least like him. I call his cellphone to tell him we’re going to get breakfast and then we’ll be on our way, but he doesn’t answer. I get one of those recorded voices that asks you to leave a message, which always makes me wonder if I’m really talking to the person I intend to. Nonetheless, I make my voice cheerful and confident and say, “Hi! I’m sorry we never made it over last night; we got in really late and I didn’t want to wake you. But we’re close now, we should be there by ten! So I guess we’ll go and get some breakfast and then I’ll call you back. You must be … Well, I don’t know where you must be, but I’ll call you back. Or call me, I think you have the number, or it will show up on your phone, of course. I’ll see you soon.”

Renie stretches and says, “I want some pancakes, does anyone else want pancakes?”

“I want something lighter,” Joni says. “Enough already with all this ballast.”

“All right, we’ll ask at the desk for a hippie café,” Renie says. “Maybe there’s one on the way to Dennis’s house.” She looks over at me and I look away.



WE FIND A PLACE called Aunt Bea’s with hive-shaped jars of honey on wooden tables and lots of local artwork on the walls. There is a corner of the restaurant with big fat old-fashioned upholstered chairs given over to the computer users so they don’t hog the tables. I point to that area and say, “See? Good idea. Last time I went to Panera, I couldn’t find a table. I was walking around and around with my tray, and all these people were sitting at the tables with their computers. One woman hadn’t even bought anything; she just had one of those plastic cups with water. I kept walking past her but she wouldn’t move any of her papers spread all over the table.”

“You know what you do in a situation like that?” Renie says.

I sigh. “Of course. Go over to the person and say, ‘Would you mind moving your papers so I can sit down?’ ”

“Exactement.”

“Oh, that’s so tiresome,” Lise says. “It’s like bad behavior in movie theaters. People act like they’re in their living rooms. That’s why I bought such a big TV screen, so I could act like my living room was a movie theater.”

Joni squirts honey in her herbal tea. “Plus who wants to sit with a table hogger who obviously doesn’t want to share? They’d be giving you dirty looks even if they weren’t looking at you.”

Lise’s phone rings and she looks at the number and doesn’t answer.

“Sandy?” I ask, and she shakes her head no.

“Was it him?” Joni asks.

“Who?”

Joni frowns at her.

“Yes,” Lise says. “And I’ll call him back later.”

“Uh-oh,” Renie says

“Never mind, you don’t know,” Lise says.

“Yes, I do,” Renie says. “I knew you wouldn’t let this happen. You’re too scared. You want to be in control all the time.”

I expect an argument, but Lise says nothing, sits staring at her plate. Finally, she says, “Maybe you’re right. I’m used to being in control. I always was the fix-it person. Birds with broken wings, abandoned baby rabbits. I used to try to rebuild anthills that got knocked over. The thing I wanted most for Christmas every year was a real first aid kit. My parents kept giving me kid ones, but I wanted suture sets, IV equipment, I wanted a cut-down tray in case I had to do an emergency tracheotomy. My Uncle Will was a doctor and he used to let me come to work with him sometimes when he moonlighted in this little hospital’s ER; I knew a stack of Band-Aids, pink candy pills, and a plastic stethoscope weren’t good for anything.” She looks up at Renie. “But to your point. Honestly? I am scared. I don’t know if I can take the chance that in trying to work together again, we’ll crash on the rocks again. Even if I keep Sandy out of it, at least at first, I don’t know if it’s good for me. I feel like I’ve been acting so foolishly.”

“Maybe it’s good for you to act a little foolish,” Joni says. “You’ve been … I don’t know, more fun on this road trip than I’ve ever seen you be.”

“Why don’t you just relax and take it one step at a time?” Renie says.

“We’re on Cece now,” Lise says, flinging her napkin onto her plate. She looks over at me. “Call Dennis and tell him we’re on the way.”

I dial the number and get the same message. “Huh. Still no answer.”

“Do you think he’s sleeping?” Joni asks.

“I don’t know.” It’s eight o’clock, one of those could-go-either-way hours.

“He might have gotten up a lot last night,” Lise says.

Almost reflexively, it occurs to me to say, “No he didn’t,” but how do I know?

“Let’s just go over there,” Renie says. “Cece can call him from the car when we’re sitting outside his house. That’ll be a surprise! Give me the keys, Lise; I’ll drive. I want to go through a McDonald’s drive-through on the way over and get a real breakfast.”

“You just had a real breakfast,” Lise says, and Renie says, “Granola with all that self-righteous fruit and nuts is not a breakfast. It is a punishment. It is a prescription. It is mortar for building—”

“All right,” Lise says. “Let’s go.”

“Be right there,” I say. “I have to pee.”

I don’t have to pee, but I pee anyway. Then I brush my teeth and my gums and my tongue and the roof of my mouth and under my tongue. I put on a shade of lipstick that is very subtle, that just makes you appear to have circulating blood. I rat up my hair a little on top and on the sides; it’s so much thinner than before. I adjust my brassiere; last time I saw him, I never wore one. Oh, those wonderful days of free breasts, but I’m glad I came back to Brylcreem, so to speak.

Not long ago, I saw an interview with a fiery feminist of yore, someone not quite Gloria Steinem but close, a woman who in her prime stood before thousands of cheering young women who were coming into a kind of power they’d never known before. And all respect, truly, but apparently this woman had never come back to bras, and the look was … Well, you would have to be a less superficial person than I not to fixate on all that lowness.

I stand back from the mirror, look at my worried face, then hike up my purse on my shoulder, smile, and go forth to complete my mission. It comes to me that there is no place on earth I would rather be. If someone came up to me and said, “Surprise, you’ve just won tickets to go anywhere you want right now, all expenses paid,” I’d say, “That’s okay. I’m going to see Dennis Halsinger.”

I get into the front seat beside Renie, who has put the address into the GPS. According to it, we are 107.3 miles away. Then, after we leave the parking lot, 107.2.

It takes us a bit under two hours to get to the city limits. When we finally get to Dennis’s quiet street, it’s hard to see the numbers on the houses. The GPS has told us we have arrived at our destination, but we can’t quite make out exactly where that destination is. Finally Lise points to a small green house set back from the curb and says, “There it is!”

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, here goes.” I dial Dennis’s number again, and get the same recording. I snap my phone shut. “Let’s go; I think he changed his mind.”

“He didn’t change his mind,” Joni says. “Go and ring the doorbell. We’ll wait here.”

I get out of the car and sneak a look at the upstairs, then downstairs windows to see if he is peeking out, but I don’t see anything. When I get to the door, I see that there’s an envelope tucked in the screen door with my name on it. There’s something hard inside, a key, I think. I open the envelope and yes, that’s exactly what it is, along with a note to me:

Cece,

Don’t know what happened; you never did call last night. I tried calling you a bunch of times yesterday and got no answer, hope you’re okay. Depending on when you get this, I’m either on a plane to or in Paris. A good friend of mine is the editor of the travel section of the paper here, and he called yesterday to ask if I’d fill in for a shoot they’re doing in Montmartre—the guy they were going to send all of a sudden got sick, and I need the work.

I’m only going to be there for a few days or so, and I’ll call you when I’m back. Doubt there’ll be much time for fun there; if this shoot is like the others I’ve been on, I’ll work eighteen hours, get back to the hotel, and fall flat on my face.

Anyway, here’s the key if you need a place to stay; they’re not coming to empty it out for ten days. Check out my mom’s decor; it’ll break your heart. Help yourself to any food.

Don’t know why

you never called.

Dennis

I read the note once more, then turn around to wave the others in.





WHAT DOES A HOUSE’S CONTENTS SAY ABOUT A PERSON? A lot, I think. I hardly have to cross the threshold before I get an idea of what Dennis’s mother was like. I think she, like many of the women of her generation, was inordinately neat and clean. I think she bought some good furniture when she married, and stuck with it: the wood is maple, and the style is colonial. In the kitchen there’s a cream pitcher hanging by a hook above the table, as well as a framed sampler saying NO MATTER WHERE I SERVE MY GUESTS/IT SEEMS THEY LIKE MY KITCHEN BEST. There’s a row of chimera African violets along the windowsill over the sink; apparently Dennis has been keeping them alive.

In the living room, there are crisscross sheers across the front window; a tall grandfather clock, gone silent now; a bowl of butterscotch candy on an end table, next to the La-Z-Boy chair that offers the best view of the television. In the dining room, there’s a braided rug, a framed print of Norman Rockwell’s family at Thanksgiving, and a cup rack featuring matching cups and saucers as well as a spoon rack with tiny spoons from everywhere. There’s a crocheted tablecloth and a hutch that holds the good china, some pieces on display.

“My Aunt Tootie had a house like this,” Joni says, when I rejoin her in the kitchen. Her voice is low, as though we’re in a funeral parlor, and in some respects I suppose we are. “She had a cleaning cart and I think it was her favorite thing in the world. It was where she kept everything she needed, including newspaper and vinegar for the windows, and ammonia for the oven. She loved cleaning.” She moves over to the pantry. “I’ll bet there are cans with expiration dates from years ago in here.” She picks up a can of tomatoes, turns it upside down. “Yup.”

“Don’t be so judgmental about a woman who just died,” Renie says. “And stop snooping.”

“We can look,” I say. “Dennis told us to look. I’m going upstairs.”

The first room I come to is his mother’s bedroom, a study in blue: the walls, the curtains, the quilted bedspread. There’s a long dresser with a perfume tray and framed photos. One is of Dennis, his high school graduation picture, I think. He was a handsome boy with a Beatle cut, and an I’m-so-getting-out-of-here look in his eyes. There are two framed photos on the wall that I think Dennis might have taken. One is a candid of his parents at the edge of the Grand Canyon: his father is pointing, his mother has her hand over her mouth. The other is of a group of boys at an A&W gathered around the open hood of a ’57 Bel Air, staring mesmerized at the engine while behind them a pretty spectacularly endowed waitress on roller skates holds a tray of burgers and mugs of root beer high in the air and is ignored.

There is a powder-blue velvet armchair in the corner of the room, a scrapbook propped up against it. In it are photos of Dennis’s parents in their youth, then many of Dennis as a baby, riding his rocking horse, sitting in a high chair with birthday cake plastered all over his face, triumphantly atop his father’s shoulders. At the back are love letters, I think, sent to his mother in 1943; letters from the front, judging from the APO return address of SFC Carl Halsinger. They’re bound in blue ribbon, the ribbon so old it’s fragile now. I know Dennis’s parents are both dead, but I don’t open even one.

There’s a separate envelope, no stamp, and a single line as an address: To Dennis’s future wife.

I swallow, then untuck the flap to see what’s inside. There are several pages of recipes, and the note on top says:

Hello there,

If you are reading this, I am glad of it, wherever I am. I always thought I’d dance at my son’s wedding, but life has its own agenda. I’m awfully sorry not to meet you and to tell you in person what a wonderful man you’re getting, but then I guess you know that. Here are a bunch of recipes for Dennis’s favorite foods that I used to make for him. It’s a tradition in our family that the new wife gets some old recipes and I’m very glad to pass these on.

It is also our tradition to pass on some words of wisdom about how to have a happy marriage. I know a lot of people say things about don’t go to bed angry, start and end each day with a kiss, be together but also spend some time apart, that sort of thing. For me, I guess it can all be summed up this way: Pay attention. The rest falls into place with that, I think.

I hope you live in happiness for a very long time. My husband and I sure did.

Very best wishes,

Janet Halsinger

I page through some of the recipes: Italian spaghetti, Captain’s Chicken, Pudding in a Poke, Cheesiest Macaroni and Cheese, Lemon Icebox Cake, Tricolor Macaroni Salad.

I put the recipes and the letter back into the envelope. The blue ribbon holding the pack of letters from her husband has slid to the end and I move it carefully to the middle, then tuck the letters back into the scrapbook. I put the scrapbook back beside the chair.

I wonder if Dennis’s mother sat here and looked at this album, her mind released from whatever failings she was experiencing and returned to her days of being a young mother in a print housedress and red lipstick, pulling the shades and putting her baby down for a nap, then going down into the kitchen to pore over her Settlement Cook Book for new ideas. Or returned to an even earlier time, when she was a young woman whose man was overseas, and she lay on her bed each night with her eyes closed tightly, her rosary in her hands. So strange: you uncap the pen and put down some thoughts in your head, some feelings in your heart, never thinking about what they will become so many years later, not understanding that you’re making such a treasure out of ink and pulp. I wonder how recently she wrote the letter to put in with the recipes.

The next bedroom, the one overlooking the backyard, is Dennis’s. There are a couple of shirts and a pair of jeans on the bed, probably what he chose not to pack or couldn’t fit in his suitcase. I pick up the jeans and look at the waistline; he hasn’t gained any more weight than I have. There is a tripod in the corner, and a large black bag that I assume holds more equipment. I pick up one of the shirts and smell it: only detergent. I sit on the edge of the bed, and then lie down cautiously, as though there’s another person there whom I don’t want to awaken. I close my eyes and a kind of comfort comes to me, like a cat curled up on my belly. I miss him suddenly, this man I’ve not seen in so many years, miss him deeply and sorrowfully. He feels, suddenly, so known to me. The pictures I saw of him here, I suppose. I knew a woman whose marriage was in big trouble, and when they went to a counselor she suggested they each look at photos of the other as children.

I move to the windowsill Dennis told me he used to watch his parents from and stand there with my arms crossed, looking out into the yard where azaleas and hydrangeas and Stargazer lilies bloom. I wonder how old Dennis’s parents were when they moved here; if they stood in the backyard shading their eyes against the sun to look up at these windows and thought, This is our house, we’ll never leave it.

By the time I get back downstairs, Renie has gone to the car and come back with her computer. She goes into the living room and stretches out on the sofa. “I’m going to work for a while. I need to address someone who’s fifty years old and suffering the junior high–level abuse of a co-worker who used to be her friend. The rest of you can dishonor a dead person.”

“It feels more like honoring, to me,” I say. I start to tell her about the photo album, but then don’t: I want to keep it to myself.

“There’s cold cuts and rolls and potato salad and beer in the fridge,” she says. “Thank God. Oh, and there’s a bag of Oreos in the pantry with a big ribbon on them.”

“Because they used to be my favorite,” I say. “I used to offer him some every time he came over.”

Joni and Lise come up from the basement. “She canned,” Joni says. “It’s unbelievable what’s down there. Asparagus and beets and green beans and corn and cherries and peaches and pears. And sauerkraut. And pickles. And peppers. All those jars, all lined up. God, they’re beautiful.”

She moves to the little kitchen table and sits down, looks around. Then she slams her hand on the table. “That’s it. I’ve made the decision. I’m ready.”

“Ready for what?” I say.

“I want to give people what was offered here. Comfort food. In warm surroundings, none of that pretense. I want to open a restaurant and serve food inspired by what I’ll bet was cooked here. I want my own restaurant, and I’ll have the kinds of things I make for you guys, at home.”

I think about the recipes I just saw. When I see Dennis, I’ll ask if Joni can have copies.

“Oh, I can’t believe it, I’m so excited! I’m going to do it! I have money saved and I’ll take out a business loan and I’ll find a good location and I’ll do it!

“And it will be so much fun. I want it to be like it’s in the fifties and you’re going over to a house like this one and my Aunt Tootie’s, where you’ll sit down and eat meat loaf and mashed potatoes and apple pie only it will be turkey meat loaf and lighter mashed potatoes and apple pie. All those bib aprons I’ve found at the Goodwill? I’m going to cook in them. And all those embroidered tablecloths I’ve collected—I’ll put one on every table. I’ll have mason jars of fresh flowers on every table, too. All the dishes will be different, all the silverware. I’m going to put a television in front so if you have to wait for a table you can watch reruns of old shows like Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver.”

“Call it Aunt Tootie’s,” Renie says.

Joni looks at her. “Nope. I’m calling it the Tomato Soup and Toasted Cheese Café.”

Renie shrugs. “I’d go there.”

“You want some quilts to put on the wall?” I ask.

“Yes! And the sign will have two round faces, a boy with a cap turned sideways and a girl with a big bow in her hair, and they’ll be licking their chops.”

“Want a part-time waitress who’ll work for food?” I ask.

She looks at me, grinning. “Really?”

“Really.”

She grabs her purse. “Let’s go. I’m going to find things for the restaurant in every town we go through, from now on. I wish I’d gotten every funky salt and pepper shaker we saw.”

“Oh, there’ll be more of those,” Lise says. She looks at her watch. “Should we get going?”

“Let me just check my email to see if they had any problems with the column I sent yesterday,” Renie says. She brings it up and says, “Oh wow, my daughter.”

She looks up at the rest of us. “I’m not sharing.” She reads it, nods. “It’s good.”


BEFORE WE GET BACK in the car, I volunteer to take Riley for a walk in one direction while the others go the opposite way. They want to speed-walk, and Riley’s pace is more … contemplative. When you’re in a hurry, it can get on your nerves. When you’re not, it’s enjoyable.

I am almost back to the house when my cellphone rings. When I answer, there is a long pause, and then I hear, “Cece?”

“Dennis?”

We both start laughing and then together say, “How are you?”

“I’m glad you’re alive!” he says.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“Hold on,” he says, “can you hold on?”

“Sure!”

I stand still, waiting for him to come back to the phone. I’m so excited. His voice sounds exactly the same to me. Dennis Halsinger.

“Cece?”

“Yeah!”

“I’m sorry; I guess I shouldn’t have tried to call. I have to go. They don’t give me one second, this shoot is murder. I’ll call you when I’m back in the States. Answer that time!”

“I will,” I say. “And Dennis?”

Nothing. He’s gone.

I put my phone back in my pocket, and it rings again. Good. Now I can see if he can give me a time frame.

But the number that shows up is the Arms, and I answer saying, “Michael?”

“It’s Annie,” she says. “Are you able to talk for a minute?”

I stop walking, then, dry-mouthed, say, “Yes.” Don’t say he died.

“I’m calling to let you know that Michael and Phoebe are getting married tomorrow.”

“What?” I say, laughing. This information collides so hard with what I feared that at first I can’t process it.

I can hear the smile in Annie’s voice when she says, “It turns out that Phoebe is pregnant. That’s why she was so insistent about seeing him; she wanted to tell him, and to give him the option of giving the baby his name. He really wanted you to come, and in fact he was going to wait until you returned and ask you to come for a visit, then surprise you with the ceremony. But he’s … Well, he’s decided to go ahead and do it tomorrow. He didn’t want to tell you, he didn’t want to interrupt your vacation. But I thought I would let you know in case you wanted to come.”

“What time will it be?”

“Six o’clock tomorrow evening. That’s as soon as the minister Phoebe likes can get here.”

“I’ve got frequent-flier miles; I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

“Good. Shall I tell him?”

“I don’t know; what do you think? I’d kind of like to surprise him.”

“Do that, then,” Annie says. “And I’m so glad you’re coming. He credits you for his getting back with her, you know.”

“He would have, anyway.”

“Perhaps. It will be good to see you, Cece. I’m so glad you’re coming.”

“Me, too.”

I snap the phone shut and stand still on the sidewalk for a while. There are instances when everything around you grows suddenly more vibrant and precious, and this is one of them. I am so happy for the postcard Dennis sent me: look at all it has brought me. I’m so much more alive than I’ve been; I’m so much happier. I realize I am looking forward to things in a way I feared I never would again.

“Let’s go,” I tell Riley and head back to the house. I’ve loved being on this trip, but now I want to go home and go to a wedding.


AT THE AIRPORT, after I get through security, I arrive at the gate fifteen minutes before it’s time to board. I sit next to a young mother whose little girl, maybe three years old, would apparently rather be anywhere but here.

After the little girl emits a shriek that comes close to shattering the plate-glass window behind us, the woman apologizes.

“It’s okay,” I say, but naturally I’m thinking, Oh, please don’t let me have a seat anywhere near hers.

“I’m going to let her run for a few minutes,” the woman says. “Don’t let the plane leave without us.”

“Okay,” I say, as if I can really do anything much about that, and watch the woman carry the little girl out to the walkway. She puts her down, says, “Here I come!” and the girl stops crying and takes off running.

After a few minutes there is the call for boarding and I look to see if I can find the mother, but she is nowhere in sight. I tell the gate agent who scans my boarding pass that a young mother and a little girl have taken off down the walkway, and they are on this flight. She shrugs.

“So …” I say.

“Pardon me, please.” She reaches around me for the next passenger’s boarding pass. I look behind me once more, then move toward the jetway.

Once inside the plane, I settle myself into the window seat. The two seats next to me are empty, and I’m pretty sure I know who will sit there.

Right. I hear a familiar screeching, and here comes the mother rushing after the daughter, saying, “Lindsey, come back here!” She grabs her daughter by the arm and half drags her to my row.

“Oh, hi!” the mother says.

I try to respond equally enthusiatically.

Lindsey gets put in the middle seat. And apparently she would prefer that her seat belt not be put on her. The decibel level rises and people all around are muttering and scowling. “Want me to try?” I ask, and the poor mother nods.

“Hey, Lindsey,” I say, and she stops screaming long enough to regard me suspiciously.

“Did you know this belt is magical?”

No response, but at least the screaming has stopped.

I lean in closer. “If I put it on you, this airplane will lift right up into the air and you will get a surprise. But you have to sit down and let me put it around you.” Surprise, I’m thinking, what can the surprise be? I decide I’ll give her the SkyMall catalogue and tell her to find something she really really wants and who knows, she might just get it.

She sits down, and I snap the seat belt around her. Then I say, “Tell your mommy to wipe your nose, okay?”

She does. Then the plane starts to taxi and I close my eyes and wonder what Joni and Lise and Renie are doing. For the first time since I made the decision to come off the road, I regret it. I think about Lise and the glittery star-shaped sunglasses she found in a travel mart a couple of days ago and has worn since she bought them. I think about the sign we saw advertising PUPPIES FOR SALE, and how we had such a good time playing on the lawn with a litter of seven-week-old goldens. “I have to tell you we’re not going to buy one,” I told the woman who owned the dogs, and she said, “That’s all right, they need the socialization.”

I think of the time we watched a local production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that was performed outdoors, of the garden party that Renie said she was sure we could wander into unnoticed, but we were noticed, all right. And asked very nicely to leave.

I feel a tapping on my arm. “Where is my surprise?” Lindsey whispers.

I look over at her mother, who appears to be asleep.

“It’s coming,” I whisper back, thinking that if I give her the SkyMall catalogue now, a howling protest may follow. “In the meantime, how about we just have a little conversation?”

“ ’Bout what?”

About what? Good question. I lean in closer to her. “Do you think everyone is carrying a heavy burden?”

“No. I’m not. And needer are you.”

I stare into her face. I try to imagine what she’ll look like when she gets older. “Do you have crayons in your backpack?”

“No. I have glitter markers. And I have coloring books and only one doll who is Cassandra and M&M’s and Go Fish.” She sighs then, a deep and dramatic sigh, as if someone has asked her to relieve Sisyphus.

“Well,” I say. “Would you like to color?”

She nods, and digs in her backpack for markers and her coloring books. “Do you want farm animals or fairy princesses?” she asks.

“Farm animals,” I say, and she says, “Good, because I want the fairy princesses because the farm animals are boring.”

“Okay, let me ask you this: Do any of your fairy princesses have four chambers in their stomachs?”

“What is chambers?”

“It’s like little rooms.”

“Nothing has little rooms in its stomach.”

“Cows do.”

She looks over at my coloring book, at the cow page I’m on. Then she continues coloring the jewels in her fairy’s crown, which, I have to admit, looks like much more fun to color than this cow, which is looking out from the page like it’s my responsibility to think of everything. A lock of Lindsey’s hair is hanging in her eyes, and I reach out to gently tuck it behind her ear. This makes for a familiar pain in my four-chambered heart, acknowledgment that I will never have a child to raise, or grandchildren to spoil. I look out the window for a moment, then ask Lindsey if she has a black marker.

After she gives it to me, I start to color my cow, making it a Holstein, and then I ask Lindsey if she has a gold marker. When she gives me that, I draw my cow a crown. Lindsey watches with interest. “It is still not a princess,” she says.



AFTER I GET HOME from the airport, I carry my suitcase up to my room, open the windows, and then go back outside. There’s a good hour of light left, and I head over toward Como Park. I’ll walk around the lake on the pedestrian path. Penny and I took this walk sometimes, and I remember once she talked about how grateful she was for the effort that went into making the place so user-friendly, so beautiful to behold. I see wildflowers that look like little white stars in the grass. Willow trees dip their branches into the water as though stirring up the minnows. I watch the gossipy red-winged blackbirds gather for the night in the high branches of a tree, and the cranes standing motionless in the reeds. The water has smoothed out, as if it has been tucked in for the night, and the sky turns a smudged charcoal pink at the horizon. I pick up my pace so that I can get home before dark. I walk with my head down, my hands in my pockets. All these firsts, these times of doing things without her that I used to do with her, are getting easier.

When I get back to the house, it’s dark enough that I have to find the keyhole by touch. I let myself in, turn on a few lights downstairs, and put water on to boil for some pasta. I’d intended to go out for dinner—there’s not much in the refrigerator—but now I find that I want to stay here. And besides, I always love an excuse for eating noodles and butter and Parmesan cheese. I hope Joni will have that at her restaurant.