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By Root 493 0

locked. By the time she unlocked the window, Harrison had turned the corner. Agnes would have liked to call to Harrison, would have liked to surprise him with her voice and face. They might have had lunch together. She remembered the boy, diffident and talented, an athlete who didn’t make her nervous in the way the other boys sometimes could and did. A boy who was not exceptionally good-looking—not in the way Stephen was, for example—but whose face was immediately appealing. Harrison had been a friend of the popular boys and yet somehow had not been one of them. Agnes imagined that had it not been for his athleticism, particularly on the baseball diamond, he might have been something of a loner. Often she had seen him walking the streets of Fenton by himself.

But Stephen. One could not have a thought of Harrison and not immediately afterward think about Stephen. Stephen, whose deep fear of boredom had sometimes pushed him blindly forward. Stephen, who had managed to remain lovable despite his popularity, whose desire for risk, which they all had found so appealing, had often got the better of him. Stephen, who remained fixed in place, while all the others had gone on—grown older, married, had children, had affairs, failed in both love and work—whereas Stephen had simply stopped. Like all those people at the World Trade Center had simply stopped. Like all those people in Halifax had simply stopped.

Agnes sat at the desk, and Innes checked his tie in the mirror over the bureau. She picked up her pen.

He wondered if he would be the only man at dinner not in uniform, and he hoped that Dr. Fraser hadn’t signed on in some reserve capacity. The lack of a uniform begged explanation, which Innes didn’t like to give, since the asthma was plainly absent and the rest sounded either feeble or self-serving. He hadn’t had to explain himself often because he had lived in a universe of American students and physicians (their numbers dwindling after April, when America had entered the war), but he could see that he might have to invent, for the casual acquaintance, an ironclad reason why he was not in service dress. It occurred to him that apart from Dr. Fraser, there might be no men at dinner at all, since so many had been sent abroad.

He opened the door of his room and glanced to either side of the hallway. He saw no other activity, no one to guide him to the sitting room. It was a modest house, though he had a sense of many rooms. He saw himself already slightly lost, opening doors and closing them in search of another human being. He hoped not a servant. Decidedly not the sullen man who had carried his suitcase.

Innes descended the stairway to the front hall. From another room, he could hear voices. He heard someone say “chutney jar” at the end of a question, and from elsewhere, with some emphasis, the word “socks.” The doors off the hallway were shut, reminding Innes of Mrs. Fraser’s unwelcoming bosom.

Innes guessed that the large oak door to his right might lead to a sitting room. He gave it a try, and it opened to a chamber lit with a globular lamp that did little to illuminate an otherwise shadowy expanse. He noted that the heavy blackout curtains were drawn. He heard the crackle of the fire and, like a primitive, headed in its direction. As he did, he saw a woman sitting with her back to him. Innes hesitated. The woman seemed not to know he was there (was her indifference deliberate or had he really been so stealthy?) and he did not want to intrude upon her perfect immobility. On the other hand, he was a guest, expected to know little of the household, expected to be welcomed. Besides, if he left now, he would almost certainly make a sound, and then the question of why he was retreating would have to be raised.

“Good evening,” he said, his throat needing a clearing.

Innes advanced, and the woman turned her head, not to Innes directly, but in profile to acknowledge him. The lamp on the console behind her lit up as much of her face as she had allowed. He was struck first by the hair, a dark mass that had been done up in an