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By Root 624 0

it. With Robert in her bedroom and in Mattie’s, potentially dangerous objects were defused: A shirt flung over a chair was just a shirt that Robert tossed onto the floor with a bundle of other laundry. Bed linens were bed linens, in need of washing like everything else. He picked up discarded papers in Jack’s office and, without examining them, as Kathryn would have had to do, put them all into a drawer and closed it. In Mattie’s room, Kathryn felt Robert’s scrutiny, sensing that he was afraid it would be in that room she would falter, but she surprised him and herself by being particularly speedy and efficient. Even more stoically, she had helped Robert take the Christmas tree down, both of them dragging the dried-out tree through the kitchen and out the back hallway, the tree shedding its needles on the floorboards and the tiles. By the time they were finished with the cleaning, the milky swirls in the sky had given way to low, lead-stained clots.

“It’s supposed to snow,” he said, spraying out the inside of the kitchen sink with the hose.

She opened the cupboard beneath the sink and put away the bathroom cleaner, the Pine Sol, the Comet. She rinsed her hands in the spray from the hose and dried them on a dish towel.

“I’m hungry,” she said, feeling the mild satisfaction that always came from having a clean house. Like having had a bath.

“Good,” he said, turning. “I’ve got lobsters in the car.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“From Ingerbretson’s,” he explained. “I picked them up on my way here. I couldn’t resist.”

“I might not have liked lobster,” she said.

“I saw the picks and crackers in the silverware drawer.” “Observant,” she said.

“Occasionally.”

But standing there, she suddenly had the sense that Robert Hart was always observant. Always watching.

Robert cooked the lobsters while Kathryn set the table in the front room. A dry snow shower had begun, and swirls of snow-flakes fell silently against the glass of the windows. Kathryn opened the fridge and took out two bottles of beer. She had opened one and was about to open the other when she remembered that Robert didn’t drink. She tried to put the two bottles back into the fridge without Robert’s noticing.

“Please,” Robert said from the stove. “Drink the beer. It doesn’t bother me. In fact, it would bother me more if you didn’t.”

Kathryn looked at the clock: 12:20. Time out of time. Once again, the envelope began to open. It was a Friday. Normally, she would be at school, fifth period. Normally, she would not be drinking a beer. Although it was Christmas vacation, she thought; she was theoretically not due back until the second of January. She had given no thought to how she would manage in the classroom. An image of students moving in a hallway rose to the surface, but she banished it.

At five minutes before noon, Robert had turned off all the ringers on the telephones. There was nothing so urgent it couldn’t wait an hour or two, he had said, and she had agreed.

In that spirit, she had covered the table near the windows in the front room with a red flowered cloth, the gaiety of the cloth incongruous against the somber sky outside. Robert put on music: B.B. King. Kathryn wished she had flowers. But what exactly was she celebrating? she wondered, feeling vaguely guilty. Having survived the last eleven days? Having cleaned the house? She set utensils, bowls for the shells, bread, melted butter, and a thick roll of paper towel on the table. Robert walked into the front room from the kitchen bearing wet, slippery plates of lobsters. There were water spots on the front of his shirt.

“I’m famished,” he said, setting the plates down and sitting across from her.

She examined the lobster in front of her. And it was then that the swift, sharp shock of memory once again assailed her. She looked up quickly and then out the window. She brought a hand to her mouth.

“What is it?” Robert asked.

She shook her head quickly, side to side. She held herself still, locked in an image, not daring to move either forward or backward for fear of the crevices. She breathed in deeply,