Arthur rubs his bare hands together in the cold. “He wasn’t there. Or he wasn’t answering. I left a message.”

“It’s just as well,” Miriam says. In the pocket of her coat she carries Sandra’s hat, folded, like a letter. “It’s a long drive ahead. And they have things to do.” She takes Arthur’s hand. “It’s time for Mom and Dad to let the kids be alone. Us too.”

His face is incredulous. “You’re okay with this, then?”

A new mood has filled her, a sense of lightness. “I think I was always okay,” she says.

They drive away. Woods, houses, the limbs of the bare trees: Miriam watches the scenery from the passenger window, letting it all flow past, like pictures in an empty museum. Beside her in the quiet car Arthur drives with both hands on the wheel; with deft precision he negotiates each curve, each dip in the road ahead. She will tell him, she decides. She will tell him today, or else tomorrow, and he will be with her when she visits the surgeon on Tuesday, and then whatever happens, happens; but they will do it together, this last thing they have never done before, worrying together that one of them is finally dying.

They have driven just twenty miles when they see, up ahead, the low, barracks-like shape of a roadside motel, set against woods on a small rise above the highway. The sign hangs on a chain: Glade View Motor Court. Cable TV. Welcome Skiers! A dozen dismal rooms; they have passed it many times before, and each time she has imagined their interiors: the narrow, caved-in beds, the frayed shag carpeting reeking of old smoke, the floor-standing lamp that is also an ashtray. The idea arrives in her consciousness so fully formed it is like a memory of something that has already happened.

“Turn here,” she says.

Arthur taps the brake. As the car coasts to the shoulder, he turns to her and raises an eyebrow in happy surprise.

“I’m not arguing. But, really?”

It is a little past noon. “Oh, just turn, love,” she says.

November 12, 1979, Sunday afternoon. In room 106 of the Glade View Motor Court, Arthur and Miriam make love. They make love to one another in the icy room-the decor is just as bad as Miriam imagined-piling all the blankets they can find on top of themselves for warmth, and when it is over, they sleep-the happy, dreamless sleep of lovers.

It is after four when they awake. Dusk has fallen; through the paper-thin wall above their heads they hear the murmur of a television, and a man’s voice saying, “Honey, watch this-you can see where the makeup stops on his neck. If that’s a real gorilla, then I’m president of the United States.” But they hear no reply; Miriam wonders if the occupant of the next room, whoever he is, is talking to himself. For a while they lie awake and listen, side by side but holding hands, though they hear nothing more from the other side of the wall; eventually the television goes off, and they hear the door of the next room open and close again. Outside in the parking lot a car engine roars to life.

Arthur rises to shower. Alone in the room, Miriam listens to hear if the man in the next room will return; when he doesn’t, she flicks on the television, looking for the program he was watching, but can’t find it. She watches a few minutes of a soccer game and then switches to a local station, where a woman in a canary-yellow pantsuit is giving the weather report, making broad, approximate gestures at a map of New England. Arthur is still showering; a slice of steam puffs under the bathroom door. She turns off the TV, settles back into the saggy bed, and then picks up the telephone from the nightstand. Kay answers on the second ring.

“Hi, sweetie.”

“Mama?”

“It’s me. We’re in New Hampshire. We came up to visit your brother.”

“I see. So, just how is the little squirt?”

“Not so little. He won his race. Well, not won. But he came in fourth. He’s got a new girlfriend.”

“So I’ve heard.” Kay pauses. “Mama, where are you?”

“Where am I?”

“Your voice sounds… I don’t know. Strange. Far away, maybe.”

“Everything is fine, sweetheart. We stopped on the way home. I was just thinking about you, is all. How’s Jack?”

“Jack, Jack. Let me see. Jack’s at the library tonight, just like every other night. Jack is Jack, in other words. It looks like he may actually get that grant he applied for, by the way.”

“The grant.” Miriam searches her memory, coming up empty. She is suddenly so sleepy that at first she thinks her daughter is talking about somebody named Grant. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not important, Mama. He applied for a university fellowship is all, so he doesn’t have to teach while he finishes his dissertation. We talked about it a while ago, but I can see why you wouldn’t remember.” Then, “Do you really want to talk about Jack?”

“We could. He’s your husband.”

“So he is. This doesn’t necessarily make him something to discuss, however. Mama? Is something going on there?”

Miriam touches her cheeks, and when her fingers come away glistening with moisture, she realizes she is crying.

“I think I’m just in a sad kind of mood. A winter mood. It’s snowing here, I think. Or it’s about to snow. I was just thinking about you.”

“Well I was thinking about you, too, Mama. And you don’t have to worry about me and Jack. He’s really not so bad.”

“Does he make you happy?” She is sorry the instant she has said it. “Forgive me. It’s really none of my business.”

“Of course it’s your business, Mama. Why would you think that wasn’t your business? And to answer your question, I guess I’d have to say that, on the whole, he has the ability to make me happy. I know a lot of women who don’t get even that.”

From the bathroom Miriam hears the groan of the pipes as Arthur shuts the shower off. “I think that’s so. I was lucky with your father.”

“Was?”

“Was what, honey?”

Kay hesitates. “You said ‘was lucky.’ Like you weren’t lucky anymore.”

“Did I? Well, that’s wrong. Am, I mean.” She nods her head against the pillow. “Am lucky.”

A momentary silence falls, though not, to Miriam, an uncomfortable one. She listens to her daughter’s breathing, even and clean, and her own, slower but somehow the same, mingling over the wires. In the glow of the lights from the parking lot outside, she imagines Kay in her cramped kitchen, sitting on a stool with the phone pressed to her ear, waiting to hear what she, Miriam, will next say.

“You know, I was thinking that I’d like to get Jack something special for Christmas this year. Can you let me know if there’s something he’d like?”

“I will, Mama. That’s sweet of you. I really will give it some thought.”

“And not a book, though I know that’s probably what he wants. Something more… I don’t know. Personal.”

“Okay, Mama.”

“And for you, too, of course. If there’s anything.”

“There won’t be, but thanks. Mama?”

“Yes, sweetie?” Her eyes are half closed.

“Is there something you’re not telling me? Because the problem is, I have to go now. I really, really do. I have to pick up Jack at the library, and then we’re meeting some friends for dinner. I was on my way out when you called.”

“Oh.” Miriam hears the disappointment in her voice. “Well, that’s fine. We can talk later.”

“If it was something I could change, I would. We haven’t spoken in a while, and I’m really glad you called. But Jack’s going to be waiting for me.”

“It’s really all right. You go get Jack.”

“And everything’s fine with you and Daddy?”

“Everything’s fine, sweetheart.”

“And the boyo’s okay?”

She thinks of O’Neil standing in the dormitory parking lot, his arm around Sandra, as she and Arthur drove away. But the memory, she realizes, is not accurate. At the end they had stood together without touching.

“O’Neil’s fine too. Don’t you worry. You go get Jack, okay? He’ll be waiting for you. Everything’s all right. I love you, sweetheart.”