I'd forgotten to check the time. I'd turned the TV on during the news. The pictures were among the worst: women holding screaming children, bombs exploding, bodies in the street in the limp grip of death. I saw the face of one desperate woman whose family was buried in rubble, and before my finger could punch the channel changer, tears were running down my face.

I haven't been able to watch the news in years.

- |

Wednesday mornings are flexible. It's the time I set aside for emergencies (special cleanings for ladies who are going to host the bridge club or give a baby shower) or rare cleanings, like helping a woman turn out her attic. This Wednesday, I had long been scheduled to help Alvah York with her spring cleaning. Alvah observes this rite even though she and her husband, T. L., live in one of Pardon Albee's apartments now that T. L. has retired from the post office.

Two years before, I'd helped Alvah spring-clean a three-bedroom house, and Alvah had started work before I arrived and kept on going at noon when I left. But Alvah has gone downhill sharply since the move, and she might actually need help for the two-bedroom apartment this year.

The Yorks' apartment is on the ground floor of the Garden Apartments, next to Marie Hofstettler's, and its front door is opposite the door of the apartment Pardon Albee kept for himself. I couldn't help glancing at it as I knocked. There was crime-scene tape across the door. I'd never seen any in real life; it was exactly like it was on television. Who was supposed to want to get into Pardon's apartment? Who would have had a key but Pardon? I supposed he had relatives in town that I didn't know of; everyone in Shakespeare is related in some way to at least a handful of the other inhabitants, with very few exceptions.

For that matter, how had he died? There'd been blood on his head, but I hadn't investigated further. The examination had been too disgusting and frightening alone in the park.

I glanced at my man-sized wristwatch. Eight on the dot; one of the primary virtues Alvah admires is punctuality.

Alvah looked dreadful when she answered the door.

"Are you all right?" I asked involuntarily.

Alvah's gray hair was matted, obviously uncombed and uncurled, and her slacks and shirt were a haphazard match.

"Yes, I'm all right," she said heavily. "Come on in. T. L. and I were just finishing breakfast."

Normally, the Yorks are up at 5:30 and have finished breakfast, dressed, and are taking a walk by 8:30.

"When did you get home?" I asked. I wasn't in the habit of asking question, but I wanted to get some response from Alvah. Usually, after one of their trips out of town, Alvah can't wait to brag about her grandchildren and her daughter, and even from time to time that unimportant person, the father of those grandchildren and husband of that daughter, but today Alvah was just dragging into the living room ahead of me, in silence.

T. L., seated at their little dinette set, was more like his usual bluff self. T. L. is one of those people whose conversation is of 75 percent platitudes.

"Good morning, Lily! Pretty as ever, I see. It's going to be a beautiful day today."

But something was wrong with T. L., too. His usual patter was thudding, and there wasn't any spring in his movement as he rose from the little table. He was using his cane this morning, the fancy silver-headed one his daughter had given him for Christmas, and he was really leaning on it.

"Just let me go shave, ladies," he rumbled valiantly, "and then I'll leave the field to you."

Folding the paper beside his place at the table, he went down the hall. T. L. is a big, shrewd gray-haired man, running to fat now, but still strong from a lifetime of hard physical work. I watched T. L. duck into the bedroom doorway. Something else was different about him. After a moment, it came to me: This morning, he walked in silence. T. L. always whistles, usually country-and-western songs or hymns.

"Alvah, would you like me to come back some other time?"

Alvah seemed surprised I'd asked. "No, Lily, though it's right sweet of you to be concerned. I may as well get on with spring cleaning."

It looked to me as if it would be better for Alvah to go back to bed. But I began carrying the breakfast things into the kitchen, something I'd never had to do at the Yorks' before. Alvah had always done things like that herself.

Alvah didn't comment at all while I did the dishes, dried them, and put them away. She sat with her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, staring into the dark fluid as if it would tell her the future. T. L. emerged from the bedroom, shaven and outwardly cheerful, but still not whistling. "I'm going to get a haircut, honey," he told his wife. "You and Lily don't work too hard." He gave her a kiss and was out the door.

I was wrong again in thinking Alvah would be galvanized by her husband's departure. All she did was drink the coffee. I felt the skin on the back of my neck prickle with anxiety. I'd worked with Alvah side by side on many mornings, but the woman at the table seemed altogether different.

Alvah suffers from a pinched nerve in her back and is having increasing problems getting around, but she is normally a practical, good-natured woman with decided ideas about how she wants things done and a plain way of expressing them. She could offend by this straightforwardness, and I've seen it happen, but I've never minded her ways myself. There are few unexpressed thoughts hanging around in Alvah York's head, and very little tact, but Alvah is a good person, honest and generous.

Then I saw the supplies I'd brought in for the Yorks on Monday afternoon were exactly where I'd left them. The butter was in the refrigerator in the same place I'd laid it down, and the lettuce beside it hadn't been washed. At least the paper towels had been unwrapped, put on the dispenser, and used, and the bread had been put into the bread box.

I couldn't say anything more than I'd already said. Alvah wouldn't tell me what to do. So I mopped the kitchen.

Alvah has her own way of spring cleaning, and I thought I remembered she began by getting all the curtains down; in fact, the pair that hung in the living room on the window facing the street had already been removed, leaving the blinds looking curiously naked. So until very recently, Alvah had been operating normally. I cleaned the exposed blinds. They were dusty; Alvah had stopped just at that point, after she'd taken down the first pair of curtains.

"Is something wrong?" I asked reluctantly.

Alvah maintained her silence for so long that I began to hope she wouldn't tell me whatever it was. But finally, she began speaking. "We didn't tell anyone around here," she said with a great weariness. "But that man over in Creek County—that Harley Don Murrell, the one who was sentenced for rape—well, that man... the girl he raped was our granddaughter Sarah."

I could feel the blood drain from my face.

"What happened?" I sat across from Alvah.

"Thank God they don't publish the victim's name in the paper or put it on the news," Alvah said. "She's not in the hospital anymore, but T. L. thinks maybe she should be—the mental hospital. She's just seventeen. And her husband ain't no help—he just acts mad that this happened to her. Said if she hadn't been wearing that leotard and tights, that man would have left her alone."

Alvah heaved a sigh, staring down at her coffee cup. She would have seen a different woman if she'd looked up, but I was hoping she wouldn't look up. I was keeping my eyes open very wide so they wouldn't overflow.

"But he wouldn't have," I said. "Left her alone."