And it had been. I hadn’t felt any different, was still observing, smiling and being gracious, and it was all the same. But then why was I so tired the next day, so that I stayed in bed and let Stephen get breakfast for the children and himself, sleeping on and on until noon, and then getting up, tired, and drinking coffee, getting dressed just before the children came home, feeling so terribly weary, interminably weary, with the sense that this feeling had been with me for all the time that I could remember, although I knew very well that at some time things had been different for me. But no one must see it, the children and Stephen must never see it again, because they depended on me, and so the grinding effort of energy began again late in the afternoon when they came home, and stayed with me until the evening was finished, Stephen finally tired himself. More and more, the rhythms were out of joint.

7

7

I don’t know how long after that it was when I saw the advertisement — many weeks, I suppose, since winter was just over. If I hadn’t been so thorough about reading the newspaper, I would never have known about it. (Or would it have happened some other way? I cannot conceive of it not having happened.)

“Winterized cabin on seventy acres, stream and bush, suitable for vacation or hunting lodge,” the ad said under “Out of Town Properties.” It gave a name and a telephone number.

I saw it and felt a yearning, not even a verbal thought, just a sensation as if a thin string were pulling me toward — what?

I shook my head and didn’t think about it again that day. I read the rest of the classifieds, then the comics, and then I washed my coffee mug and went to lie down again. My eyes hurt and the day was like all the others. I had given up trying to puzzle out why; I had given up trying to understand how to act against it.

The next morning, though, I remembered the ad and I read the rest of the paper with the feeling that toward the end there was something waiting for me, something to look forward to. The advertisement was still there: “Winterized cabin on seventy acres, stream and bush, suitable for vacation or hunting lodge. Call Mr. Chapman, 771-4893, Toronto.”

“What harm would it do?” I thought. “It sounds interesting, I’m just curious, it doesn’t mean anything.” I wasn’t sure just what I wanted to know, but the desire was strong enough to overcome the apathy, and that was something important and a relief. With an ease that astonished me, I picked up the phone and called the man.

“I read your ad in the paper,” I said awkwardly. “I wanted to know something about the place.”

He was apparently a busy man. He told me the facts swiftly, as if he’d memorized them from a list, and I had difficulty taking it all in.