Instead of walking directly to the front door, Harry cut diagonally across the short front yard and stood in front of the windows. There was a gap between the curtains, and he could see through the living room and into the kitchen, now fully lit, where Alice was moving around. There was a glass of wine on the island, and a cutting board loaded with vegetables, but Harry watched the way Alice was moving, twitching her hips a little as though she was listening to music. She turned and found her glass of wine and took a long sip. Her face was slightly distorted by the window glass, but she looked . . . was it happy? No, not exactly, but she did look peaceful, at ease. Harry watched for a while longer, getting colder, waiting to see if her expression changed. But it didn’t—she continued to move through the kitchen, light on her feet, her lips now moving along to the music Harry couldn’t hear.

Chapter 4

Then

Edith and Jake got married the following summer in the city clerk’s office in Portland, Maine. Alice went, and so did one of Jake’s dull friends from the bank. Afterward, they all drove back toward Kennewick, stopping in Ogunquit to eat a late lunch at a fancy restaurant made almost entirely of glass. It was built on a bluff with a view of a rocky stretch of coast. Edith and Jake pointed out houses they’d like to own if they ever won the lottery. Alice ordered the prime rib because her mom told her she could have anything she wanted.

After the wedding, Edith and Alice moved into Jake’s three-bedroom condominium at the north end of Kennewick Beach, up near the lighthouse. The building, except for its location, was not that impressive on the outside, just a three-story, grey-shingled box segmented into four equal condos, each with two parking spaces under the unit. But the condo interior was impressive. Jake had hired an interior decorator, and everything inside was spotless and shiny, with a kitchen full of gadgets and plants. The only thing Alice missed from their rental house was the wooden floors, the way they felt on her bare feet. Here, there was white shag carpeting, spotless because Jake had a cleaning woman who came every week. Also, Jake instituted a no-smoking-in-the-house policy. He smoked his occasional cigarette on the second-floor deck, and he insisted that Edith did as well, even when it was freezing out.

“He doesn’t expect you to clean the house?” Alice asked her mother, when she learned about the cleaning lady.

“No,” Edith said, as though she’d been asked if she was a cannibal. “Of course not. He makes good money, you know.”