He fell asleep above the covers, and woke up cold. He got up and shut the window, then got under the comforter. He listened to the house, so much quieter than his dormitory, where he could lie in bed and listen to the muffled sounds of its other inhabitants. Here, all he could hear was the occasional sound that old houses made, the almost unnoticeable ticks and sighs. He didn’t really like it, the enormity of the quiet, the way it made him feel more alone than he usually did. He felt the negative thoughts rolling toward him, and knew if he let them in he wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours. He recited the Lord’s Prayer to himself, even though the words had long been meaningless to him, but it was too late. The horrible dread—this now familiar feeling of insignificance—coursed through him. As always, it felt more like fear than sadness. He knew it would pass, and he concentrated on relaxing his body and focusing on his sensations, listening to the house.

After a while, he was beginning to fall asleep again when he heard the creak of the stairs, maybe Alice coming up to bed. Then he heard faint sounds just outside his door. He listened intently, sometimes hearing them and sometimes not. Moving slowly and quietly, he got out of the bed and took three steps along the worn rug to stand in front of the door. He turned his ear toward the door and listened. It was unmistakable. He could hear Alice breathing just on the other side of the door. He shifted his weight, and a floor plank made a squeaking sound. He listened to Alice’s footsteps as she retreated quickly down the hall.

Chapter 11

Then

After Edith’s death, Jake and Alice settled, quickly and naturally, into a new life together. Alice, as planned, enrolled in classes at the community college, commuting back and forth. She kept her own bedroom at the beachside condominium but spent every night in the master bedroom with Jake, even though there were so many reminders of her mother around.

“Should we pack some of these things away?” Jake asked one morning. He was holding up a half-empty perfume bottle while Alice toweled herself dry in the en suite bathroom.

“I don’t mind,” she said. “I mean, do what you want. You can throw that perfume away. I’ll never use it.”

Jake shrugged and put the perfume back on the shelf where he’d found it. He watched Alice dry herself.

“What are you looking at?” she said, smiling. She was bent over, drying her calves.

“You don’t know what you have there, do you?”

“What I have?”

“What you are. What you look like. Right now, you are absolute perfection in every way. You know that? Youth and beauty.”