Four and a half inches the auger had measured and the decision was made not to walk on the ice. Everyone trooped up to the attic to admire the room. At the table for sandwiches, Norma tried to engage Alison in conversation. I could see they would tolerate each other but never get along. Alison turned instead to Robin. He explained to her in a low voice how to start a fire with a lemon, while at the end of the table, Rose and Walter assured each other once again that fracking would never come to Tawasentha Lake.

I sat in a daze. My arm was taken; Norma’s clear concerned eyes searched mine. “So how did it go over there? Not a complete disaster, I hope?”

“Long story,” I whispered. “Life-changing. Tell you later.”

Robin had started quizzing Alison about London, her job, her ambitions. “Fine arts?” he scoffed. “Applied arts? What does that mean? No, we need something much more objective. What about how you clean it? You’d have the dustable arts, see? The sprayable arts. The dry-cleanable arts . . . ?” If anyone could open her up, it was Robin. It was the kind of nonsense he used to spin with Maddy.

I turned back to Norma, who wanted to know about London and my job and our holiday plans. I let her do the work, while trying to listen and return the questions, but I was having trouble seeing her from the correct distance. It was not just the haircut and the winter pallor and the blue of her eyes, deeper than I remembered. Too much had been said, whether in her presence or not. When I looked at Norma, time dilated and shrank. In white shorts she shoved off the dock and raised her paddle to wave. I flew away and returned. She made her cushions. I made my accusations. We sat at the table drinking chocolate in thick sweaters. Maddy was nowhere to be found.

At the door I thanked her again, so insistently that she drew away and exited with an embarrassed, indulgent smile, and I spent the afternoon by the window watching the snow float down. By dusk it had stopped. My mother cooked lasagna, I won a game of Shanghai I had no interest in winning, and my parents and Alison turned in early.

•  •  •

We kept finding things to do instead of going to bed. Robin cleaned the kitchen; I tried to read. When he headed to the basement to tinker with the boiler, I pulled down the trapdoor steps and slipped up to the new room. I had not yet had a chance to sit on the couch, which turned out to be a padded shelf that floated off the wall with no visible means of support. I’d brought the portable house phone with me. I tapped in the number before I could think better of it.