Glenda’s thick, peculiar voice added to the distortion on the line. “That’s very good news. We are so grateful. We’ll use it wisely.”

Who said “wisely” anymore? “I want to be consulted at every stage, you know. To retain control.”

“Yes, of course.” We both knew it was an illusion. Who can control anything nowadays, let alone the use of images?

“My thinking is,” I said, “Maddy made it for the campaign, and she gave it over to the campaign. She must have been happy for it to be used.”

“I think she was.”

“She must have wanted people to see it.”

“The fact is,” said Glenda Sedge, “it’s out there already.”

I hung up and kept my body very still on the floating shelf, beside the black-and-white photo of Maddy, hands in the pockets of her child-size jacket. Careful! she said. Careful! I said. You’ve been at Jack’s? It’s not deep. It’s nothing. Had I opened my hands and allowed another precious thing to be taken away? Her shadowed eyes, her penciled face, changing continually on the screen inside a screen. When her ruin was complete, the applause began. In private she could laugh. Joy undid her. She was out there already. A free, shining thing.

Branches blocked the window with their burden of snow. Clods of it fell silently to the roof below. If I didn’t clutch and grasp and I didn’t turn away, maybe the rich colors and horizontal grace and the warmth of the side lamps could be assimilated piecemeal and one day the room would be mine.

When I came down, Robin was in the hallway. He watched me retract and latch the steps. “I wondered where you went.”

“It’s beautiful,” I said. “Better than I ever imagined.” I wouldn’t blame him if he left me now, room or no room. Maybe a part of me would welcome it.

“It wouldn’t be half as good without Norma.”

“I don’t know why she bothered. She hardly knows us.”

He shrugged. “She’s that kind of person. She wanted to do something.” Exhausted as we both were, sleep was out of the question.

“Want to go down to the lake?”

39

A winter lake is alive with sound. Ringed with snow and under a lid of ice, it would seem to be the last place to make any noise. But static comes out of it, and strange gulping sounds, and sometimes the crack of a whip. Most unforgettable is the groaning, as if a colossal thing is rolling, dragging, and breaking apart. It seems to issue from the sky or from inside your own body. That’s the lake’s trick. It’s impossible to tell exactly where the sound comes from, and there’s no telling when it will start or end. You can only listen for as long as it lasts and not ask for any more.