We had been shown great kindness by the townspeople: they had sent us flowers and notes of sympathy and someone had brought a book of funeral hymns. Dr. Brunson, with well-meaning generosity, had personally delivered a bottle of imported brandy and had said bluffly, “I think at times like this you ought to think of the living.” My mother had wanted to open the bottle at once but I had dissuaded her. These tokens of commiseration offered us only a spiritual crutch, and there was not one name signed upon the cards that I could call out and ask its owner for the price of a headstone. Not even Gonzales who, although he had neither called on us nor given us flowers, had sent one of his children with a note informing us that he would offer his Mass each day that week for the repose of Ivan’s soul.

That morning, I had gone to the store for a box of matches. The hush which greeted my entrance and passage between the long, brown counters was more than the ordinary respect paid to the bereft. Accompanied by intense stares and a coloring of cheeks and a withdrawal away from the aisle, it had in it an edge of doubt. And when Mr. Bennett, the store-keeper, said to me, “How is your poor mother?” and without realizing that his question was elliptical and expanded would have been, “How is your poor mother bearing up?” I replied, “Oh, she’s awfully well, thank you,” a murmur of voices rose behind me. I knew, although I could not catch a word of what they said, that the story of Ivan’s illness was known and that this self-appointed jury which convened whenever the population of Chichester was reduced or added to was putting down his death as “peculiar.”

Set into the counter there were bins of dried foods and in the glass door of one, I caught the tilted reflection of my face. I saw, to a shame that made me cringe away, that upon my lips there was a light and careless smile! Then, as though to show my judges that my sorrow had not left me so indecently soon, I turned to face them and as I did so, saw Sarah Henderson and her father at the center of a knot of people in the back of the store. Mr. Henderson averted his gaze as I looked in their direction, but Sarah met me coldly with her enlarged, near-sighted eyes. Then Mr. Henderson looked up. Encircled by the marks of sleeplessness, his eyes accused me, I thought, of bringing trouble to his household, and when, in a voice I could not control so that it was cracked and breathless, I said, “Good morning, Mr. Henderson,” he did not answer. Later, remembering his silence, as wounding as ice to the bare skin, I told myself I cared nothing for his opinion. But my urgent indifference did not heal me.