So they would leave Sunday afternoon. At least they would have the weekend. Henry felt hurt and angry at first—it was rotten of her to be sad, to say things were dull after what they had shared—but soon he felt as though a pall had risen from them, now that their honeymoon was ruined. After supper—the pork loin, which was delicious—they opened Uncle George’s brandy again and the evening took on a valedictory air. They took the bottle out to the front porch and watched the light fade from the elm trees. They told stories. How Betty Moody wanted Maynard Givens’s babies. How Suzie Blanchard could let the farts rip when it was just the girls. The time Hoke had tried to jump Lord’s Gully on his bike. Henry loved the rare occasions when he could make Effie laugh, when she briefly lost her cool and the whole top half of her body bounced. “Stop it, stop it,” she said, “you’re going to make me wet myself.” They finished the brandy and opened a bottle of scotch. They couldn’t pronounce the name. “I bet it’s expensive,” he said, and they said cheers and clinked their glasses. It was dark out now, and they’d turned the radio on, and soft, airy music was coming out to them on the front porch. They were in a lull—a comfortable silence this time, drunk and content—when Henry noticed the lights down at the end of the street.

He stood up and went to the railing to get a better look. There were lights in the windows of the house on the corner—three houses down, on the other side of the street, where New Hampshire Avenue intersected with Madison Avenue. He called Effie over to see.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said.

They weren’t alone anymore.

“You never said anything about that house,” he said. “Do you remember who lived there?”

She thought about it. “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s been so long.”

With their drinks in hand they walked down the sidewalk until they stood directly across from the house. Most of it was invisible in the dark, but the downstairs windows were bright. They watched and listened for signs of life, but nothing moved behind the curtains, and all they could hear was the surf and the wind in the trees.

“Should we go say hello?” Henry said.

Effie reached up to pat her hair. “No—Lord, no. It’s late.” She held up her drink. “We’d look like a couple of drunks, wouldn’t we?”

“Maybe tomorrow, then.”

She nodded. They stood watching a few minutes longer, until Effie pointed out that they were acting like creeps, and they turned back to the cottage.