They played hide-and-seek. It was Max’s idea. Clara thought it was stupid, but now she was It, and the rest of them scattered throughout the house and outside while she went into a closet and counted to fifty. Henry went outside, and Alma followed at a distance. He called to her from behind a cluster of chinaberry trees. He only wanted to steal a kiss, maybe a quick feel up her dress, but she got to her knees and pulled his trunks down to his ankles, and while her head bobbed at his groin, and he ran his hands through her damp hair, he could see Clara through the windows, searching the den, now stepping out onto the patio to search the dark brush on the other side of the yard—“Christ, where is everyone?”—and Henry bit his lip so he wouldn’t make a sound.

Later, Alma sat in her chair by the fire, absorbed in a book of maritime ghost stories. Shades of dirt on her knees. Max was giving Effie and Clara a tarot reading. He’d found the deck in a junk drawer and was making everything up, but Effie was riveted. “Don’t worry,” Max said, “it doesn’t mean death. Not necessarily. It means … it could mean a new beginning…” After a while Alma got up and drifted out to the patio. She wouldn’t be back. Effie gathered the afghan around her. It was just after eleven o’clock. Soon, she would be asleep.

But not soon enough—never soon enough. Monday night he didn’t get away until almost one in the morning, and outside, he jogged down the street—to Alma, his Alma.

The Bishops’ house was all theirs. She’d leave the front door open, and he’d walk in and feel his way through the dark rooms until he caught a sliver of light and found her. She was always inspecting some curiosity—a nested doll, a collection of lacquered fans, a jack-in-the-box that wouldn’t open—and she’d pretend at first that she wasn’t interested in him. “Maybe it’s a joke,” she said, shaking the jack-in-the-box. “I don’t hear anything inside.”

Never mind the jack-in-the-box. He kissed the back of her neck and ran his hands down her sides, began lifting the green dress up over her waist. She turned to him.

“I thought you would never come.”

“I thought they would never go to bed.”

They dropped to the rug, pulling at each other’s clothes. They didn’t bother with the dress, only her underwear, his trunks. She hooked her legs around him and drew him in. That first blissful entering. He came quickly, just to get it over with. Hours lay ahead of them.