He felt sick, suddenly. He drew away from Clara and got unsteadily to his feet.

“Where are you going, baby?” Clara said.

“I need to go to bed,” he said. He started for the stairs, not bothering to search for his clothes, stumbled into an end table, found the banister, and made his way carefully up. He was going to be sick. He felt his way into the upstairs bathroom, closed the door, didn’t bother finding the light. Avoided his ghoulish reflection in the mirror. Fell onto his knees and vomited into the toilet.

He lay on the floor for a while in the dark, waiting for the nausea to pass. The tiles were cold. He expected someone—Effie—to knock and ask him what was wrong, but no one did. His little Effie, his wife: he didn’t know her anymore. What she’d done, what she’d let him do to her. It was one thing for Henry, but for her, his wife, his girl. A lady. He should have stopped it before it started, he should never have let it go so far. But he didn’t know himself either. A degenerate with no fixed center. Less than a man. Only yesterday he’d been professing his love to Alma, promising that he’d run away with her, and no sooner had she left than … He wished she hadn’t gone, that they had run away together. But that was only because he wanted to erase himself.

Out in the upstairs hall the fire faintly revealed the balcony rail, and he turned away from it and felt his way into the guest room. Fell onto the bed. She wasn’t there. Her absence turned his stomach. He slipped under the covers, and he was still awake when, sometime later—he didn’t know how long, but he was relieved—she came into the room. She sat on the bed in the dark and was still for a moment. She must have been dying of shame. He listened for her crying, for her to call his name—he wasn’t sure he would have answered—but she only sighed, finally, and lay down. He turned his back to her and lay as far away from her as he could.

Twelve

When he woke, she was gone, and the room was bright. He had no idea what time it was.

The night swiftly asserted itself. It settled like ice in his stomach.

The wardrobe stood open and empty. On the ledge of the bay window lay Effie’s suitcase, and on the floor below it, his own. So they were leaving. At the foot of the bed, on the corner farthest from him, clean clothes had been set out for him.