“I suppose we’ve both been abandoned,” Clara said.

“I’m sorry if I ruined things for you too.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I was getting bored.”

She amazed him. “Do you care about anything?” he asked, and she laughed and asked what that was supposed to mean. “I just mean, nothing seems to bother you.”

“Oh, Henry, sweetheart,” she said. “That’s all a ruse.”

They turned onto New Hampshire Avenue and stopped in front of her house. From her pocketbook she withdrew a card with her address on it—Manhattan, East Seventy-fourth Street—and handed it to him.

“Please write,” she said. “I love long letters. I like to read them on Sundays in the bath. And if you’re ever in New York, you’ll come visit?”

He said he would. They said their goodbyes, and she kissed him on the lips, and licked the tip of his nose.

Effie wasn’t at the house. The door stood open, just as he’d left it last night, and the lamp on the end table was still shining.

He showered. He packed his suitcase and made up the bed in the yellow bedroom. Effie had taken everything but a few dresses and some of her underclothes, but they were enough, he thought, to bring her back. She wasn’t careless. She’d never leave things behind. He put her things in her suitcase and carried it down to the den and set it beside his. And waited. The shadows grew long. A car horn beeped outside and he looked out the window to see a taxicab waiting at Clara’s. A few minutes later, it passed by on the street.

Then it was dusk. The windows were open, and the den was cold. He lay back on the sofa and pulled the quilt over him. He waited, and night fell. The lamp lit the room. The wind billowed the curtains in and sucked them back against the screens. He could hear the waves. Which meant they must be big. He knew their power now. He thought of Alma in the sea under the moon. She’d been inconsolable, Clara had said.

He fell asleep at last, and when he woke, Effie was sitting on the coffee table beside him, smoking a cigarette and observing him. At first he couldn’t be sure she was real. She didn’t move when he opened his eyes, and she didn’t say a word.

He sat up and pulled the quilt aside. “Effie. Baby.”

“You look so peaceful when you’re sleeping,” she said. “Did you know that? You look like a little angel.” He went to put his arms around her, but she held up her hand and said, “Don’t touch me.” She got to her feet and moved to the other side of the coffee table.

“Baby,” he said. “You came back.”

She said nothing.