In the morning the frost was so thick on the small lawn out front and on the rooftops of the houses that he mistook it at first for snow. He could see his breath on the air. Cheerfully, humming “Chances Are,” he made coffee, but he reined the cheer in when Effie came down from her bath. If they wanted to catch the ten o’clock to Philadelphia, she said, they had to be out the door in two hours. They could walk to the station, but she would appreciate it if he’d run down to the Western Union office and call them a taxicab, and then they wouldn’t have to carry their suitcases. He would do it, he said.

An hour and a half later the taxicab arrived outside, and on the short drive to the station Effie crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window. She seemed veiled in darkness. He didn’t yet know that this had nothing to do with him, that traveling, which for him was always hopeful, was for her always sad. She could never say why. She’d feel better when they arrived.

Sixteen

By noon the following day they were home, and on Monday Dr. Reeves confirmed what Effie had suspected, that she was pregnant, and in July of the next year their daughter Kate was born. Henry was relieved by how much she favored him. Joyce came in August of the following year, and in the next year came Anne, and several years later, they had a son, finally, Brian, who died with a fever when he was ten days old.

Until then they had been happy. After Joyce they’d moved into the main part of the house, and Henry’s mother and Uncle Carswall had moved into the Old Wing. (Henry’s sister had moved out and gone to secretarial school in Atlanta.) The doors and windows stood open, and in Henry’s memory, their two dogs, Rex and Colonel, were always making laps from the back door to the front, around the yard and back again, and their three girls were screaming and chasing after them, and often on a Saturday morning he and Effie lingered in bed together, the door latched, until some crisis involving the girls drew them out. By then Henry’s mother would have finished making breakfast, which Effie, though she never said anything, always took as a reproach. From the beginning they disliked each other but, being good Southern women, they kept this to themselves, and anyway Effie was often out of the house on errands. In those days Henry was protective of her, and jealous of the attentions of other men.