He’d never spoken with her about the reasons for the divorce; he wondered if Carol had. If so, how had she explained it? Had she put into words what he’d seen in her eyes that day? He found it difficult to believe, particularly when she’d never done as much for him, and when he couldn’t do it for himself. How did you voice a disappointment so deep that it could only begin to be glimpsed?

He hadn’t thought about these things in a very long time, and now he thought of them only dully, as if watching an old, familiar film whose action and dialogue were so familiar that paying attention was unnecessary. Still, there was the matter of the door. He looked at it again. Its blank, white face stared back at him, offering no help whatsoever. Rising, he went to it and pushed it open. It swung reluctantly, unaccustomed to being asked to perform its duty.

Ben sat down again and looked through the opening. He could see the hallway, the top of the stairs. If Caddie were to walk by, to venture downstairs for a drink or simply to get out of her room, she would undoubtedly see him sitting at his desk. She could even, he told himself, stand unnoticed in the hall for quite some time while he, oblivious to her presence, thought himself alone.

He got up and pulled the door partially closed, reducing the window on the hallway to a sliver half a foot wide. That was acceptable to him. He could see—and be seen—without being completely vulnerable. Besides, he reasoned, he was almost certain to hear her footsteps. The shortcomings of an aging house could also be its advantages.

The question of the door having been settled, he looked once more at his desk, assessing the situation. There were hastily scribbled lab notes to type up, a clipped article to file, a letter from a colleague in Mexico to answer. He considered the notes first. It would be gratifying to set them in print on his old typewriter, a rattling old Underwood he preferred to the more convenient computers in the lab, despite the near impossibility of finding ribbons for the damned thing. He liked the sound the keys made when they struck the platen, imprinting ink into paper. He enjoyed the solidity of it, the warning chirp of the bell as he neared the end of a line, the satisfaction of hitting the return arm and watching the carriage slide back into place. He even delighted in the occasional dropped letter, the J that forever sat ever so slightly beneath the line.

But Caddie might be sleeping, he reminded himself, and felt his enthusiasm fade. He couldn’t make noise, not even in his own office. It would carry through the thin walls, like the scratching of rats. He didn’t dare risk it.

Suddenly, he was overcome with thinking about all the things he could no longer do comfortably. Type. Play music. Walk naked from his bedroom to the bathroom. Even flushing the toilet carried with it the potential for humiliation, revealing as it did his eliminatory activity. From now on, his actions were on parade.