Ruth sits at the kitchen table and watches Wilson at the sink, finishing the last of the dishes. The room seems to waver in the light tossed by the unsynchronized dancing of the candles Isabelle placed around the room and lit before dinner. Neither Ruth nor Wilson has blown them out and turned the lights back on, even though Isabelle has been in bed for nearly an hour now.

Wilson is methodical in his washing: silverware first, then glasses, then plates, all rinsed and then put into the dishwasher; next the pots and pans that must be washed entirely by hand and left out on the rack to dry. His shirtsleeves are rolled up, his watch set on the counter beside him. Ruth has always teased him about his thinning hair, which in truth has been more wispy and fine than thin, but from this angle, in this light, that spot at the back of his head, the spot where his cowlick stands tall in all the pictures of Wilson as a boy, really is beginning to show signs of becoming bare. Ruth watches as Wilson sets the salad bowl upside down on the rack and reaches next for the lasagna dish.

“Don’t bother with that one,” she says. She overcooked the lasagna just a bit, but enough so that the topmost layer of cheese burned against the side of the casserole dish. “Just let it soak.”

Wilson leaves the dish soaking, though he hates not to leave the sink empty, and dries his hands. “Should I open some more wine?” he asks.

He returns to the table with a bottle of red and two new glasses. Ruth watches as he pours, unsure how to tell him what she ought to have told him the minute he walked through the door. But before she could get to him, Isabelle and Maggie had skidded down the hall and Wilson had been ushered away to see Isabelle’s new boots, and Ruth herself had been left in the kitchen alone with her cocktail and the scent of lasagna, glad that at least Isabelle’s father could bring a smile to her face after the afternoon’s multiple fiascos—the shoe store, Bloomingdale’s, the basketball team. But now she wouldn’t blame him if he were incredulous that she has let so much time go by since her meeting with Mrs. Mason to say anything to him—though she had tried, she thinks, and would have, if he returned her goddamn calls!