Matty was pushing the train back and forth on the short track, making a noise she knew was “All aboard!” but to anyone else sounded like “Pla!” His long sleeves were pushed up nearly to his armpits, the way he liked them. His upper lip was tucked deep into the warm interior of the lower, which kept its slippery purchase with steady upward undulations. But when he glanced up to find her studying him, the lip was released for the sake of an enormous smile. He patted the spot on the rug beside him, mouthing mamamamama without diminishing the smile. He looked just like her husband then, beckoning her, eager for her. But she did not doubt Matty, did not suspect dissembling or duplicity. Why was it so much harder to believe in her husband’s love for her? She thought again of the time he had quoted her line about snow like nests in the trees. They had been walking around a lake, the three of them, their oldest, Lydia, not more than four months old and tucked in the BabyBjörn inside her parka. Halfway around, he had stopped and wrapped them tightly in his arms. My family, he’d said, his voice a little squeak. Then, a quarter of a mile later, he said that about the snow and the trees and she marched off and he kept insisting he hadn’t been mocking her. Now she could easily see he hadn’t been. Of course he hadn’t been. She knew now, too, that even at the time she had known he hadn’t been mocking her—but she’d needed to find something to create distance, to put a wedge between her and that small squeak of joy he’d revealed to her. Monotony, especially the unfamiliar monotony of being loved, was something she couldn’t seem to get comfortable with.

She slipped off the couch down to Matty, who secured her with a meaty elbow on her thigh. The man was adding more notes to the margins. He was old again, her desire for him already a ludicrous memory. “The third book is traditionally the strongest of the early works.”

“This is my first.”

He shot her a stern, disappointed glare. “Novels in boxes are still novels.” Then he softened. “Why haven’t you been able to finish them as well?”