At Mama’s request, Mrs. French had the door taken from off its hinges between our adjoining rooms so there was an easy, open passage between us. Mama’s room was soft with the reflective glow of the gas on the rose-paper walls, and it gave such a restful appearance, Mama sat down on her bed and smiled. Then she lay back upon the pillows where Papa had died and spread out her arms. I walked past her to the windows and stared into the dark behind the glass, straining to see the harbor, but instead, the reflection of my mother stretched upon the bed floated in the blackness before me. I watched her in this uncanny way, seeing her and seeing past her into the dark outlines of the trees, so she appeared almost to hover above the rim of the night. Had she spoken at that moment, I would not have known whom to answer: the apparition in the window or the voice behind me, issuing from the white face on the bed, her black-creped form lying like an echo of a body.

I was bone-weary, and I walked through to my room, noticing the neatly made bed snugged up against the three windows, the white linens appearing to shine beneath the sheer white organdy curtains. Jessie shuttled between us with towels and scented water, but Mama bade her go herself to bed. Minutes later, I climbed between my covers, turned my face to the damp, salty night behind the window, and was asleep before Mama had lowered the lamp.

Sometime before dawn, a low moan broke into my dream. It grew louder and more insistent and I struggled awake into the shadowy room filled with the first wan light of morning. From far off in the bay, the foghorn sounded a single lonely note across the waves. I heard Mama stirring and knew she lay in her bed listening to the foghorn’s cry, as did I.

“Mama?” I called.

She stilled.

“Yes, Maisie.”

“What does that sound bring to mind?”

There was no answer at first, and I thought she had fallen back asleep, but then, as if uttered from a long way away, she sighed and said, “Papa.”

I turned my head on the pillow and dimly perceived through the doorway Mama’s form humped below her covers. I sensed she hovered somewhere on the border between sleeping and waking and that she listened to me breathing just as I listened to the silence that stretched across the room after Papa’s name. I crept from beneath my covers at last to cross the room to her bed and slid in beside her, curling my back into the cupped cave of her soft front. Her arms drew around me and we rested there without speaking until I felt Mama’s breathing slow, her arms slackening. Then she slept once more.