So she e-mailed him on a rare night off from the grocery store, gently asking if she might still be able to get her hands on that computer he had mentioned. And if he’d already given it to someone else, she understood.

Hoffman wrote back immediately. As if he was sitting at his computer, waiting for her to write:

My apologies, Madeline. The computer is yours. I’d deliver it to a neutral location right now, but I’m in my cups and shouldn’t drive. (I’ve had a DUI before, sorry to say.) I can bring it to campus another day. Or you are welcome to come to the house and pick it up. Do you remember where I live?

She thought “in his cups” meant he was drunk. Right? Was it something from Shakespeare?

Did she want to wait? Did she want to waste the evening she had off work and not write?

She could stick to pen . . . and feel like the kid showing up to school in the off-brand shoes with the haircut given by her mother over the kitchen sink. . . .

It was the kind of thing she might ask Sophia about.

But couldn’t.

I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. If that’s okay.

When she arrived at his house, Hoffman opened the door. He stepped way back when he let her in, acting as though Madeline were carrying some kind of highly contagious germ that might leap over to him if they came within five feet of each other. He held a drink in his hand, amber liquid in a short glass. No ice. His eyes looked watery and red. His hair was mussed, like he’d been asleep.

With the hand that held the glass, he pointed across the room to a small table with a computer on top. “There it is. Nothing fancy, but it works. I kept up with the updates. Mostly. No printer, but you can do that on campus anytime. Right?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Hoffman stood with the door open. Things grew a little awkward. Madeline didn’t know if she was just supposed to walk over, unhook the computer from the wall, and go. Or did she need to wait for him to say something else?

“I have been thinking about the book a little more,” he said. His words sounded a little sloppy, a little slurred. How much had he had to drink? “I do that sometimes. Discuss a student’s work with them, and then other thoughts occur to me later that I forgot to share. If I don’t write them down right away, I forget. Like most everything.” He points to the door. “I’m going to close this for a second.”

Madeline started to say he didn’t have to, but it wasn’t her house. And were they going to stand at the front door with it wide open and have a conversation?