We never went to sleep right away after we heard that word. And we never spoke it, either. Between ourselves, we took to calling love ‘Tom,’ too. When you come down to it, of course we were following in the true tradition: ‘Love’ and ‘God’ were the same word.

“Bitter, and delighted, I witnessed my sister’s happiness. She got married. The household was breaking up. I knew it was going to be rebuilt, but in different surroundings. And, I could tell, for different purposes too. I felt that, up until then, we’d inhabited my father’s happiness, not our own. The tall oak, the distant fields, my mother, my aunts, the big, easygoing horses: These were what my father had surrounded himself with from the beginning. We’d come along afterward, we children. We’d made the most of what was there. My father’s silence had become the silence of the Whites. His happiness had become ours. Now we had to build our own happiness, when his kept suiting us so well. It’s even more strangely complicated than that. Yes, I still had the same joys: The big oak still held its birds, the little weasels still had their burrows between its roots. Every morning, my father set out on his heavy horse, hardly more slowly than before. But when my aunt talked about ‘Tom,’ it was my sister’s and my ‘Tom’ that I thought about.

“It felt very bitter to find myself walking alone. And I envied her marriage. I’m going to say something shocking. But the truth often lies in shocking things. I wanted to find happiness for myself. But if a fire from heaven had descended and killed everybody around me in the house, except for one of my brothers . . . then, in that place I loved, with the virtues I longed for the most right next to me, then I would truly have found my happiness. And this dream wasn’t monstrous or perverse, it was simply natural. I was a nineteen-year-old girl, on her own since her sister had married. Around me was my father’s house, full of a contentment that I loved. Now, I know I was a fool, more than anything. Silly and naïve. Aside from my family, I’d never really had heartfelt relations, except with the night, which covered my bedroom window with stars.

“Of course, I married one of my older brother’s friends. Good men are disconcerting. You never know what rules their affections. Sometimes the reasons run counter to nature. Harold brought this man to visit us many times. Eventually I came to feel he was similar to my brother. Not in appearance, but he had my brother’s manner. One day I caught him watching, and then imitating, a gesture Harold used to make: taking his cigar case out, opening it, half closing it, and blowing across the top of it. Certain movements of his shoulders as well. In the evening, Harold would sit down in an armchair, stretch out his legs, set his elbow on the back of the chair, and, a moment later, rest his forehead in his hand. One evening, Danny sat down, stretched his legs out, set his elbow on the back of the chair, and after exactly the same, brief moment, rested his forehead in his hand. I don’t know if that wasn’t what made me love him. How is one supposed to be wise to all the tricks?