He hangs up. Janice is gone from the kitchen. He finds her in the living room crying. He goes and kneels beside the sofa and puts his arms around her but these actions feel like stage directions followed woodenly. A button is off on her blouse and the sallow curve of breast into the bra mixes with her hot breath in his ear. She says, “You can’t understand, how good he was. Not sexy or funny or anything, just good.”

“Sure I can. I’ve known some good people. They make you feel good.”

“They make you feel everything you do and are is good. He never told me how dumb I am, every hour on the hour like you do, even though he’s much smarter than you could ever imagine. He would have gone to college, if he hadn’t been a Greek.”

“Oh. Don’t they let Greeks in now? The nigger quota too big?”

“You say such sick things, Harry.”

“It’s because nobody tells me how good I am,” he says, and stands. The back of her neck is vulnerable beneath him. One good karate chop would do it.

The driveway crackles outside; it’s much too early for Springer. He goes to the window. A teal-blue Fury. The passenger door swings open and Nelson gets out. On the other side appears Peggy Gring, wearing sunglasses and a miniskirt that flashes her big thighs like a card dealer’s thumbs. Unhappiness—being deserted—has made her brisk, professional. She gives Rabbit hardly a hello and her sunglasses hide the eyes that he knows from school days look northeast and northwest. The two women go into the kitchen. From the sound of Janice snuffling he guesses a confession is in progress. He goes outside to finish the yard work he began last night. All around him, in the back yards of Vista Crescent, to the horizons of Penn Villas with their barbecue chimneys and aluminum wash trees, other men are out in their yards; the sound of his mower is echoed from house to house, his motions of bending and pushing are carried outwards as if in fragments of mirror suspended from the hot blank sky. These his neighbors, they come with their furniture in vans and leave with the vans. They get together to sign futile petitions for better sewers and quicker fire protection but otherwise do not connect. Nelson comes out and asks him, “What’s the matter with Mommy?”

He shuts off the mower. “What’s she doing?”

“She’s sitting at the table with Mrs. Fosnacht crying her eyes out.”

“Still? I don’t know, kid; she’s upset. One thing you must learn about women, their chemistries are different from ours.”

“Mommy almost never cries.”

“So maybe it’s good for her. Get lots of sleep last night?”

“Some. We watched an old movie about torpedo boats.”

“Looking forward to the Blasts game?”

“Sure.”

“But not much, huh?”

“I don’t like sports as much as you do, Dad. It’s all so competitive.”

“That’s life. Dog eat dog.”