“That’s O.K., Grampa. It was neat.”

To Harry he says, needing to find something to sell, “That young Trexler is a comer though.”

Rabbit is cross and groggy from two beers in the sun. He doesn’t invite Springer into his house, just thanks him a lot for everything. The house is silent, like outer space. On the kitchen table is a sealed envelope, addressed “Harry.” The letter inside, in Janice’s half-formed hand, with its unsteady slant and miserly cramping, says

Harry dear—

I must go off a few days to think. Please don’t try to find or follow me please. It is very important that we all respect each other as people and trust each other now. I was shocked by your idea that I keep a lover since I don’t think this would be honest and it made me wonder if I mean anything to you at all. Tell Nelson I’ve gone to the Poconos with Grandmom. Don’t forget to give him lunch money for the playground.

Love,
Jan

“Jan”—her name from the years she used to work at Kroll’s selling salted nuts in the smock with Jan stitched above the pocket in script. In those days some afternoons they would go to Linda Hammacher’s apartment up on Eighth Street. The horizontal rose rays as the sun set behind the great gray gasholder. The wonder of it as she let him slip off all her clothes. Underwear more substantial then: stocking snaps to undo, the marks of elastic printed on her skin. Jan. That name suspended in her these fifteen years; the notes she left for him around the house were simply signed “J.”

“Where’s Mom?” Nelson asks.

“She’s gone to the Poconos,” Rabbit says, pulling the note back toward his chest, in case the boy tries to read it. “She’s gone with Mom-mom, her legs were getting worse in this heat. I know it seems crazy, but that’s how things are sometimes. You and I can eat over at Burger Bliss tonight.”

The boy’s face—freckled, framed by hair that covers his ears, his plump lips buttoned shut and his eyes sunk in fear of making a mistake—goes rapt, seems to listen, as when he was two and flight and death were rustling above him. Perhaps his experience then shapes what he says now. Firmly he tells his father, “She’ll be back.”

Sunday dawns muggy. The eight-o’clock news says there was scattered shooting again last night in York and the western part of the state. Edgartown police chief Dominick J. Arena is expected today formally to charge Senator Kennedy with leaving the scene of an accident. Apollo Eleven is in lunar orbit and the Eagle is being readied for its historic descent. Rabbit slept badly and turns the box off and walks around the lawn barefoot to shock the headache out of his skull. The houses of Penn Villas are still, with the odd Catholic car roaring off to mass. Nelson comes down around nine, and after making him breakfast Harry goes back to bed with a cup of coffee and the Sunday Brewer Standard. Snoopy on the front page of the funny papers is lying dreaming on his doghouse and soon Rabbit falls asleep. The kid looked scared. The boy’s face shouts, and a soundless balloon comes out. When he awakes, the electric clock says five of eleven. The second hand sweeps around and around; a wonder the gears don’t wear themselves to dust. Rabbit dresses—fresh white shirt out of respect for Sunday—and goes downstairs the second time, his feet still bare, the carpeting fuzzy to his soles, a bachelor feeling. The house feels enormous, all his. He picks up the phone book and searches out