“I never change, I simply become more myself,” Sheila said, making a comical face, a little-boy face, as she zipped up her jacket, wound her mohair scarf around her neck. Her attention was drawn to her reflection—hers and Monica’s—in one of the kitchen windows; she pulled Monica more closely beside her, so that the two of them faced the window. “. . . One a death’s-head, the one so blond. It must be the genes, the cheekbones. The soul poking out through the skin. Or is the soul skin? Everything on the surface, everything in two precise dimensions, as it should be. Good night, and Merry Christmas!”

Monica, suddenly alarmed, stricken, followed Sheila out onto the porch. The wind blew raw stinging bits of snow into her face. She tried to take hold of Sheila—tried to grab her hand—but the woman’s thin strong fingers slipped through hers. Sheila said sharply: “I don’t care to be patronized, Monica. Above all I don’t care to be touched.”

Monica watched her drive away, thinking, frightened: I’ll never see her again. Something terrible is going to happen.

And again, and again: I should have forced her to stay. I should have embraced her. What did she mean, to put her out of her misery, to give comfort. . . .

10

The telephone rings but it is never Sheila.

Now, suddenly, it is never Sheila Trask: and Monica does not dare telephone her.

She receives an invitation to dinner from Brian Farley’s wife; an invitation to dinner from Jill Starkie (“On Christmas Eve, Monica, if you’re going to be alone”); Keith telephones with flattering frequency; there are even a few wrong numbers, just to rouse her, to send her pulses racing. She will fly out to Indiana after all—there is no reason not to go—she misses her family or in any case the idea of her family, a family, a home.

On December 24 she spends much of the day trying fruitlessly to get into contact with Sheila.

Dialing the number again and again, listening to the ringing at the other end, her mouth hard with resentment. She tastes something sour—sour and metallic—she stares at the featureless sky, a gray corrugated landscape. It is the winter solstice, such misery, but now the sky must yield to light, to warmth, to the new year, to life; or so the legends promise.

When at last Sheila Trask lifts the receiver Monica will say quietly: “I hate you, why don’t you die,” but, fortunately, Sheila Trask never lifts the receiver. Perhaps in fact she is already dead.

On Christmas morning Monica drives to Edgemont, as she had vowed she would not.

She notes that Sheila’s station wagon is parked in front of the carriage house, lightly dusted with a powdery film of snow. There are no other cars around.