The house in which Monica lived was not hers and never would be but she spent a good deal of time working on it, to give it the semblance of being hers. She felt greedy for possession; for the corporeal fact of property; “real” estate. She scoured—she sanded—she stripped wallpaper—she painted floors and walls, even ceilings. (Why don’t I help you, Keith had suggested shyly, but Monica murmured excuses, Monica didn’t want the man to lift a hand, she feared that, if he imprinted himself upon the house even minimally he would want to buy it, and move in with her. He would want to marry her: wasn’t that the natural next step?)

Since she had to write letters home to prove to her parents that she was happy, she was busily absorbed in her new life, Monica wrote at length about her teaching and about her work—her physical labor—in her house. (That it was not strictly speaking “her” house was an issue she did not dwell upon.) She enclosed little sketches, floor plans, cheery little progress reports that meant nothing back in Wrightsville. Once on the telephone Monica’s mother had uttered the terrible words, “Well, Monica—it is important to keep busy,” and Monica had felt pierced to the heart.

Still, her mother was right. She kept busy, busy.

Monica spent many hours cleaning the cellar. She wore a filthy old jacket and gloves, and a scarf tied about her head to protect her from cobwebs. As she raked up piles of foul-smelling debris she thought, as if mesmerized, How good, how healthy, this is real, this is absolute. Her breath steamed; the air was freezing but stagnant; below-ground, she kept imagining she heard the telephone ring . . . and ring and ring. She imagined she heard the back door (always kept locked) being forced open. She imagined she heard footsteps directly overhead. . . .

It’s a man’s world, one of the nurses had said, at the abortion clinic, years ago. It’s a man’s world: said sighingly, as one might make a reference to the weather, or the time of day. A man’s world, that world, the fluorescent-lit disinfectant-smelling clinic, populated solely by women.

But why did Monica think of that remark now, so safely below-ground?

And why think of one of Sheila’s pals breaking into her house, Eddy, or Buzz, or Grady, or Fitch, they’d forgotten Mary Beth long ago. They had never known Mary Beth at all. No, if someone broke into her house it would be a stranger, Monica supposed: a man she had never seen before, never even guessed at.