“Maybe he’s getting flu or something,” Jack suggested. Duff did look ill at the moment, but I was convinced it was a sham.

“Do you deny there was someone else in the kitchen?” I asked.

“No, Mother,” he said quietly. “I don’t deny it. I can only say I didn’t see anyone here except you.”

“And where were you when you saw me?”

“Sitting in that chair.” He pointed to the one in front of the wood stove.

“And you remained in that chair all the while I was here?”

“Yes. I was sleepy and I think I dozed off for a minute, but then I got up and walked toward you. I felt very sick and I wanted to tell you, but you screamed and ran out—”

“Liar, liar!”

Jack dropped his crutches and grabbed me from behind as Duff backed off.

“Get out of here,” Jack told him. “Go up to your room and lie down. If you’re sick, we’ll get a doctor for you.”

“I don’t think it’s all that serious,” Duff said.

“I don’t think it is either,” I said—or screamed, I suppose would be more accurate.

As he went up the stairs, I noticed that his sweatshirt was ripped along the shoulder seams. Moreover there were slits in the sides of both of his sneakers.

“How long have your shoes been torn like that?”

He stopped and looked, lifting one foot and then the other. He seemed genuinely puzzled. “This is the first I’ve noticed it.”

“Don’t wear those shoes to school, for God’s sake,” Jack said. “People will think we’re on welfare.”

“Where are your glasses?” I shouted.

“Upstairs, Mother, for pity’s sake.” He gave me a look that seemed to combine fear and incomprehension and continued up the stairs.

“Well now,” Jack said, “what is it with you, old lady? Are you drinking in the mornings now or what?”

I didn’t want to discuss it with him. I went into the living room, but he followed me.

“Do you think you might be going through menopause?”

“Shut up, Jack!”

“Do you really still think you saw a stranger in the kitchen?”

“What’s the use in talking about it. You don’t believe me. You’d rather believe Duff.”

“But why would he lie about something like that?”

That I couldn’t answer. It could hardly be because he wanted to keep the man’s existence a secret or he wouldn’t have written about him in his notebook and then left the book where I could find it. On the other hand, perhaps I was the only one in the family who was supposed to know about the man. Perhaps the man and Duff were conspiring to drive me crazy. But why?