“Rice will pick me up later,” she said. “We’re going to sit here and eat and have a glass of wine, and you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”

And Hazzley did tell her. About how she’d fallen apart and then pulled herself together, doing her best so she wouldn’t upset the entire family.

But every one of them, she’d told Cass, had been aware of the person absent from the Thanksgiving table.

HAZZLEY FOUND HERSELF watching more TV in the evening. She was thankful for Trevor Noah in his new role as host of The Daily Show. He could make her laugh out loud, and she needed laughter. There were times, she admitted, when it was difficult to decipher the absurd, as if absurdity itself had been coded.

During the daytime, she made an effort to be at her desk. Her contacts in the magazine industry continued to send work. She stared at herself in the mirror one morning and said, “Hazzley, this is the life you have, and you are going to move it forward. Alter the fine points, if necessary. Allow yourself to embrace your future life. Whatever it’s going to be.” She didn’t totally believe she could, but she knew she was gathering her forces. She carried on.

Part of another year went by before she posted the notice on Marvin’s bulletin board. Now she was emptying the house. But only three rooms, so far. Maybe she should move after all. Give up this big house and live in an apartment. A small condo, perhaps, with all rooms on one level.

Not yet. No, she would take her time. Fortunately, Cass had not been to the house since Hazzley had begun to empty the rooms. Usually, they met before or after hours at the café. If Cass did find out, she’d want to help. Define the problem and fix it. Fix Hazzley. But Hazzley was trying to repair herself.

THE SNOW HAD STOPPED abruptly; the yard was cushioned in a layer of white. Hazzley thought of a poem she’d once read, though she could not remember the name of the poet. She wondered if Tom might know. At the first meeting of the company, he’d said quietly, as if hoping no one would hear, that he wrote a bit of poetry. He’d quoted Keats at the same meeting. Maybe he would recognize these lines:

Snow drifts to the trees, settles

And I think of you, my love

As I look over the

White and soundless world.

Whose love could be thought of? Were days and nights of love over for her? She thought of her unplanned tryst with Meiner in Toronto. “Tryst” must be Middle English, she thought. Or maybe French, from triste—but that would mean sad, sorrowful, glum. She kept dictionaries both upstairs and down, and she smiled when she looked up the origin of the word and was surprised to have to consider an appointed place in hunting.

She gathered the heap of bed linens into her arms and headed down to the laundry room. She had put a load of towels in the dryer earlier, and she pulled these out now and folded them, wrapping a bath sheet around her shoulders so the warmth of it wouldn’t be wasted. While at Marvin’s on Saturday, she had purchased two blueberry scones for her birthday, and she planned to heat one and lace it with melting butter. She would add a chunk of Dubliner cheddar. She’d work on her crossword and the daily sudoku and eat breakfast while she stood at the kitchen counter. She would relax over strong continental coffee. There was nothing else to compete for her attention on this day. No obligations, no appointments. Sal would call later; the grandchildren had sent cards. Hazzley’s plan was to have a quiet day at home. She might drag a rocking chair into one of the empty rooms and stare out at the snow before it melted away.