When he saw her his first thought was that the fourteen months he had been away hadn’t happened at all. Then he saw that they had, because she was pale and she had lost the weight she had gained in the previous year. As he crossed the station she raised her hand in a gesture she could not seem to control, and she ran toward him, as unhappy as he had ever seen her, and pressed her face against his shoulder.

“There, Karen. Take it easy. We’re all right now.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I hope we are.”

“How is Steffie?”

“Fine. Everybody’s well.” She straightened up and sniffed. The strain still showed. “They’ll see you tomorrow. I—have to work tomorrow but I’ll have the next day and the weekend and most of next week—”

“Let’s get out of here,” he said.

“You haven’t kissed me hello.”

He stopped and kissed her. She broke away hurriedly. After she had asked, he had looked for something better, and now he showed his surprise. She laughed. “Don’t worry, Captain.” She glanced at the valise. “Is there anything I can carry?”

“No—no, there isn’t.”

In the cab she asked if he had brought her anything. He said that it was only something small. She wanted to know what it was anyway.

“All I could find in Paris. I thought you might think more of where it came from than what it was.”

“I didn’t know you had gotten to Paris,” she said.

“On my way to England.”

“So? Did you have fun?”

He laughed. “I was there two hours.”

“I’m sorry, Joe.”

He was shocked. “For what?”

“Nothing. I’m glad you’re home.” She put her hands around his arm and her head on his shoulder. In the way she did it, not out of loving urge, but some wifely duty, it was wrong. It felt wrong to him, loveless and pretended, like something she had learned at a movie.

Outside the apartment she asked him if he wanted to go for something to eat. He turned her around to him.

“Are you hungry?”

“No. I thought you might be.”

“Is anything the matter?”

She shook her head. “No.” Her animation was faked.

“Are you having your period? Is that what it is?”

“No.” She said something he couldn’t hear. He asked her to repeat it. She said it was nothing.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.

She went ahead of him. The way she was acting, she wanted him to find out what was bothering her. She unlocked the door and turned on the light. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and the blinds were drawn and the house was dark. It was the way you found a house when there was sickness.