“I don’t even want to think about it,” he said. He sat back: the words had come out of him automatically. “Will you need your car?”

“Oh, no. I’ll see you today, won’t I?”

“That’s right. Yes, you’ll see me.”

He started for the airport at nine-thirty. The rush hour was over. It was a rare day for Port Smith, the kind that usually came after the holiday weekends. The air was clear, the visibility so good that the horizon sparkled. There was a crisp, gusty wind that tossed and wrenched the papers in the empty streets. Days like this stayed in the mind. He had been graduated from high school and come home from the service on days like this one. He tried to concentrate on the driving. It crossed his mind that he was taking MacIver’s car over approximately the same route MacIver had used—Leland felt himself resisting thinking of that, too. He had done this before recently, driving and wasting time in his mind, but at first he could not remember when. He tried to remember his dreams. The sensation—not déjà vu—had him feeling strange and uneasy. For the next few minutes he traced his movements in Port Smith until he recalled Wednesday, in the evening, when he had driven around the bay and down to the Point. He had hidden it from himself as if it were shameful. The combination of sensations left him even more unsettled; he wanted to think about things again but he could not help feeling that that was running away. It occurred to him to pull the car over and sit quietly for a minute, but he did not do it. He had been tired at times in the past, and he could remember having confused dreams of combat with reality during the war. Now at least he knew a little about the condition he was in. He pressed the buttons for the power windows. The air was cold, but it was what he wanted.

No airport in the world does business in the morning. He was able to park the car quickly and get into the administration building before the air penetrated his clothing. He was on the escalator to the second-floor coffee shop when he remembered something else. The banks of telephone booths were downstairs. He went around and rode down again, sorting out his change.

“Hello?”

“Norma? Joe. You told me to call.”

“Yes, I wanted to make sure you understood about last night. I thought it would be easier to explain over the telephone. Wait until I get my cigarettes.”

He waited.

“I didn’t hear all of your telephone call,” she said. “Just a bit at the end, but I think I caught the drift. I wasn’t married long, but you know what happened to me before and maybe you can believe that I can understand how those things come about—”

“What things?”

“Tension, missed connections. Don’t make this difficult for me, please.”