“Easy?” I say. “Now hold on just one minute. I’ve been looking for a position with a law firm. Just where do you come up with this brushing up of poetry?”

“Well, didn’t you say you used to do some writing in high school?”

“In a newspaper. The high-school newspaper. Such-and-such team won the soccer meet; the physics teacher fell down the stairs and had to go to the hospital. Dumb little articles like that I wrote. Not poetry. I can’t write poetry.”

“Not real poetry, just the kind of poems high-school girls might read. They don’t even have to be that good. It’s not like they’re expecting you to write like Allen Ginsberg. Just whatever you can make do.”

“I absolutely cannot write make-do poetry,” I snap. The very idea.

“Hmph,” pouts my wife. “This talk of legal work, though. Nothing seems to be materializing, does it?”

“Several prospects have come my way already. The final word’ll be in sometime this week. If those fall through, maybe then I’ll consider it.”

“Oh? Have it your way, then. But say, what day is it today?”

“Tuesday,” I tell her after a moment’s thought.

“Okay, then, could you stop by the bank and pay the gas and phone bills?”

“Sure thing. I was going out to shop for dinner soon, anyway. I can take care of it at the same time.”

“And what are we having for dinner?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” I say. “Haven’t made up my mind yet. I thought I’d decide when I go shopping.”

“You know,” my wife starts in with a new tone of voice, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe you don’t really need to be looking for work.”

“And why not?” I spit out. Yet more surprises? Is every woman in the world out to shake me up over the phone? “Why don’t I have to be looking for work? Another three months and my unemployment compensation is due to run out. No time for idle hands.”

“My salary’s gone up, and my side job is going well, not to mention we have plenty in savings. So if we don’t go overboard on luxuries, we should be able to keep food on the table.”

“And I’d do the housework?”

“Is that so bad?”

“I don’t know,” I say in all honesty. I really don’t know. “I’ll have to think it over.”

“Do think it over,” reiterates my wife. “Oh, and by the way, has the cat come back?”

“The cat?” I’m caught off guard, then I realize I’d completely forgotten about the cat all morning. “No, doesn’t seem so.”

“Could you scout around the neighborhood a bit? He’s been gone four days now.”

I give some spur-of-the-moment reply, switching the receiver back to my right hand.

“My guess is that the cat’s probably in the yard of that vacant house at the end of the passage. The yard with the stone bird figurine. I’ve seen him there often enough. You know where I’m talking about?”

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” I say. “And since when have you been snooping around in the passage on your own? Never once have you mentioned—”