“It’s what you make of it that counts.” Sigh. “Dennis should have a hobby, something to take his mind off work.”

“He’s got the car, right? That’s a hobby.”

“Well, yes but it’s just more of the same, isn’t it. Trying to get some machine to work.”

Jim has begun a radically censored account of his week, when Dennis comes in and washes up for dinner. Lucy sets out the salad and casserole and they sit down; she says grace and they eat. Dennis eats in silence, gets up and goes back out to continue his work.

Lucy gets up and goes to the sink. “So how is Sheila?” she asks.

“Well, um…” Jim fumbles, feeling sudden guilt. He hasn’t even thought of Sheila for a long time. “Actually, we aren’t seeing each other as much these days.”

A quick tkh of disapproval. Lucy doesn’t like it. Jim gets up to help clean the table. Of course she’s ambivalent about it; Sheila wasn’t a Christian, and she’d really like Jim to settle down with a Christian girl, even get married—in fact she knows some candidates down at the church. On the other hand, she met Sheila many times and liked her, and the real and actual always count more for Lucy than the theoretical. “What’s wrong?” she complains.

“Well … we’re just not on the same track.” It’s a phrase of Lucy’s.

She shakes her head. “She’s nice. I like her. You should call her and talk to her. You’ve got to communicate.” This is a sacred tenet with Lucy: talking will cure everything. Jim supposes she believes it because Dennis doesn’t talk much. If he did, she’d know better that the tenet wasn’t true.

“Yeah, I’ll call her.” And really he should. Have to tell her that he’s, um, seeing other people. A difficult call at best. And so a part of him is already busy forgetting the resolution. Sheila will get the idea. “I will.”

“Did you go see Tom?”

“Yeah.”

“How was he?”

“Same as always.”

She sighs. “He should be living here.”

Jim shakes his head. “I don’t know where you’d put him. Or how you’d take care of him, either.”

“I know.” There’s a slight quiver at Lucy’s jaw, and suddenly Jim perceives that she’s upset. He doesn’t have the faintest idea why. “But it isn’t right.”

Maybe that’s it. “I’ll go down there more often.” This too he instantly begins to forget.

“Dennis has got to go to Washington again this week.”

“He’s been going a lot this year.”