Curious, the pause before me and the long pause after. The pause before suggested she was contemplating whether she should call herself me or Anna. And the long pause after? Either Anna Brody couldn’t figure out how to work the machine, or she was comfortable with pauses, or she wanted to give callers a moment to compose themselves, gather their thoughts, and therefore speak sincerely.

I hung up mid-beep. Then, to my surprise, I dialed again.

That time I noticed something I hadn’t heard before—it sounded as if she was about to laugh while saying me, so I hung up, waited for a dial tone, and pushed redial.

Early on that mid-November Friday night, I dialed I don’t know how many times. Her voice became a kind of fix. Finally, I set the receiver in the cradle. Enough for one night, I thought, when the phone rang.

BEA MYERLY

BEA MYERLY

“HELLO, MR. WELCH?”

“Yes?”

“Is something wrong?”

“Who is this?”

“Bea Myerly, Mr. Welch.”

“Why, uhm, uhm, Bea?”

“Hello, Mr. Welch.”

He paused. “What can I do for you?”

“What can I do for you?”

“Well, Bea, I can’t think of a thing. I’m just sitting here working on my dissertation.”

“That’s funny. Didn’t you just call?”

“No, no, why would I call you?”

“You realize that Mr. and Mrs. Ashworth have caller ID.”

“Oh?”

“And the reason I’m calling is that someone with your phone number just called seven times.” I paused for effect. “Would you like me to pass on a message?”

“How do you know my number?”

I felt sorry for him. “The box displays the listing Welch, T. Shall I say that you called?”

“I’d, uhm, rather you didn’t.”

“You know what, Mr. Welch? They’ll know anyway, because the readout lists the last ten calls. Seven of which . . .” I neglected to say that Mr. Ashworth would be away for the next week and that Mrs. Ashworth never checked the readout.

Mr. Welch didn’t say anything. Then he laughed nervously and said, “I’m kind of confused right now.”

Duh.

“I mean, Bea, what are you doing there, anyway?”

I explained, but Mr. Welch didn’t seem to understand. So I said it again, slowly, as if speaking to a four-year-old. “I’m their babysitter.”

KATE

KATE

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY THAT YEAR.

On the first Wednesday in December, while we slept, the heavens dumped nineteen inches of snow. Like other families, we woke to a changed world. (“Not since the blizzard of ’47” my historian of a husband kept saying, with such certitude that one would believe he’d actually been alive to survive the blizzard of ’47.)

For the next three days, there would be no work, all schools would be closed, airports backed up, and the city, for the most part, shut down.