“I just thought of something funny.” He doesn’t ask what it is. “She’s very nice,” I continue. “Perhaps we can invite her and her husband over for supper sometime?”

Martin swallows the bit of cake he has in his mouth. “I don’t want you making plans for me when I’m not here to discuss them with you.” The clipped tone from before is gone. He says this without a hint of anger. But with no kindness, either.

“I didn’t suggest that to her. I am suggesting it to you now. I haven’t planned anything.”

My husband wipes his mouth with his napkin. “No.” His voice is calm.

“No, we can’t invite them over for dinner sometime?”

“I don’t want to entertain guests during the little time I have here at the house.”

He rises from his chair and heads to the library to work, as he does every night he is home. When it’s time for Kat to go to bed, I bring her into the library so that he can wish her sweet dreams. He does so with his head bent over papers.

As I take Kat upstairs, I tell her that sometimes when fathers are unhappy they keep all their feelings wedged deep inside so that they don’t have to talk about why they are sad. I figure she will understand that. When I tuck her under the covers I sing a little Gaelic lullaby my gram used to sing to me. The words mean nothing to Kat, and little to me. After all these years I can’t quite remember the English translation. But when I am done, Kat murmurs the first word I have heard from her in several days.

“More?”

So I sing it again.

• • •

The next morning Martin packs his valise and is gone.

In the afternoon I decide to return Libby’s cake plate. I dress Kat in one of her prettier frocks since this is to be almost like a social call—at least I hope it will feel like one—and together we leave the house.

“Perhaps we can stay for a little bit and you can play with Timmy. Would you like that?” I ask Kat as we walk across the street.

“Yes,” Kat says in a quiet voice. The second word in as many days! I want to reach down and hug her for it, but instinct tells me to treat the response as unremarkably normal. Because it is.

Libby’s front door opens a few seconds after I ring the bell. A trim older woman in a black-and-white maid’s uniform stands on the other side of it.

“Can I help you?” the woman says.

“Is Libby at home?” I ask.

“Mrs. Reynolds is entertaining guests at the moment. Are you expected?”

For a second I simply stare at her. “No, not exactly,” I finally say. “That is, I was just returning Lib—Mrs. Reynolds’s plate. I live across the street, you see. She welcomed us to the neighborhood with some sweets a few days ago.”