The porch light was on outside, just like Edward said it would be; the rest of the house was dark. But not quite as dark as Vivian’s mood. Her mind was a frenzy of confusion. Barely contained rage bumped up against a wall of disbelief and somewhere between standing in front of the window at Freedlander’s and arriving at her own front porch a dull thudding headache had erupted in Vivian’s head. Her body was tired and chilled to the bones. She trudged up the porch steps, which were mostly cleared of the snow, and grasped the doorknob, turning it and listening as the latch clicked and released from the jamb. Her limbs felt heavy, like they were made of wood and she was trying to pull them through water.

Once inside, she gave a sharp yank on the floor lamp’s chain and watched the room brighten. She looked around at the furniture that had been familiar when she left the house earlier, but now seemed very strange, almost like it, too, was underwater. The wing chairs, the television set, the sofa; they all looked like they were floating. The side table, on which the telephone sat, also appeared to be bobbing on unseen waves. Vivian leaned back against the door and took a deep breath, willing the dizziness to pass.

They’d gotten it, their first telephone, just last year. A heavy black base with the handset resting in the cradle on top, and the thin cord winding its way down and along the floor to the outlet. There was no dial with numbers, like some of the phones she’d seen in movies. You picked up the handset and an operator would say, “Number, please,” just like Vivian did, over and over, day in and day out.

Funny how she’d worked at Bell all these years, but the Daltons had only recently had a telephone installed in their own house. Edward’s parents had had a telephone for years now. One of the old ones that hung on the wall; a great wooden box with one cone you spoke into, and the other you lifted to your ear. Vivian wondered what kinds of things Edward’s mother heard through her telephone.

She reached down and slipped off the old worn ankle boots, losing two inches in height as her stockinged feet met the thin carpet. The big toe of her left foot had poked its way through the nylon fabric. She unbuttoned her coat and shrugged out of it, still standing at the front door, and still staring at the telephone.

Vivian climbed the stairs, counting them as she had when they first moved into the house. Thirteen steps. Thirteen was an unlucky number any way you looked at it, not to mention quite a fall if someone were to lose his balance.

The door to Charlotte’s room was closed, as it always was by that time of night. No light shone in the crack at the bottom. Sometimes, but not always, Charlotte liked to stay up late reading. Books, not magazines, which, for the life of her, Vivian couldn’t understand.