Kay hadn’t meant to get into this. “Even then I feel him slipping away. His arms are around me, yes, but his head’s somewhere else. We might as well be in different rooms.”

Kay also has long, frequent talks with her good friend Nils Almquist. Two or three times a month they have a drink together after work, around the corner at a place called The Laughing Moose. They favor a special table near a bank of potted begonias. Nils is every bit as good looking as Philip, but built along different lines, and Kay is about ninety-five per cent sure he’s gay. She can tell him almost anything. He’s one of those unusual people without twitches, able to sit for long periods of time with his body still and solid. It’s this, she thinks, that encourages her confidences. One night not long ago she told him about Philip’s final leaving, how he slipped off without a word, as though he’d suddenly remembered he had another existence elsewhere. How had she known it was the last time? Because of a sense of lightness that stole over her. To herself she said, almost laughing, “Well, that’s that.” She felt like someone getting up out of a sick bed, all her bones stiff but still in working order.

Besides her sisters and Nils and other assorted friends, she belongs to a weekly conversation group. A talk circle is the official term. This group meets at Trinity Church Hall on Monday nights in a room furnished with easy chairs and soft lights.

Some years earlier, when things were going badly, she had come across a little printed notice that said: “Feeling alone and alienated? Coffee and conversation may be the answer.”

She feared the usual unctuous welcoming remarks, braced herself for forced joviality and whining accord. Normally she was scornful of such endeavors, preferring to believe that liberal, educated people, nurtured from the cradle on communication skills, had no need for such organized embarrassment.

At the first meeting the discussion centered on the subject of favorite smells. One woman said moth balls. Another said coffee just after you grind the beans. A man said old ice skates when you bring them up from the basement. Kay said the smell of new cloth spread on a table, before you pin a pattern to it. The moth ball woman said yes, that was hers too, only she hadn’t thought to mention it. She and Kay became close friends. It’s she who has “Happiness is capability” on her refrigerator door.

Ecology is a frequent topic of discussion on these Monday nights, how to live more naturally and harmoniously in the world. Also the problem of public responsibility and private yearnings, the question of tolerance and instinct, or the spiritual self versus the material world.