“I’ll believe it when I see it,” answered young Roger, just as the middle-aged Roger said the same thing.

Lydia stared. She was back in the séance room. The medium was passing small glasses of wine to Anna and Roger, and they were excitedly discussing the evening’s events. No one sensed her presence this time at all. Broodingly, she took on the old woman image she had died with. She tried hard to tug at her memories. It was like putting someone else’s thoughts on, but finally she managed to sort out from all of her other experiences the one Lydia they seemed to be talking about; and from that standpoint she responded to the conversation.

She saw them now as through a mist; Roger and Anna, sipping the wine, gazing into the nervous face of Mrs. Always, who was more shaken than she wanted to admit. “Your mother must have been extraordinary. I’ve never sensed such a presence. Oh, I’m still nervous. I saw her so clearly.” She fanned herself with her hand. “I’ve seen many, many apparitions—” Her voice trailed off; with a sinking in her stomach, she realized that the others had all been … imaginative images, because she wanted to see so badly. “I just hope she finds peace,” she said quickly.

“She never particularly looked for peace when she was alive,” Roger said glumly. “She was unconventional, a rebel until the last. I guess she enjoyed showing us how dull we were by contrast.”

“That’s not nice to say about her,” Anna cried, looking around nervously.

Lydia stared at their faces. She’d loved them enough, she saw. But she’d judged them too harshly. Her poetry, and later, Lawrence, had been her life. And as she thought that, she suddenly saw Josef’s face in her mind’s eye: As his daughter, she’d have to relate emotionally. She imaged herself as a child in the middle of his bustling household.

“Do you think she’s still around?” Anna asked, and Lydia said mentally, “Goodbye dear Anna, dear Roger. I kept my promise. Forgive me for liking you better as children….” Why couldn’t Anna show some flair? Why couldn’t Roger display just a touch of gallantry? Why—She broke the thoughts off, struck by a new realization. The conversation with the children about life after death had taken place one spring night after she’d met Lawrence. She’d returned home, rather guiltily, after a secret meeting with him. She’d met him downtown, supposedly by chance but actually by prearrangement.

And suddenly she was downtown. The séance room was gone. No one saw her. It was 6 p.m. by the town hall clock. It took Lydia a moment to orient herself, and longer to discover whether or not she was really walking down the world’s streets.