The next day she had taken the train to New York City for no reason but to cleanse herself of herself. She never expected a handsome young Englishman to begin a conversation with her about one of the Vermeers in the Met. Wasn’t prepared for the way he touched her, with exquisite propriety, his manner that of an experienced physician. Four days later Oliver returned with her. Two weeks after that, Goldwin’s letter arrived. The thought of it made her wince to this day.

Now her gentle physician, her ever-approaching Oliver, was gone. He had brought his death with him: mistress, compulsion, and final infidelity.

And she had been left with this boy. An intelligent child, watchful but not defended. He was nice to look at, with those strong features and long eyelashes, which shone bronze in the sun, that slightly askew secretive mouth. He seemed happy, despite everything, had a gift for joy. He would hum and rock his body as he ate, seemed intensely—if a little indiscriminately—alive to the pleasures of this world. He was sensitive also, especially to her need for solitude, moved stealthily around the house, trying to make himself invisible, and kept mostly to his room. One time, when she complained of a sore shoulder, Raj began to massage her, but she asked him to stop, sensing he would have behaved like a servant if she had let him. In forgetful moments he would take on her gestures and use her expressions. She would often notice that he was mirroring her posture. In the same way, when he was with Lewis, he took on Lewis’s otherworldliness, the two boys like sylvan creatures, with their long bodies and soft fragmentary language. With Annie, his eyes devoured every gesture. Ruth had laughed out loud one time when Annie was telling one of her animated stories and Ruth had noticed Raj opening and rounding his lips, as if his eyes and ears weren’t enough and he was trying, like an infant, to get her—the whole of her—into his mouth. She understood this: She kept Oliver’s work gloves in the cabinet beside her bed and still put them on each night, to have her hands in his and to look at his hands, which had shaped the old leather. Raj was a good boy. God, why had she written those things?

Fifty-Three raised his head, his ears pricked, and he got up. A moment later she saw Raj approaching out of the darkness. Fifty-Three escorted him in. Without really looking at her, he climbed into the light and sat on the porch steps.

“Saw a family of raccoons,” he said.