She would meet him in Dumbarton Oaks. After gardeners were dispatched, after the two-story black-and-gold gate on R Street clanged shut and locked for the night, he’d know how to get in there. He’d say, “We’ll have all of it to ourselves.” And they would lie down, faces to the sky, on the fleecy green of her favorite lawn, the one that sloped downward from the house and was edged with wisteria. Couldn’t they go swimming in that slate-bottomed pool set high on a terrace?

Mabel was walking with her cell phone in hand on Thirtieth Street, telling herself she was going to Oak Hill Cemetery with the family key. She was going to visit her grandfather’s grave, or that’s what she’d told Don. What she wanted, more than anything, was Adam.

She looked at her cell. The display showed received calls, and the cursor was on his number from the time he’d called her.

He had called her. Stanley had to have spoken to him.

She could call him.

Her cell said it was nine, twenty-two after. She pulled her T-shirt dress away from her chest and looked down. She was wearing white bra and panties; save her, they were matching, and, yes, lace, a victory. They glowed a pale violet in the dark.

She pushed the green button.

It rang. But only twice. “Mabel,” he said right away.

He knew it was her. He must have taken the time one day to enter her name and store it. Interesting. Also encouraging.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said, as if they were daily, these calls.

“This a good time?”

“Yes, yes it is.”

“Where are you?”

“In my car. I’m driving from the paper.”

“Home for the night.”

“Maybe. Not sure. I may have to go back in.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m in the Oak Hill Cemetery. I told Don I was taking a walk.”

“I could meet you there.”

She gasped. She hoped he didn’t hear. This, this had been too easy. This was how it used to be. This was the old days made new. She had been using the tone of the woman with a brief to file, and she almost shifted her voice, but her forlorn apparatus was firing on some of its dendrites, and it said, Don’t do it.

“I’ll come to the gate,” she said. “Opposite Twenty-ninth Street.”

“I’m on Mass., just about in Sheridan Circle. So two minutes. Less.”

“Okay.”