“Oh my god,” Rebecca said, taking the woman by the arm. “Thank you, thank you! If he fell, I don’t know what—”

“I am so sorry to barge in—”

“No, come in—”

“No, no, I don’t need to, I’ll go now, just so long as your cat is safe—”

“I shall have to claim responsibility for this error,” Ruth said. She stood beside the bathroom door with her hand on the doorknob, as if she might go right back in and lock the door if things didn’t work out in the next moment.

“What happened?” George demanded. “What do you mean?”

“I felt overly warm,” Ruth said defensively, “and I decided to take you up on your kind previous offer to open or close the window for me, in order for me to be comfortable. Previously, as I say, Rebecca, you had indeed offered to do just that.”

“What are you saying? Just say it! You’re not making sense!” Rebecca shouted at her.

“Please. You are unnecessarily agitated, Rebecca. I went over to the little window over there by the piano, you see, just to look out, and then I opened the window to get a breath of fresh air while I was waiting for you, and then the cat jumped up onto the piano and startled me. I thought it was attacking me, I must admit. I have very acute reflexes. I am very sensitive to sudden motions. Then the cat sprang right at me, I swear it was attacking me, and so I stepped aside, and in my haste I almost twisted my ankle, but I think it’s all right, though I should put ice on it later, for any residual swelling, it never hurts to be cautious, and then it jumped from the piano onto the windowsill, you see, and at first I thought it was just looking out, but then it walked out onto the ledge and went all the way down to the other window, and it didn’t come back to the open window. I didn’t know what to do.”

“You opened that window by the piano?” Rebecca shouted in a shrill voice. “What made you feel entitled to do that? That window is never open without a screen, and we only open this big window a couple of inches at this time of year! Are you an idiot? In the summer we always have screens in all the windows! We never open a window wide enough for Joe Green to get out!”

“How could I possibly have this sort of complex knowledge of your window policies?” Ruth retorted irritably. “Irregardless, all of this happened in just an instant. I didn’t know what to do, and I thought you would come right out, but you didn’t, you were in there talking for so long, so I went to the bathroom, hoping that in my absence it would come back inside on its own, and then—”

“You didn’t know what to do?” Rebecca asked incredulously. “You didn’t know what to do?”