But I would go and see Joseph in the garden room.

I LEFT, ONE DAY, my studio at noon, and walked under the dim trees, across to the garden room. The heater Josias had brought was next to the door. I went to the door, that door that now inhabited my dreams, and knocked. It was such a thin knock in the silence of the garden, a glade, it was. I heard the knock, so small, like a child’s. And I felt like a child. A timid, frightened child.

I heard the scrape of a chair, something like that, inside, and, instantly, the door opened, and he was there, standing there, and he saw me. Me. It was me.

Jacqueline, he said. How nice to see you. Is everything alright? He looked into my face. Oh yes, yes, everything’s fine, I said. I think my voice was small, tight in my throat. Come in, come in, Jacqueline, he said, and he opened his door, and stepped aside, and gestured me in.

All those months, four months, and I’d not seen him, or come into his room.

I’d imagined it, how I’d imagined it, that space. There were more books than I’d imagined, a pile, many high. More papers, many papers, but in an orderly pile on the table, and several other piles, all over the room, some on the concrete floor. A briefcase, next to his table. My table, an old table I’d hauled from the garage. His chair, my chair, a wooden chair, pushed back, he must’ve been sitting in it, right before.

And his bed. A narrow bed, like a prisoner’s. Or like Josias’s bed, I’d seen Josias’s, in his small concrete room. But Joseph’s bed was neatly made. Immaculate. The white sheets I’d put there, the pillow, the wool blanket, blue. And a chill in the room, the weather had turned, as I said.

In the corner, some of our white dishes, two or three, and a cup, were stacked — dirty dishes, Emily would pick them up that afternoon, I knew. And next to them, on the floor, plugged into the outlet, was our old kettle, its dusty, worn silver that I remembered. And there was the small, white fridge.

That’s all there was. I think that’s all.

The lone light bulb on the ceiling cast a thin, yellow light, and filtered sunlight came through the two small windows, as I’d imagined, so many times. The windows, I saw now, were not clean (how could they be clean?), they needed washing. More light would come then, more light. I thought I would ask Josias to wash them, inside and out. No, Emily. Josias mustn’t come in here, I remembered. Josias had never been in here.

Before I stepped in I said, Joseph, I’m here to bring you a heater, it’s winter soon, it must be cold in here. I had to give him a reason for my being there.

I turned and gestured outside to the heater. This is wonderful, he said. Thank you. And then he moved outside, and bent down, lifting the heater with both hands, it wasn’t heavy, a small portable thing it was, and carried it over the threshold, past me, into the room.