I’m not getting a new maid, I remember telling my mother. Perhaps I was reaching my limit, already then, my limit with everything.

I started visiting Eric at his store every week again. I’d asked him to suggest someone who gave art lessons, I was thinking of Candace. I didn’t know where Candace lived and she worked full-time hours, but perhaps if I found her someone, she could make a plan for herself. Eric had some suggestions, some phone numbers, I would give them to Candace. Or, I would give them to Howard, he could pass them along to Candace.

And my painting: stasis. I took it out again from under its covering one day, and set the easel up where I could see it best, in the morning light. This time, however, I was startled to see that — how can I explain this — something in it had changed. Or moved. I tried to see what it was, why it now seemed to contain some beat of life, which it had lost, before.

It was like finding a bird on the ground, one long thought dead, but now with a heartbeat, a faintly quivering side, so faint a movement it was easy to miss it.

And then I realized it was all within me, every movement within myself, every small change, was reflected, or projected, onto my painting. A new projection was possible, I saw that now. There was hope for it.

Was it because of this, this renewal of energy within myself, a lifting of something, that I visited Joseph again? Why else, why did I visit Joseph again? Nothing was new or different in his situation, everything was just as before. I hadn’t resolved with Howard, with Jack, about Joseph leaving, I hadn’t been firm, as I’d wanted to be. Joseph was still there.

LAST WEEKEND Helena came again. Helena has taken the whole year off, she says they’ll hold her job. I was alarmed when I heard this, but she says she’s had enough, she wants a break, she wants to take time to decide what to do next. She’s been teaching for twenty-five years, she reminds me. Nicholas is at university, and she says she feels free. Her husband Mark is a potter and owns his shop, a craft shop that sells his work and that of other local artists: pottery; paintings and small sculptures too. Tourists are his customers, Howard and I used to enjoy visiting, in the early days. Howard would drive us up there, we’d take a few days, we stayed at a local inn, the owner got to know us.

And I was a visiting artist myself then, Mark would introduce me, Helena would introduce me, they were very proud.

But: Helena taking all this time off work. I have a feeling it has something to do with me. She denied it vehemently when I suggested it, but I’ve said it before: she’s worried about me. I don’t walk as well as I used to, that is true, and this means I’m sometimes house-bound, stuck in my apartment. Helena has taken to calling me every day, every morning. This annoys me. There’s no reason for her to worry about me, I’ve told her many times.