Not so rash, not so foolish as to smile or offer a weightless, friendly greeting sure to be read, then, as malignant or callous, though he has, as he understands it, been summoned—yes?—implying, at the very least, détente, a truce, for the moment in which he will be performing whatever service Sylvia seeks rendered. The downstairs neighbor, a Professor Thomas, has let him in, had listened resentfully for the rude electric buzz of the doorbell, muttered a sequel to his earlier protests, and stands in the hallway watching, sourly, skeptically, as Ted trudges heavily up the stairs, ducks his head at the abbreviated half landing, lets himself through the fastened baby gate, and lightly but unambiguously knocks at the door to his wife’s flat. His face he keeps blank, just blank.

The door flings instantly open.

Sylvia stands on the other side, her blue-tendoned fist bloodless around the doorknob, erratically dressed in layers of clothing under her robe, holding Nicholas, a clammy little phantom clinging to her ribs like a monkey’s child. Her face lucent, her skin seeming waxen, almost iridescent—she is still feverish—and her eyes glittering, Sylvia also seems vaguely ethereal. But the black enmity of her glower is anything but conceptual. With a whimper Frieda stumbles, headlong, dazed, wearing only the unsnapped top of her pajamas, across the floor to Ted, who is caught in medias res of his nervous humming of “Sir Patrick Spens” and gathers her up.

The threshold of Sylvia’s flat, no abstract, separates them. Avoiding eye contact but listening, listening, they wait. At the door to his flat on the ground floor below, Professor Thomas listens for them listening. Sylvia’s high pique hovers, ventilating the stairwell. Ted hums, caressing his daughter’s cool legs and bare bottom and back, comforting her, Frieda’s matted head burrowing under his jaw, her arms slung over his shoulders.

“‘Syngynge he was, or floytynge, all the day…’” Sylvia accuses under her breath, her face pinched with intolerance and grayed exhaustion.

Ted says nothing. They stand on the landing in opposition, one on either side of the door, each holding a diminished child, listening for Thomas to stop listening. Finally he retreats, shuffling, sufficiently deaf indeed, and thus disappointed, into his flat.

As soon as they hear the click of the door downstairs, Sylvia’s unforgiving eyes lock on Ted’s. “We could have died this weekend—” she hisses, even the acute angle of her long, sharp arm around Nicholas seeming aggressive and intractable.

“Let me bring her inside, Sylvia—” Ted whispers.