Another bell rings and the pupils at Primrose Hill Primary School are excused for recess, their racket erupting gleeful and steady as they stream onto the playground on the other side of the brick wall where Sylvia stands, holding the pulsing receiver. Turning her back, she concentrates her hearing on the transatlantic buzzing of the phone. She waits, fearfully, for an answer. It is the middle of the night in Wellesley. If it were Aurelia’s ulcer, someone else—Sylvia’s brother, her aunt—would have sent the telegram. Maybe it was Grampy, or Mrs. Prouty—dead, moneyless, sick? The line jangles, jangles; finally there is the click of response. She listens to the operator ask for Professor Aurelia Plath to accept the charges of a collect call from Sylvia Hughes, followed by her mother’s self-conscious, “I accept.”

“Mother?” Sylvia whispers into the receiver, heart clutching. She hasn’t sought her mother’s voice since Aurelia left Court Green in August.

“My darling! It’s you!” Her mother’s tremolo vibrates over the line. “Where are you?”

“I’m in London, Mother. I’m in the street. I haven’t got my phone hooked up yet.”

“Have you moved, Sivvy?” Aurelia asks, and after a pause punctuated by the schoolyard shrieking, “Are Frieda and Nicholas all right?”

“Yes, yes—” Sylvia answers, plugging her free ear against the pandemonium in the schoolyard. “That’s just an elementary school behind us. The children are here, they’re fine.” She can hardly hear herself. Frieda and Nick are craning their necks to see beyond the pilastered gate, fascinated by the uproar of screaming, racing, tumbling older children. Sylvia nudges the pram slightly closer to the gate, giving them a better view, and pulls the door to the kiosk shut, instantly reducing the noise level to a muffled, high-pitched incoherence. “Mother, just tell me, what’s wrong?”

The line crackles with interference. There is a delay in Aurelia’s response. “But you have moved to London,” she repeats.

“Yes, didn’t you get my letter?” Sylvia asks.

“No, I haven’t heard anything in weeks,” Aurelia answers, emphatic.

“I wrote to you, Mother,” Sylvia says, counting the days backward in her head, distracted by the habit of duty, righting the keel of her daughterly fealty. “You’ve just not received it yet. I just wrote this weekend, telling you all about it.”

“So you’re all right, sweetheart?” Aurelia asks, stalling.

“Yes!” Sylvia says, impatient. “Tell me what’s wrong with you! Is everyone all right? Your cable said it was urgent. What’s happened?”

“Oh, darling,” Aurelia answers, hesitant, her subterfuge bobbing to the surface, “I was just getting worried. I thought you would call me right away when you got to London.”