as I had sat next to Nancy on Daphne’ bed that afternoon, a longing had swept through me which I could hardly articulate but which I now recognize to have been something akin to desire. Of course, it never would have occurred to me to try to kiss Nancy, or even embrace her. Nor, I suspect, would she have tolerated such advances. Still, the feeling was there, mixed up strangely with my daughterly adoration. This was what drove me back to that house every Saturday, despite the abuse I had to endure. Since then, of course, I have known my own fair share of amorous adventure, I have been loved by several good men (Ernest among them) and in at least one case experienced a love far deeper than anything I ever felt for Nancy. So why is it that today I keep dreaming about that afternoon on Daphne’ bed? What is it that I wanted to happen? Why is her voice—of which I have only a memory—so sharp and distinct in my head, and why, when I wake up in the middle of the night, am I tormented by her particular and peculiar smell of cigarettes and cooking and the perfume she wore only on special occasions, such as Thanksgiving, with notes of cassia and anise and bearing a name that would forever after connote, for me, that remote and lacquered world of womanhood in which she and Anne had spent such easy days, and which I could never penetrate—Apres I’Ondee?
The day before Thanksgiving Nancy called and asked if I could stop by after work to help her get the house ready for the Boyds. I readily agreed. The pleasure of holidays, it has often seemed to me, is mostly anticipatory, which is perhaps why, today, I recall those hours that I spent cleaning and cooking with Nancy, scrubbing the bathtub while she ironed the “Vera” sheets and made the bed, with a far greater fondness than I do the dinner itself. She was in a euphoria of planning. Already she had hounded Daphne into putting away everything that gave her room a sense of identity. Gone were the books, the frog figurines, the posters. Two drawers had been emptied and part of the closet cleared. Her mother’ orders Daphne obeyed flatly and without protest, since they fed a resentment the cultivation of which, at this stage in her life, was one of her principal occupations. With the pitiless dispassion of adolescence, of the child who believes that she will never make the mistakes that dog her elders, Daphne observed her mother as she went about the onerous routine of constructing a Active guest room, a stage set to last only two nights. Ben watched too, though with greater empathy: Although he would not be leaving home for two years, already he had begun composing a poem of farewell, in which the protagonist, from the vantage point of his Wellspring dorm room, regards with smug compassion the spectacle of his mother at the supermarket, buying his favorite treats and then bursting into tears upon the realization that he will no longer be home to eat them. I know this because, several weeks later, he read the poem aloud to us. “Isn’t he gifted?” Nancy asked, her eyes on the music desk.
As the afternoon wore away, Nancy grew more nervous. What would Anne look like? she wondered. Would she have quit smoking, gained weight, lost weight? “I wonder why she decided to come,” Nancy said at the piano. “I mean, why she really decided to come. What do you think, Denny?”
“To see you, of course.”
“Is that it, though? Is that all?”
We retreated to the kitchen, where we washed vegetables and tore up bread for the stuffing. It was now becoming clear that as much as it excited her, the prospect of Anne’ visit also filled Nancy with dread. She confided that every time the phone rang, part of her hoped that it would be Anne, calling to cancel—"because then, at the very least, I wouldn’t have to deal with any of it. The awkwardness, and having to explain about Mark, and the new husband.” What if the old connection no longer surged? What if, on reuniting, she and Anne felt nothing, or worse (was it worse?) felt too much—a tug of longing so intense it could engender only sorrow, given how rarely they were now able to see each other? In the first case, she would greet Anne’ departure with