at the bottom of the stairs. Joel paused at the front door. His work boots, stained with the sap of trees, were nearly the same color as the varnished pine floorboards. He took her hand.
“That was nice,” he said.
“Was it?” she said. Then she laughed and brushed at her eyes. “Yes. It was nice.”
He could have killed it so easily. He could have been lewd or self-satisfied. He could have indicated, by his face or his body, that he pitied her. He could have asked her when they'd do it again.
“Bye,” he said.
“Goodbye.” He opened the door and she stepped out onto the porch with him. It was still a warm clear day. It was still autumn. She still lived on a street of clapboard colonials in Darien, pumpkins grinning on the doorsteps. In another few days other people's children would dress in costumes and ring her doorbell, demanding candy.
“Oh,” she said, “did you remember your check?”
He put his hand on the breast pocket of his jacket. They both laughed. “Got it,” he said. He walked out to his truck and drove away. He waved to her from the road.
It surprised her that when she saw his truck a week later on her way to the supermarket, she parked her car and went boldly to speak to him. He was working on the grounds of an elementary school, pruning a haphazard arrangement of young trees that had been planted to soften the dour sprawl of blond brick buildings. He wore his boots and a navy-blue sweater, jeans that hung too low on his waist. Colored leaves cut from construction paper were taped to the windows of the single-story building that rose behind him.
“Hi,” he said, apparently glad to see her. His eyes were brown, ordinary. His skin glowed in the cloudy light.
“Hi.”
A silence passed. She said, “Is it all right that I stopped to talk to you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Sure, why wouldn't it be?”
“Well. I don't know. Do you have a wife?”
“Oh, we live way off. In Wilton. She wouldn't come over here. She wouldn't. Are you okay?”
She nodded. “I've never done anything like that,” she said. “I guess that's probably what they all say.”
He shrugged. “It's not like there are so many.”
“Oh, come on.” She wasn't jealous. She wanted this to be a usual thing; she wanted to have joined a group.
He shrugged again, and laughed. “Okay. There are a few.”
“I should be going,” she said. “I saw you and, I don't know. It seemed like it would be strange to just drive by.”
“It's nice to see you,” he said.
“Maybe we'll see each other again. I mean, before it's time for the tree's checkup. Am I being too forward?”
“No. It'd be nice to see each other again, I'd like to.”
“I guess you can't come by in that big truck,” she said. “You know, the neighbors. God, that's such a housewife thing, isn't it strange to be saying this?”
“You could come by my office,” he said. “You got the address, it's over in Norwalk. You could come by there.”
“I could. What about Thursday, in the afternoon?”
“Four o'clock? Four o'clock would be good.”
“That's a little late,” she said. “Would three be okay?”
“I have a job in New Canaan. I could be back by three-thirty.”
“All right, then. Three-thirty.”
“Okay.”
“See you then.”
“Yeah. See you then.”
She got back in her car and drove to the supermarket. She couldn't believe the strangeness of it. There was no tumult, no chaos of emotion. There was only the working out of schedules and this sad but unmistakable sense of relief
It surprised her that she could sneak away to Norwalk for Joel and yet continue to love Todd. She'd imagined devotion to be finite. She'd believed that if you focused an affectionate energy on someone new you had to deduct corresponding affection from someone you loved already. But her love for Todd held steady; at times it seemed to have grown. She retained all her tenderness toward him. She still liked reassuring him when he returned from the rigor and gravity of his days in the city. She'd learned that the mantle of work Todd had begun shouldering in college would not end. She'd been wrong in her belief that he'd emerge from his studies complete, magnified, and free. His labors at Yale had not been a trial, they'd been the first in an ascending process of labors. By now it was clear that the work led only to other work. His value would always be questioned and he