He is twenty-one years older than Lenore. On his last birthday he was fifty-five. His daughter from his first marriage (his only marriage; she keeps reminding herself that they are not married, because it often seems that they might as well be) sent him an Irish country hat. The present made him irritable. He kept putting it on and pulling it down hard on his head. “She wants to make me a laughable old man,” he said. “She wants me to put this on and go around like a fool.” He wore the hat all morning, complaining about it, frightening the children. Eventually, to calm him, she said, “She intended nothing.” She said it with finality, her tone so insistent that he listened to her. But having lost his reason for bitterness, he said, “Just because you don’t think doesn’t mean others don’t think.” Is he getting old? She does not want to think of him getting old. In spite of his ulcer, his body is hard. He is tall and handsome, with a thick mustache and a thin black goatee, and there is very little gray in his kinky black hair. He dresses in tight-fitting blue jeans and black turtleneck sweaters in the winter, and old white shirts with the sleeves rolled up in the summer. He pretends not to care about his looks, but he does. He shaves carefully, scraping slowly down each side of his goatee. He orders his soft leather shoes from a store in California. After taking one of his long walks—even if he does it twice a day—he invariably takes a shower. He always looks refreshed, and very rarely admits any insecurity. A few times, at night in bed, he has asked, “Am I still the man of your dreams?” And when she says yes he always laughs, turning it into a joke, as if he didn’t care. She knows he does. He pretends to have no feeling for clothing, but actually he cares so strongly about his turtlenecks and shirts (a few are Italian silk) and shoes that he will have no others. She has noticed that the young women who visit are always vain. When Sarah arrived, she was wearing a beautiful silk scarf, pale as conch shells.
Sitting on the floor on Saturday morning, Lenore watches the fire she has just lit. The baby, tucked in George’s chair, smiles in his sleep, and Lenore thinks what a good companion he would be if only he were an adult. She gets up and goes into the kitchen and tears open a package of yeast and dissolves it, with sugar and salt, in hot water, slushing her fingers through it and shivering because it is so cold in the kitchen. She will bake bread for dinner—there is always a big meal in the early evening when they have guests. But what will she do for the rest of the day? George told the girls the night before that on Saturday they would walk in the woods, but she does not really enjoy hiking, and George will be irritated because of the discussion the night before, and she does not want to aggravate him. “You are unwilling to challenge anyone,” her brother wrote her in a letter that came a few days ago. He has written her for years—all the years she has been with George—asking when she is going to end the relationship. She rarely writes back because she knows that her answers sound too simple. She has a comfortable house. She cooks. She keeps busy and she loves her two children. “It seems unkind to say but,” her brother writes, “but . . .” It is true; she likes simple things. Her brother, who is a lawyer in Cambridge, cannot understand that.
Lenore rubs her hand down the side of her face and says good morning to Julie and Sarah, who have come downstairs. Sarah does not want orange juice; she already looks refreshed and ready for the day. Lenore pours a glass for Julie. George calls from the hallway, “Ready to roll?” Lenore is surprised that he wants to leave so early. She goes into the living room. George is wearing a denim jacket, his hands in the pockets.
“Morning,” he says to Lenore. “You’re not up for a hike, are you?”
