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him. The boots and coat were still near the door but there were no toys scattered about and the highchair had been pushed into the corner. The room was hot and filled with the steam of cooking. She brought him soup and then stood at the table, slicing cheese into thin yellow squares. She put the slices on top of pieces of bread and then slid them into the oven of the cookstove that now, in winter, dominated the room even more than it had in the fall. “I had to trade,” she said, “the kid for the truck. He has a new woman now and she made him take it all to court so he could have visiting rights atChristmas and during the summer.” As she moved about the kitchen, he noticed again, as he had when he first saw her, the stiffness in the centre of her walk that made her sway slightly, as if she ought to limp. And remembered too the hard, almost corded muscles that wrapped round from her belly to her back, the triangle at the base of her spine that curved wildly to one side. “I knew you’d come back,” she said. She was wearing sweaters, three sweaters, and a heavy tweed skirt. On the back of one of her hands were two long scratches; they might have been made by a cat. “I didn’t dream about you very much,” she said. “Did you dream about me?”
    “Once,” Erik said. All he could remember was that it had been in the afternoon and that someone, pounding on his door wanting a book, had woken him up in the middle. Her fingers were bony and strong: now she was back at the table, waiting for him to tell his dream, tearing open a fresh package of cigarettes. The first time they met, in the summer, he had not even asked her name. But this time she had told him. Rose. And he had wanted to say it was the perfect name for her because he found her as dangerous as she was beautiful, to be looked at without touching, but of course said nothing because it would have sounded so appallingly sincere. She still had the loom. It stood in the shadows, but even in that partial light he was struck by the bright colours of the wool. “How did you know I would come back?” he asked.
    “I guess I just wanted you too,” she said. She was smoking her cigarette now, nervously, tapping off the ashes before they had a chance to form. The sight of her agitation only increased his own; he pushed his chair back, it squeaked and bumped across the floor. He wondered if the husband still came to have her in the middle of the night, driving from wherever he lived and then sneaking in the door with a flashlight, sliding into bed with her. He had forgotten his soup and now discovered he was holding a spoon in his hand; he bent his head towards the bowl and moved his hands, but the spoon slipped, dropping out of his fingers onto the table.
    “Nerves,” he said.
    “Do you want me to feed you?”
    “It’s all right,” Erik said. The soup was thick with vegetables — carrots and celery and potatoes. He loaded the spoon up carefully, making sure it wasn’t too full, and brought it to his mouth.
    “Do you like college?”
    “It’s all right,” Erik said. The room seemed to be getting warmer. He took off his coat. He wondered how she could be wearing so many sweaters. The room was permeated with the odour of woodsmoke, cedar and maple, but through that he could smell his sandwich. As quickly as he thought of it she was on her feet, standing over the stove and opening the oven.
    “It’s not burnt at all,” she said. There was a pile of split wood beside the stove and she re-filled the firebox before bringing his food to the table. “It’s hopeless,” she said. “Soon you’ll have lines on your forehead and smoke cigarettes. What you need is a hat.” She went back to the stove and got herself some soup. “The Chinese tell each other their dreams every morning. Anyway, how are you?”
    “I’m fine,” Erik said. The question pushed him away from her. He felt suddenly depressed and disinterested in words.
    “It snowed so much,” she