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my job,” Minnie continued. “I wouldn’t think of quitting. But whether they like it or not, I’m going to make sure that every woman at Mercy is wearing knee socks by the end of the week.”
    â€œDo you think it’s wise for you to work so hard at Mercy?”
    â€œWise?” Minnie handed me a washed carrot. “Who cares about that? I’m talking about something important, I’m talking about warm legs.” She started cutting up the rest of the carrots. “Eat that,” she instructed me.
    Right then Minnie seemed stronger than I, younger somehow. “Are you planning other reforms at Mercy?”
    Minnie’s knife was now poised over a bunch of radishes. “I sure am. This is just the beginning.”
    â€œAll right,” I agreed. “I’ll write up an unofficial memo at Outreach. I’ll be your witness.”
    â€œNaturally,” Minnie said. “How could you say no?”
    Suddenly I was tired. I had been trying not to think about Michael Finn, but it was nearly seven o’clock and Finn might already be pulling on his boots and starting to walk toward the high school, he might already be waiting.
    Minnie stirred the steamed vegetables into a large cast-iron pot, she added tomato sauce and tapped the wooden spoon on the rim. “You don’t look so good,” she said to me. “Did you take your brewer’s yeast tablet today?”
    â€œSomeone came into Outreach today and told me that he had bombed the nuclear power plant.”
    Minnie scowled. “Stay away from him,” she told me.
    â€œHe’s probably a liar,” I said. “He’s deluded.”
    â€œIt might be true,” Minnie warned. “But bombers can bring you heartache. Believe me.”
    â€œOh, Minnie,” I said. “What do you know about bombers?”
    â€œPlenty,” Minnie said. She poured the vegetable stew into a blue-rimmed bowl. “I used to be in love with one.”
    â€œYou?” I said.
    â€œHe was a union man, a presser; he made bombs for the union strikes. In the summers, when he wasn’t on strike, he came out here to stay with his brother.” Minnie tasted the stew and pursed her lips. “He fell in love with me.”
    â€œWhile you were married?” I asked, astounded, not thinking Minnie had ever looked at a man other than Uncle Alex.
    â€œNot everything has to be sex,” Minnie snapped. “I know what you’re thinking. Nowadays everything is sex; back then it was love.”
    â€œDid the police ever catch up with him?” I asked. “Did he go to trial?”
    â€œThe police?” Minnie laughed. “This was the thirties. There was so much union trouble, so many bombers, nobody even bothered to look for him. Later, he became an antique dealer. He had a shop in Manhattan, on Seventy-second Street. He stopped coming to Fishers Cove after I gave him the brushoff. He never visited his brother again. But what could I do? I was too busy to fool around with him. I was married.”
    â€œThat was a long time ago.” I smiled. “The old days.”
    â€œOld days, new days, a bomber is a bomber. You want to be smart?” Minnie said to me. “Don’t see him again.”
    During dinner I found that I could barely eat, although the vegetable stew wasn’t as bad as usual. It grew closer and closer to eight; by the time we were having tea I had begun to watch the minute hand on the clock above the stove. I had to go; rules of etiquette, rules of the heart all seemed out of place; Michael Finn was too special a case, and if he was already waiting, he might become more and more nervous, he might even be thinking about leaving the field before I got there. Much too soon the time came; I lied to Minnie, assuring her I would be back early from Carter’s, then I walked out into the cold November night.
    The high school had been built between the old and new