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Her fragility and toughness, the physicality of her walk. I could get that far. And to my husband backing out of the parking space, leaning forward to clear the windshield, arranging the books and papers at his side, fiddling with the radio. He saw a movement in and out of the streetlight. He almost didn’t see her. He cleared more of the window, craned his neck, then eased the car out of the lot. He pulled to the side of the road just ahead of her and leaned across to open the door.
    He said, Louise, Louise, and she grabbed the door and put her head in. Her hair fell across her face. Her face, even when she held her hair aside, would have been in shadow, the overhead light having broken months ago.
    Do you want a ride? he said.
    She lingered with one hand on the door. Okay, yes, she said, thank you. She lowered herself, a puff of air coming up through the cracks of seat leather. She settled her purse on her lap, didn’t buckle her seat belt. She was close enough so he could see her then. Her curls escaping from a loose bun. Her eyes with shadows underneath.
    I had imagined at first that he was a sudden flurry of activity, leaning over to swipe at the empty coffee cups as she sat down, but as he told the story, I understood this wasn’t the case. He was comfortable with her, he knew how to talk to her. He said simply, continuing a conversation they’d had at the bar weeks earlier, Why New Mexico?
    It was seven years ago, she said. She had left home. Her roommate worked at a snack bar in a bowling alley, and they shared a room in a ranch house with windows only in back; there weren’t any windows in front. The room contained boxes that didn’t belong to them. Someone had tacked sheets over the walls.
    She slouched in the seat while talking to him, as if the ride was going to take hours rather than minutes. She laughed quietly, looked over at my husband, thought of the bowling alley, the nacho chips with cheese from a pump, the orange T-shirts the counter help wore. Anyway, she said, I was seventeen and I liked to bowl.
    Are you any good? my husband asked, but it wasn’t a real question; he was busy looking for the White Heart, a bar by the waterfront. He slowed the car. The bar was down a cobblestone alley blocked off to traffic. He pulled over next to the barrier and looked at her. He had parked in an interval between streetlights and she opened the door to turn on the overhead light. It’s broken, he told her. You could put in a new bulb, she said. I could, he said.
    She slipped out, pulling her purse after her. She said, Thanks, see you next week, and bounded toward the side of the bar. He watched her silhouette, her hand reaching up, feeling the lump of her hair as if tucking it in then swinging open the door—a clumsily balletic move, the dropping of the hand and swinging it out again. Then the door settled closed. He sat there for some time. He told me this offhandedly, had said, There’s something else. Maybe ten minutes after the girl had gone in, I—
    Ten minutes, I said.
    Yes, he said, I stayed for a while in the car.
    What did you do?
    I don’t know, he said.
    We were silent, then he said, While I was there, a man walked past.
    The man walked down the alley and entered the bar the same way as the girl. My husband thought it was Alec. But there had been the fog, the darkness, he couldn’t be sure.
    It didn’t seem like his sort of place, my husband said. But it looked just like him.
    You didn’t see his face? I asked.
    No, but I’m nearly certain it was him.
    I realized that I had seen the girl before. She had been at a party at Alec’s house. He lived across the harbor, in a half-weatherproofed cottage. The porch was covered in vines that gave it an enclosed, hidden feel. Alec and the girl had sat together on a wicker sofa. She had her legs pulled close to her. Her shirt was baggy, too big for her, and the hem of her skirt was unraveling.
    Alec rarely looked at people when he talked, and his body was