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pass the time.” She paused, staring at the ceiling above her. “It’s true, isn’t it?”
    “I don’t think that’s fair.”
    “You wanted to be free to travel. Go and come as you pleased. A child would’ve only gotten in your way.”
    “It would’ve made things harder,” I said. “But I wouldn’t have minded. Anyway, didn’t we try time and time again?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you simply couldn’t. You know that. The doctor told you.” When I said it, I felt a terrible twinge of satisfaction.
    “Yes,” she said very softly. “I know. But all the same—you were relieved, weren’t you?”
    I listened to the wind outside.
    “Weren’t you?”
    “Alice—what is the purpose of all this now?”
    “Admit it. It’s true, isn’t it?”
    “No.” I sighed and turned away. “It’s not true at all.” The silence rushed back in upon us. Outside, the wind gnashed its teeth and the bare branches of trees above the roof clicked against each other.
    “Where will he go?” said Alice, after a while.
    “For all we know, he’s found a place already.”
    “Yes. For all we know—”
    “Something better, I hope.”
    “Yes,” she said without too much enthusiasm, and we were silent again.
    An hour or so passed, and still we heard nothing. Then, just as I felt myself slipping off, there was the unmistakable sound Of a key jiggling a lock at the cellar door. We could hear it quite distinctly, since that door is almost directly beneath our bedroom window.
    Alice sat bolt upright in bed. “Albert?”
    “Yes. I hear it.”
    The key continued to jiggle, and I could hear the lock rebuffing it. The noises became rougher and more impatient, full of the sound of frustration and growing anger.
    I held my breath, hoping that the new locks wouldn’t fail me. I had a sudden, awful notion that I’d put them all on incorrectly. In my mind I saw them yielding or falling out and the doors all opening wide, like unfolding blossoms.
    The jiggling went on for some time. It would pause for a while, then resume. I imagined him out there in the wind and the cold, hunched over, the rain streaming in icy rivulets down his face—baffled and furious. The knob rattled and then I heard a sound as of wood straining and creaking against a weight. He was leaning on the door, attempting to force it.
    “Albert?” Alice was sitting upright in bed, gaping at the window.
    I rose and crossed the chilly floor to the window, parting the curtains and peering down. Each pane was covered with a thin mist. Wiping one of the panes clean, I tried once again to see something.
    At first there was nothing but blackness and the swirl of snow flurries coming down dry and hard. They seemed to whisper against the glass. I had become quiet down below. There was no more jiggling of keys in locks or rattling of doorknobs. It was as if he had stepped back from the door and was trying to figure out what had gone wrong. Still I couldn’t see him, but I could sense his puzzling it all out just below.
    “Albert?” Alice whispered at me from the bed.
    I flapped my hand at her to be silent. She was for a while. Then she whispered again. “Has he gone?”
    “I’m not sure.” I peered down into swirling, impenetrable black and waited a while longer. Then just as I was about to turn from the window, the sound of footsteps crunching over the dry hard snow came drifting up from below. When I looked down I saw a small, black shadow retreating from beneath the window and groping its way toward the woods in the back.
    Alice started to get out of bed and come toward the window.
    “Go back.” I flapped my hand at her again.
    She kept coming. “Albert?”
    “Go back, I said.”
    She got back into bed, and shortly after I followed her. We lay there waiting for the jiggling and the rattling to begin again, but it didn’t. Then there was nothing but the moaning of wind, and the sound of Alice sobbing quietly into the pillow.
    The following morning I was awakened by the