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then it stopped. Beverly stared through the mesh of the screen, looking at a point over the man’s left shoulder, as if she were doing sums in her head. Finally, she said, “I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”
    The man sidled over to invade her gaze, and looked at her with a real in-the-eye look. He smiled. “I thought I’d see if Gladys was in. She sometimes comes over when I eat with Mary and Frank.” There was a quaver in his voice, as if he were trying to prevent his teeth from chattering. He shrugged. “But I guess she’s not home either.”
    â€œGladys,” Beverly said. For a second she didn’t know who he was talking about, then it clicked. Nobody called her Gladys. She was Gaddie. Her mother-in-law, Colm’s mother. They were house-sitting for Gaddie while she spent six months in Africa with Christian Helpmates International.
    The man’s khaki pants were faded to a gloss, his work boots scuffed and cracking. One steel toecap poked through a hole in the leather. She glanced at the spade and clippers. Had Gaddie said anything about the gardener? Beverly couldn’t remember—really, she had stopped paying attention to the woman. She and Colm had settled in only a week ago. It was Gaddie’s idea, cooked up when she found out Beverly was expecting. After all, she had said, Beverly and Colm were starting their family late, starting everything late (“Most of my friends had four or five babies by the time they were your age!”). They had all those student loans, had spent all that time in school and travelling everywhere, living in apartments. If they stayed until the baby came, paid off their debts, maybe they could save the down payment for a house of their own. Besides, someone had to look after the condo.
    So they sold or gave away most of the things that they had acquired over the years as cast-offs or in garage sales, and moved in. The few good pieces of furniture were packed into Gaddie’s garage. Colm insisted on keeping his boxes of engineering textbooks. Beverly wouldn’t part with her bolts of fabric and rolling racks of clothes she had made. They kept a steamer trunk full of vinyl records because they didn’t have the time to sort through and separate Peter Frampton from Bob Dylan, then argue over what to keep and what to trash. Colm’s 1969 BSA Lightning motorcycle was scattered in several pieces. Gaddie had tut-tutted: “Where will you park my car?”
    â€œThere’s room outside on the apron,” Colm replied.
    Before she boarded her plane to Washington, D.C., where the Christians were assembling for the assault on the dark continent, the three of them had spent two days in the townhouse. Gaddie had fussed non-stop.
    By the phone in the kitchen she assembled a thick three-ring binder with a green cover, sectioned with stiff-tabbed dividers. She compiled phone lists of neighbours, missionary contacts, emergency numbers for fire, flood, pestilence and war. An itinerary of her African trip, complete with brochures about the places she would visit. Operations and maintenance instructions for the washer and dryer, fridge and stove, convection oven, microwave, freezer, televisions, stereos, the furnace. Insurance policies. Lots of insurance policies—the widow of the owner of an insurance agency believed in good coverage.
    Gaddie talked her way through those two days. “That’s Mr. Gilford,” she would say as a car pulled into the little lane that wound through the units in her part of the complex. “He’s chair of the Risk Management Committee. You’ll need to call him if the roof leaks or a tree falls against the house.” “There’s Betty Peel, Snow Removal Task Force,” she said, pointing out an elderly woman power-walking in the early morning. “Don’t hesitate to call her in a blizzard.” (To offer assistance or demand service? Gaddie