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Anyway, I feel like—more hopeful now.”
    Agnes was deeply sorry. Deeply disappointed in herself. Such cowardice!
    This was a moment, too, when Agnes might have shaken hands with Mattia, in farewell. (She knew that her male instructors violated protocol on such occasions, shaking hands with inmate-students; she’d seen them.) But Agnes was too cautious, and she was aware of guards standing at the doorway, watching her as well as the inmate-students on this last day of class.
    “Thank you , Joseph! And good luck.”
    Now, she would make amends.
    Several years had passed. If Mattia still lived in Trenton, it would not be such a violation of prison protocol to contact him—would it?
    He’d “paid his debt to society”—as it was said. He was a fellow citizen now. She, his former instructor, did not feel superior to him—in her debilitated state, she felt superior to no one—but she did think that, if he still wanted her advice about writing, or any sort of contact with her as a university professor, she might be able to help him.
    What had Mattia said, so poignantly—she had given him hope . And from him, perhaps she would acquire hope .
    She was getting high more frequently. Alone in the cavernous house.
    Smoking “pot” was becoming as ritualized to her as having a glass of wine had been for her husband, before every meal. She had sometimes joined him, but usually not—wine made her sleepy, and in the night it gave her a headache, or left her feeling, in the morning, mildly depressed. She knew that alcohol was a depressant to the nervous system and that she must avoid it, like the pills on the marble ledge.
    Getting high was a different sensation. Staying high was the challenge.
    Mattia might be a source of marijuana too. She hadn’t thought of this initially, but—yes: probably.
    (He’d been incarcerated for killing a drug dealer. It wasn’t implausible to assume that he might have dealt in drugs himself.)
    (Or, he might have cut himself out from his old life entirely. He might be living now somewhere else.)
    (She wasn’t sure which she hoped for—only that she wanted very much to see him again, and to make amends for her cowardice.)
    Getting high gave her clarity: she planned how she would seek out Joseph Mattia. Shutting her eyes, she rehearsed driving to Trenton, fifteen miles from the village of Quaker Heights; exiting at the State Capitol exit, locating Tumbrel Street … None of the Mattias listed in the directory lived on Tumbrel Street in Trenton, but Eduardo Mattia lived on Depot Avenue which was close by Tumbrel (so Agnes had determined from a city map), and there was Anthony Mattia on 7th Street and E.L. Mattia (a woman?) on West State Street, also close by. A large family—the Mattias.
    In this neighborhood, she could make inquiries about “Joseph Mattia”—if she dared, she could go to one of the Mattia addresses and introduce herself.
    Do you know Joseph Mattia? Is he a relative of yours?
    Joseph was a former student of mine who’d been very promising .
    Hello! My name is —
    Hello! I am a former teacher of Joseph Mattia .
    Her heart began pounding quickly, in this fantasy.
    Getting high was a dream. Waking was the fear.
    * * *
    In the cavernous house the phone rang frequently. She pressed her hands over her ears.
    “Nobody’s home! Leave me alone.”
    She had no obligation to pick up a ringing phone. She had no obligation to return e-mail messages marked CONCERNED —or even to read them.
    Since getting high she was avoiding relatives, friends. They were dull “straight” people— getting high to them meant alcohol, if anything.
    Of course they would disapprove of her behavior. Her husband would disapprove. She could not bear them talking about her.
    Sometimes the doorbell rang. Upstairs she went to see who it might be, noting the car in the driveway.
    These visitors, importunate and “concerned”—she knew she must deflect them, to prevent them calling 911. She would make a