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turned back. Wilton had left his front door unlocked. Owen told him that the city might look innocent, but it wasn’t. He should watch out for coyotes loping up from the river, sniffing around for cats left mewing on doorsteps. Criminals slid by in silent cars, headlights turned off. Houses were broken into all the time; the smash-and-grab was a Rhode Island specialty, like frozen lemonade and clam cakes. He told Wilton about the crime in his own house. He hoped to scare the man some and make him pull back into himself, to make him slightly less sure that he belonged here.
    When Wilton went inside, Owen stood on the street and watched as a light went on in the bedroom where the former owner had slept—and died. When he looked at his own black bedroom window, he knew that behind it was the warmth of his wife waiting for him. In the kitchen, the plates were still on the table, the pots tumbled in the sink with their handles reaching out to be rescued. The room was filled with the mortal scent of extinguished candles.
    Upstairs, Owen stood in the dark bedroom and undid his belt. The brass buckle clinked.
    â€œThat sound,” Mira said, sleepily. “It’s really the most erotic one on earth. Come and fuck me.”
    â€œChrist, Mira. What’s up with you tonight?” He got in next to her. A salty smell escaped from the sheets, another gust when she rolled against him, another when she exerted the greatest power in the smallest pressure to move him on top of her. Her skin was an urgent temperature. She liked to be weighed down by him. She made him breathless in how she touched him, her fingers at the base of his spine. His face was at her neck, his erection insistent now. He listened for what she was thinking.
    â€œSo you didn’t really answer me before,” he said, parting her legs and sliding into her. “About what took you so long over at Wilton’s.”
    â€œWas it a long time?” She spoke distractedly, her body suddenly distant. “Wilton didn’t really need any help with the water heater, you know. I think he just wanted some company for a while, someone to walk with him through all those empty rooms. He was a little spooked by the place. Who wouldn’t be?”
    Owen stopped moving and pulled back to see her face. “What did you talk about that whole time?”
    â€œGod, who knows? And that shirt, open too far like an ancient swinger,” she said. “No one will know what to do with him here, what to make of him.” She rolled Owen off, her desire ebbed. He was left at sea, treading water, while she’d rowed to shore.
    â€œWhen does anything like this happen?” she asked. “When does someone like him just appear at your back door? I don’t know how to explain it, O, that he’s here now when he was just there.” She pointed at the television at the foot of the bed. “I don’t watch television for my entire life, and then, in the middle of the night, I see a show that’s been off for decades, I laugh at this guy, and all of a sudden he’s moved next door, of all the places.”
    â€œYou don’t have to explain it,” Owen said, irritated. “He has to live somewhere.”
    â€œYes,” she said, “that’s exactly what I mean. And somewhere is here.”
    â€œBecause his daughter is here,” Owen said, but he knew she wasn’t really listening. She was busy with her own logic. “I thought we were making love, Mira.”
    â€œI’m suddenly really tired. I’m sorry. I feel like an idiot.” She touched his face. “You know, it’s like I conjured him up. I made him out of my imagination, a real person.”
    Was Wilton who she needed in some way? The wine drummed in Owen’s stomach. He was far from sleeping, but in a few moments, he heard Mira take her dive into dreams.
    He imagined he heard Wilton shifting and sighing on an air mattress next door,