Belle McGuire lay on her back in the hollow of her side of the bed. Her arms were thrown above her head, her body collected, at the instant of opening her eyes, with a sense of return. She felt landed, after an upward sweep, an aerialist stepping deft and sure from the bar to the platform. Her body attentive to the need to lay still, the composure of her limbs reflected the grace of the memory. Touching her face, she felt the tears.

She moved not a muscle. The dream was a gift. In it, she saw a wedding ring at the bottom of a glass of champagne, then turned back and looked into Paul's face and knew it was going to happen and was made happy in the dream, with its effortless congruence of want and fulfillment. She was happy still. The house was quiet. John and the children had made their racket down the stairs and in and out of the kitchen while she slept. The inexorable diffusion of consciousness seeped into her mind like a tide on the turn. Her mother would remember Paul, and their talk would be the needle hooking the random thread into the pattern of things.

She called and the phone rang and rang as the possibilities ran through her mind: out walking, shopping, getting the Times, dead in bed. Lottie Devlin, for 30 years now the widow of the late Patrick J., answered on the tenth ring.