sions, a Thursday.
He glanced at the spine but didn’t acknowledge
it. Later, she noticed Karl had added ”Shadows
of the Night” to the index cards on the floor. The
next session, she brought in Auden and Wilbur. A new index card appeared: “So much
fear.” And next: “Would this man, could he see
you now, ask why?”
And then John Donne.
And a new card: “Must to thy motions lovers’
seasons run?”
She knew for sure when she came home early
one March afternoon. Jackson was in the kitchen
wrestling with an old frame. He held it up to her,
shyly. It was a sketch she’d made weeks ago. In
his studio. A mother and her daughter, in matching raincoats, under a street lamp in a drizzle.
“Where’d you find that?” she asked.
“When I washed your car a few days ago.” The
statement held no hurt or malice, but she hadn’t
noticed, had plowed through miles of spring sleet
and road salt the past week. Thoughtless.
“I hoped it would be a present.” He
paused. Please don’t say it, she thought, and he
said “the cat’s out of the bag.”
“How’d you know it wasn’t one of the
kid’s?” He glanced at her, then to the refrigerator
where an assortment of purple mermaids and
short-necked, heavy-bodied horses hung from
magnets.
“You’re serious?” He set the picture
down. “You drew in college.”
“Yes.”
“It’s neat that you started again, is all.”
“Neat.” She picked up the frame and examined
the picture. “Well, you like everything I do.”
Jac