This was at the cottage in Maine they rented together for two to three months every summer for seven years. Nothing much; the last summer they were there before Maureen was born. It was on what they called “A Maine day”: mild, sunny, low humidity, little puffs of white clouds, blue skies, temperature around 72. If they were lucky: a light breeze coming up from the water. They loved the cottage — she started renting it three summers before she met him — and would have bought it if they had the money when it was being sold. He was in the kitchen, taking the forty or so diapers out of the washing machine and dropping them into the laundry basket on the floor. They bought this huge used washing machine the summer after Rosalind was born. They had no dryer. At the time, they couldn’t find a cheap used one and didn’t think it worth buying a new dryer for just a few months every summer, especially when the cottage could be sold out from under them, and eventually decided they could do without one. They’d hang their wash out in the sun, and if there were repeated days of rain or cloudiness, they’d drive to Blue Hill about twenty miles away and make a day out of it by shopping for groceries and having lunch in one of a number of good simple places while the diapers and other wash were being dried in the coin laundry there. He brought the basket of diapers to the porch. They had a couple of clotheslines strung out on poles he’d cemented into the ground in an open space near the cottage. But he needed clothespins for that, which took lots of time to use for so many diapers, and after a few minutes of hanging them up, his arms hurt. Instead, he now hung them and things like socks and shorts and, when the sun was very strong, towels and jeans over the porch railings. “Need any help?” Gwen said. She was lying on a chaise longue, reading; wide-brimmed straw gardener’s hat shading her face. There were a few moth holes in the brim and he could see a spot of light from one of them on her cheek. He said “No, no, you rest; I don’t want you to get up. Besides, you want to deprive me of my next to most favorite domestic chore?” “And what’s your most favorite? I remember what your favorite day of the year always is, but this one I forget,” and he said “Stacking them after they’ve dried.” “You’ll get no fight from me on that score. It’s so tedious, hanging an endless number of diapers out to dry. And maybe equally as tedious to stack them, so the job’s all yours,” and she went back to her reading. She was in a bikini top and Bermuda shorts. Prescription sunglasses; sandals off. Probably they were special shorts with an elasticized waistband, she was so pregnant. Half-filled glass of something in arm’s reach of her on the floor. By the color of it, iced coffee, with milk in it, and where the ice had melted. The four Siamese cats sleeping or resting under the chaise longue, their eyes closed. “You’re not going to burn?” and she said “Sun block. I’ve slathered myself silly with it.” “Still, you’re so fair; but it’s your body.” He started draping the diapers over the railings. The last few, when he ran out of room on the railings, he hung over the rim of the laundry basket and spread one out inside it. He used to also hang them over the porch’s staircase railings, but when they were done they often slid off. In an hour, if the sun didn’t disappear, they’d be dry. Then, on a small metal table out there, he’d very neatly stack them one on top of the other in two to three piles and bring them inside and take one pile to their bedroom upstairs where Rosalind’s crib was. At times, when he stacked them, he’d press a diaper to his cheek to feel its softness and warmth. He could see why she might not like hanging the diapers out to dry, but how could she not like stacking them? Not that she needed one with him, but it was probably just an excuse to get out of doing both because, unlike him, she liked reading more.