“Let’s go to the pump house,” Tom said.
“No,” Elena said. “Let’s go back to the house and get warm.”
Their indecision had been a joke between them when they lived together; it got so bad that they could not decide which movie to see, which restaurant to eat at, whom to invite over for an evening. Tom’s solution had been to flip a coin, but even after the flip, he’d say, “Of course, we could still do the other. Would you rather do that?”
They talked for hours that night before they went to bed. They were squeezed into a chair he had hauled in front of the fireplace, both sitting on one hip to fit in.
“How could you think you’re not on my mind when I write you a letter a week?” Tom said, kissing her hair.
“You only come once a year.”
“When have you invited me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never have. I’ve asked you to visit me.”
“You asked Margaret, too.”
“I did when I thought that you wouldn’t come under any other circumstances.”
“Does Max like Margaret?”
“I guess so. Max is a real charmer. Max likes women. I don’t know many of his women friends. I just know he likes them, period.” Tom lit a cigarette. He threw the match in the fireplace. “And anyway, you’re not Margaret’s keeper.”
“The lease on the house goes until June,” Elena said.
“They can find somebody. And if they don’t, we can pay for it until then.”
“You’re being so matter-of-fact. It’s a little strange, don’t you agree? I don’t know. Let me think about it.”
“We’ll flip a coin.”
“Be serious,” Elena said.
Tom stood and got a nickel out of his pocket. He tossed it, turned the coin upside down on the back of his hand. “Heads. You come back,” he said.
“How do I know it was heads?”
“Okay, I’ll flip again. If it’s heads, you agree to believe that I was honest about the flip.”
He flipped the coin again. “Heads,” he said. “You believe me.”
He came back to the chair.
Elena laughed. “What have you been doing the last three years?”
“I put it all in my letters.”
“You never told me about the women you were seeing.”
“I was seeing women. Tall women. Short women. What do you want to know?”
He took out his pocket watch and opened it. Two o’clock. Margaret and Max had been asleep for about an hour. The front of the gold watch was embossed with a hunting scene: a hunter taking aim on a deer leaping toward the woods. He pushed the watch back into his pants pocket.
“I think you want to stay here out of some crazy responsibility to Margaret,” he said, “and there’s no reason for it. Margaret wrote me.”
“What did she write you?”
“That things weren’t going well out here, and neither of you would admit it. And, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t lying about the coin, either. It came up heads both times.”
“Does Max like her?”
“We just discussed that.”
“But does he?”
“Max charms, and screws, every woman who has a pretty face. Look: I asked her in a letter what she’d do if you went back with me, and she said she’d stay on with her job at the hospital until the lease ran out.”
The fire was dying out. The side of Elena’s body that was not turned toward Tom was cold.
“Come on,” he said and pulled her out of the chair. Walking down the hallway to the bedroom, he stopped and turned her toward the mirror. “You know what you’re looking at?” he said.
“A sheep in wolf’s clothing. In the morning you just say, ‘Goodbye, Margaret,’ and drive away with me.”
She said it, but a bit more elaborately. Max and Tom took a walk while Margaret and Elena had coffee. She told Margaret that she was going to spend the week with Tom, that after the week was up, she would be back, to decide what to do.
Margaret nodded, as if she hadn’t really heard. Just as Elena was about to repeat herself, Margaret looked up and said, “I always thought that Daddy liked me best. Although maybe he didn’t, Elena. Maybe he teased you so much because you were his favorite.”
Max came into the kitchen, followed by Tom.
“We ought to get moving,” Tom said. “Thank you, Margaret, for your hospitality.” He held out his hand.
Margaret shook his hand.
“Snow forecast,” Max said. “I heard it on the radio when I was warming up the car.”
The car was running. Elena could hear it. This departure was too abrupt. Earlier Tom had carried out two boxes of books and her papers. Max was swinging her suitcase.
Max kissed Margaret’s cheek. Perhaps earlier he had said he would call her. Perhaps Margaret already understood that, and it wasn’t as bad as it looked. After all, Margaret had been pretty silent about other things. Hadn’t Tom made that clear?
Max held open the back door. Elena hugged Margaret and told her again that she’d be back.
“Stay put if you’re happy,” Margaret said. It was hard to tell with what tone she said it.
They walked single file to the car. Elena sat between them. The radio was on, and Max turned up the volume. Margaret disappeared from the door, then reappeared, waving, wind blowing the white poncho away from her body. Elena could not tell who was singing on the radio because she never listened to country music. When the song ended, she changed stations. There was a weather forecast for snow before evening. She looked up through the tinted glass of the windshield and saw that the snow would start any minute; it wasn’t only the gray glass that made the sky look that ominous.
“God, I’m happy,” Tom said and hugged her. Max moved the dial back to the country-music station and began to sing along with the song. She looked at him to see if that was deliberate, but he was looking out the window. As he sang she looked at him again, to make sure that he wasn’t teasing her. Her father had loved to tease her. When she was small, her father used to toss her in the air, to the count of three. Usually he gave one toss for each count. Sometimes, though, he would throw her high and run the words together “onetwothree.” That frightened her. She told him that it did, and one time she cried. Her mother yelled at her father then for going too far. “How is she going to be an acrobat if she’s afraid of height?” her father said. He always tried to turn things into a joke. She could still close her eyes and see him clearly, in his silk bathrobe with his black velvet slippers monogrammed in silver, coming for her to toss her in the air.
They stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Max put a quarter in the jukebox and played country songs. Elena was beginning to dislike him. She already regretted leaving her sister so abruptly. But everything Tom said had been the truth. Margaret probably wanted her to go.
“Your shrink would be happy to see that smile on your face,” Max said to Tom. “He’d know that he was worth the money.”
“How long have you been seeing a shrink?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Tom said. “Six months, maybe. Is that about right, Max?”
“His ladylove left him,” Max said, “almost six months to the day.”
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” Tom said. “What did you say that for?”
“Was it a secret?”
“It wasn’t a secret. It’s just that I hadn’t discussed it with her yet.”
“Sorry,” Max said. “I’ll wash out my mouth with soap. Believe me, I intended nothing by it. If you knew how lousy my own love life was, you’d know I wasn’t passing judgment.”
The snow started as they ate. Elena looked toward the window because there was such a draft she thought it might be open a crack, saw that it was closed, saw the snow.