It took Hollis two years straight after high school before he could pay Alan Murray back, but he did it. He worked at the bakery on Main Street, putting in a full day before noon, and then headed over to the Olympia racetrack, where he learned that a man had a chance to double his money if he was willing to wager what he already had. On evenings and weekends, he drove a truck for the Department of Public Works, spreading salt on the roads in winter, cutting down branches and gathering trash from Route 22 when the weather was fine.

The weather happened to be exceptionally fine on the day that he left. March would soon graduate from high school, and she remembers that while she and Judith Dale were talking about her future, which seemed completely wide open back then, they had decided to clean the windows, the better to see the gorgeous blue sky. No matter how many possibilities March came up with-college, travel, a job in Boston -all futures included Hollis, that much was certain.

When Hollis came in to announce he had quit all his jobs, he felt he had never before been free. He had worked off his debt to Alan with the help of a gelding named Sandpaper who had run a race with twenty-five-to-one odds at the Olympia track, and who had amazed all bettors, including Hollis, by managing to win. Now, he could walk away, clean and clear, ready to start over. It was the most important day in Hollis’s life: the moment he’d been working toward ever since Henry Murray had died, but March didn’t realize this. Lately, Hollis had been working so much she’d gotten used to missing him; she’d begun to look elsewhere for companionship. She was going next door to the Coopers’ for dinner; she’d become friendly with the daughter, pale red-haired Belinda, and was thinking about nothing more than what she might wear that evening. Her blue dress came to mind, and so she didn’t have room to pay as much attention to Hollis as she might have.