“Oh, yes,” he said. His voice sounded rougher, darker. “Yes, I want to.”

“Are you smiling?”

“You could say so,” he affirmed. “All over.”

I smiled a little myself. “OK, see you then.”

“Where’d you say your family was? Bartley, right? I was talking to a friend of mine about that a couple of nights ago.”

It felt strange to know he had talked about me. “Yes, Bartley. It’s in the Delta, a little north and a lot east of Little Rock.”

“Hmmm. It’ll be OK, seeing your family. You can tell me all about it.”

“OK.” That did sound good, realizing I could talk about it afterward, that I wouldn’t come home to silence and emptiness, drag through days and days rehashing the tensions in my family.

Instead of saying this to Jack, I said, “Good-bye.”

I heard him respond as I laid the receiver down. We always had a hard time ending conversations.

There are two towns in Arkansas named Montrose. The next day, I drove to the one that had shopping.

Since I no longer worked for the Winthrops, I had more free time on my hands than I could afford: That was the only reason I’d listened when Carlton had proposed the Christmas parade appearance. Until more people opted for my services, I had just about two free mornings a week. This free morning, I’d gone to Body Time for my workout (it was triceps day), come home to shower and dress, and stopped by the office of the little Shakespeare paper to place an ad in the classifieds (“Give your wife her secret Christmas wish-a maid”).

And now here I was, involuntarily listening-once again-to taped Christmas carols, surrounded by people who were shopping with some air of excitement and anticipation. I was about to do what I like least to do: spend money when I had little coming in, and spend that money on clothing.