Bremen nodded, distracted, and stood. Somewhat startled, Bob and Barbara stood also. He moved them toward the door.

“If there’s anything we can…” began Bob.

“Actually, there is,” said Bremen. “I wonder if you might take care of Gernisavien while I go away for a while.”

Barbara smiled and frowned at the same time. “The kitty? I mean, of course … Gerny gets along with my two Siamese … we’d be happy to … but how long do you think …”

Bremen attempted a smile. “Just a while to sort things out. I’d feel better if Gernisavien were with you rather than at the vet’s or that cat boarding place on Conestoga Road. I could drop her off in the morning, if that’d be okay.”

“Yeah,” said Bob, shaking Bremen’s hand again. Five minutes until the pregame show.

Bremen waved as they turned their Honda around and disappeared down the gravel drive. Then he went into the house and walked slowly from room to room.

Gernisavien was sleeping on the blue blanket at the foot of their bed. The calico’s head twitched as Bremen entered the room and her yellow eyes squinted accusingly at him for awakening her. Bremen touched her neck and went to the closet. He lifted one of Gail’s blouses and held it to his cheek a second, then covered his face with it, breathing deeply. He went out of the room and down the hall to his study. Student test booklets remained stacked where he had left them a month earlier. His Fourier equations lay scrawled where he had chalked them in a burst of two A.M. inspiration the week before Gail had been diagnosed. Heaps of manuscripts and unread journals covered every surface.

Bremen stood for a minute in the center of the room, rubbing his temples. Even here, a half mile from the nearest neighbor and nine miles from town or the expressway, his head buzzed and crackled with neurobabble. It was as if all of his life he had heard a radio tuned softly in another room and now someone had buried a boom box in his skull and turned the volume to full. Ever since the morning Gail had died.