Or was, actually, because, unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

The drive is still ten minutes, Ruby is still snugly strapped in her child safety seat in the back ofthe car, her sturdy little body encased in lilac overalls, her short-fingered, square hands holding a box ofraisins and a box ofgrape juice, and today she is commenting on the familiar land-marks they pass—the big kids’school, the abandoned apple orchard where the wizened old trees wreathed in autumn morning mist are so scarily bent, the big yellow farmhouse where there is always some sort ofyard sale, the massive pasture where every July the county fair assem-bles, with its cows and snow cones, Ferris wheels and freaks—but today it is all Daniel can do to pay the slightest bit ofattention to Ruby, because his mind is seized, possessed, and utterly filled by one repeating ques-tion:Will Iris be there?

Daniel has been carrying the unwieldy weight ofthis desire for months now, and so far his behavior has been impeccable.When it comes to Iris the rules he has made for himself are simple:look but don’t touch, long for but don’t have, think but don’t say.All he wants to do is be in the same room with her, see what she is wearing, see by her eyes ifshe has slept well, exchange a few words, make her smile, hear her say his name.

Until recently, it was a matter ofchance whether their paths would cross.Iris’s deliveries and pickups ofNelson were helter-skelter, one day she’d have him there at eight o’clock, and the next at nine-thirty—it all depended on her class schedule at Marlowe College, where she was a graduate student, as well as Nelson’s morning moods, which were un-predictable.But now, suddenly, she is exactly on Daniel’s schedule most days, herVolvo station wagon pulls into the day care center’s parking lot atvirtually the same time as his.He wonders ifit’s deliberate on her part.He has reached the point ofthinking so often ofher, ofso often go-ing out ofhis way to pass her house, oflooking for her wherever he goes, that it’s become difficult for him to believe that Iris is not thinking, at least some ofthe time, ofhim.