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on the stairs were not Mr. Piner’s but the monster’s, whose unholy mission was to get her, Linda, where she shivered exquisitely in bed?
    Now, after she’d banged the boar’s-head knocker twice, she felt some of the old chilling expectancy. What if it was her father who came to the door, breathing his furious dragon’s breath, or the tired ghost of her mother, uniformly white, satchel in hand, ready to leave once more for a job?
    Then there was movement inside—someone broke the wavy still-life of her view—and the door opened. It was Mrs. Piner, wearing a green print housedress. Her shoes were white and rubber-soled.
    She had aged remarkably in those few years, and was wearing eyeglasses as dense as paperweights. She didn’t recognize Linda at first and thought she had come about a room. But even after Linda prodded her memory—“Alma and George Camisko’s daughter? My hair was longer? Upstairs?”—Mrs. Piner’s expression didn’t alter.It’s her bad vision, Linda thought. She’s probably almost blind.
    Linda explained that she was driving through and just dropped in to say hello. It was the most unlikely thing she’d ever said in her life. No one drove through Slatesville. It didn’t lead anywhere else. But Mrs. Piner didn’t take notice of the lie.
    Linda looked past her into the parlor, where Mr. Piner was sitting in an armchair, watching television. He was wearing a cardigan sweater over his blue work shirt, and corduroy slippers on his feet. He must have retired from the mill.
    At last, Mrs. Piner gestured Linda inside, and she found herself on the sofa, facing the screen. It was the only source of light in the long, tree-darkened room. She received a grunted acknowledgment of her greeting to Mr. Piner. He was busy with the remote-control panel for the television set, pushing the button with a steady click, so that cartoons, commercials, and movies went by with the speed of an express train. He finally settled on a quiz program that was in progress.
    Mrs. Piner sat next to Linda and folded her hands in her lap. Nobody said anything. A contestant on the quiz program had to decide if she was going to risk an accumulation of prizes valued at over three thousand dollars for the possible win of a brand-new Cadillac Coupe de Ville. “Oh, wow,” she kept saying, and the emcee moved the microphone under her chin each time she said it. The audience was screaming as if the studio were on fire and they were all trapped inside.
    What am I doing here, Linda wondered, but she also felt oddly comfortable, even sleepy. The Piners didn’task her to explain herself. They hardly paid any attention to her at all. She could have been their grown child enjoying a cozy daily ritual. “Oh, wow,” the contestant said again, and Linda slumped a little and yawned. She might have stayed there, forgetting Iowa and Robin and everything in their recent past, if Mr. Piner had not suddenly pushed his button one more time, throwing the room into darkness and silence.
    “Well,” Linda said. She decided to forgo asking about the rooming-house business, if it was profitable and pleasant. There wasn’t a sign of a tenant anywhere, and it might be an indelicate subject. Instead, she said, “It’s been over five years since my mother died.”
    Mrs. Piner came to life. She moved conspiratorially close on the sofa and said, “She died from the babies, you know.”
    “Pardon?” Linda said, although she had heard perfectly. Her mother had died of a stroke, of a rapid series of strokes, each one taking another faculty, another measure of hope. Linda looked to old Mr. Piner for help, but he appeared to be fast asleep. Old people dropped off like that.
    “From those tiny rooms they gave you,” Mrs. Piner continued, “and the babies used up all the air.”
    “Nursing is a difficult profession,” Linda said, and bit her tongue so she would not add, “but a rewarding one.”
    “The families sat around eating lamb chops,” Mrs.