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At least paramecia get to have fringelike cilia all around their bodies, which seem sort of lively and fun. It's been a very long time since Helen felt lively or fun.
    Now she hears the noise again: Is it footsteps? Her pulse quickens, her breathing stops. “Dan?” she calls, her hand to her throat. He's not there; of course he's not there, but if the killer thinks a man is there, he might leave. Only last week, she read in the local paper about an intruder who was frightened away when the woman who was at home (in the bathroom, no less!) called out her husband's name. She moves to the top of the stairs. “Dan?” she says again, louder.
    Nothing.
    Oh, what to do? She stands still and then hears noise again, but now she sees that it is coming from outside and is not footsteps at all—it is a piece of equipment someone is using against the side of their house. The phone rings and she stares at it until the message machine picks up. She hears a man's voice and listens for a while without being able to identify who it is. How lovely to hear a man's voice in her house. Then she recognizes her accountant, going on about some discrepancy and asking her to call him back.
    She doesn't want to call Steve Parker. She doesn't want to talk about finances. She wants a different message. What? What does she want to hear?
    Nothing.
    Well, not true. She would like to hear, “Helen? It's Dan. Don't tell I called you, it's not allowed.” That is a message she would like to hear; that is a call she would like to take. Even if he could never call again, if he could just call once and say, “I'm all right, it turns out everything after death is just great. I'm here waiting, sweetheart; take your time, but I'm here waiting for you.”
    Late afternoon in November. If it were a song, it would be a sad one. What will she do tonight? Take a bath. Make herself a nice dinner. At the notion of this, her spirits lift in the smallest of ways, like an ancient dog lifting his head at the sound of the word “walk.” Recipe books spread out on the kitchen table: myriad choices, all for something good. It's a welcome diversion. She has a pork tenderloin. She has apples and potatoes. She has green beans. She is armed with groceries.
    A few hours later, Helen sits at the head of the dining room table finishing the rather lavish meal she prepared: roast pork with cinnamon apple chutney, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans with crispy shallots. She made an apple crisp for dessert, but she's too full to eat it and doesn't really want it anyway; she just wanted to smell it baking.
    When she carries the dishes into the kitchen, she notices the light on her phone blinking. It's not Steve; she erased his message when she came down to make dinner. Then she remembers that when the roast was in the oven, she brought the garbage out to the curb and stopped to talk to her next-door neighbor, Joanie—probably the call came in then. She presses the button and hears a young woman saying, “This is Amy Burken calling from Anthropologie? I understand you were in the store to fill out an application, but you had to leave before you could interview? I wondered if you'd be able to come to the store tomorrow at one. I'll assume you'll be there unless I hear otherwise.”
    Helen stands with her half-full plate in her hand, thinking. What would be so terrible about taking a job just for the holidays? The reality is that it's six-thirty in the evening and she's in her pajamas—again. It might do her a lot of good to get out of the house and be with people, despite the fact that they're nowhere near her age. In fact, working with mostly young people might show her that she has more in common with them than she thinks. They might really like her; she might become their pet. Their affection might impress Tessa. Never mind the negativity she was suddenly seized by in the store this afternoon. If nothing else, an outside job would get her mind off her inability to work at