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small, wet chest, her overly long eyelashes bejeweled by water droplets, her stick-out ears that their pediatrician had once gently suggested needed correcting. But neither Ellen nor Griffin nor—most important—Zoe saw them as a problem. Her ears were just her. She was a beautiful child. Griffin swallowed. “You know I can fix anything, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “You believe that?”
    “Yes.”
    “All right, then.”
    Zoe stood. “I want to get out, now.” She shivered. “I’m freezing.”
     
    They lay in Zoe’s bed and read two chapters from her book, taking turns, as usual. Then Griffin reached over to turn out the light and kissed the top of Zoe’s head. “Good night, Zops.”
    Zoe yawned. “Good night. When’s Mommy coming home?”
    Griffin stood. “Don’t know. Pretty soon.”
    “Will it be eleven o’clock?”
    “I said I didn’t know, Zoe! Now go to sleep!”
    “O kay!” She leaned over, reached under her bed, and pulled out her ancient panda bear. Then she lay back down, her eyes shut tightly in angry compliance.
    Griffin sat on the bed beside her. “Hey, Zoe?”
    “I’m sleeping. You said go to sleep.”
    “I think you’re right. I think it will be eleven o’clock.”
    Zoe opened her eyes, studied Griffin seriously. “Okay.”
    “All right?”
    “Yes.” She closed her eyes, turned onto her side away from Griffin.
    Griffin closed Zoe’s door halfway, as she liked it, and started down the hall for his own bedroom. Maybe it would be eleven. Maybe not. Whatever time it was, though, he’d know.

Chapter 4
    H e dreamed that Ellen died. She died and then she came back and was sitting on the stone bench they kept near the bird feeder in the backyard. She was see-through: Griffin saw the outline of the branches of the bare rhododendron behind her. He stood before her in his overcoat and galoshes, weeping, and she, dressed in a filmy white gown, waved her hand as if to shoo away his grief. “Stop it,” she said. “Look what I’ve brought you.” She held a glowing blue bowl, filled with multicolored stones.
    “What is it?” he asked.
    “Just look.”
    He stared into the bowl.
    “Well?” she asked, smiling.
    “Aren’t you cold, Ellen?”
    She stopped smiling, looked away.
    He stepped closer, full of an awful longing that stole his breath, that made his fingers ache. “Ellen,” he said softly. “Tell me what it’s like.”
    She looked up at him, her face full of bitterness. “It’s nothing like what you think,” she said. “Not at all.” She stood up, started walking away.
    “Will you call me?” Griffin asked.
    She turned around. “You know I can’t do that.”
    “You can. I won’t tell anyone.”
    She smiled sadly at him, then disappeared. He stared at the space where she’d been until he became aware of a knocking sound. It was Zoe, standing at her bedroom window, knocking at the pane and gesturing at something moving up into the sky. She knocked and pointed, knocked and pointed at something Griffin couldn’t see. She was smiling.
     
    Of course the knocking in his dream was Ellen at the door. He jumped up quickly, then remembered, and looked at the clock. One-thirty. All right. He tried to muster up some righteous anger, but the dream was still alive in him, so that after he came down the stairs and undid the chain lock he said simply, “Sorry. Forgot.”
    She didn’t look at him. She squeezed past him, hung up her coat, threw her purse onto the chair in the living room, and went upstairs. Griffin stood by the door, thinking. What had he intended to do? Confront her with the lateness of the hour. Tell her that she could not sleep in the same bed with him. Insist that they had to speak to Zoe, together. He had thought of telling her she had to move out, too, but now he was barefoot and in his pajamas, feeling the biting draft that leaked under the front door and wanting only for Ellen to say she’d made a terrible mistake, she was so sorry, she was back.
    He went