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but especially novels, novels that describe the unwrittenness of unremarkable men and women. Their instinct is to keep these books flowing toward those who have lost touch with the “real world.” I’m their number-oneproject these days. “Here’s the new Atwood,” Tessa tells me today, patting the book’s cover. “It came in yesterday, and I moved your name to the top of the waiting list.”
    “It’s been nominated for the Booker, you know.”
    “Thanks” I say in an immaculate tone, “both of you.”
    They beam. And wait for more.
    “How’s Norah? Any news? Is she coming home soon?”
    No, she will not be home soon. That is perfectly clear. “I’m not sure when she’ll be home. Nothing much has happened.”
    The fact is, Tom and I don’t use the library nearly as much as we used to. Tom orders his books—mostly about trilobites—through Amazon.com, and I tend to pick up what I need in Toronto.
    “How’s she doing?” From Cheryl.
    “Reasonably well. As far as we know.”
    Ah! They exchange glances. Tessa, who has some of the rough, shaggy manners of our own Pet, reaches awkwardly over the counter and embraces me. “She’ll get through this nonsense.” She fixes me with a snagging look of determination and strength, that “carry on” look that brings tears to my throat.
    It was Tessa who alerted us to Norah’s whereabouts last April. We hadn’t heard from her for over a week. Tom thought Norah had quarrelled with her boyfriend, but I knew better. When we tried to phone we could never getthrough. Her last visit home at the end of March had been deeply disturbing. I thought several times of getting in touch with the university, but the idea seemed ridiculous, parents checking up on a grown daughter. We were worried, worried sick. Springtime depression. The thought of suicide. Only recently a Muslim woman had set herself on fire in Toronto. I read something about it in the paper. Then Tessa happened to go into the city to visit her elderly mother, and there she caught a glimpse of Norah when she came up out of the subway. Norah, sitting on the sidewalk, begging.
    “Norah?” Tessa said.
    Norah looked up. Of course she recognized Tessa at once, but she said nothing. She firmed her grip on the little square of cardboard and thrust it at Tessa. It must have been a cool day, Tessa remembers, because Norah was wearing a pair of old gardening gloves, far too big for her small hands.
    “Norah,” softly, “do your parents know you’re here?”
    Norah shook her head.
    Around the corner, Tessa opened her bag, fished out her cell phone, and reached me in Orangetown. Luckily, Tom was home. We got straight into the car and drove to Toronto. All the way, my chest was convulsed with pain. The air we breathed was shaking like a great sail.
    I’m supposed to be Reta Winters, that sunny woman, but something happened when her back was turned. Reta’s dropped a ball in the schoolyard, she’s lost that curved, cleanshell she was carrying home from the beach. And these two women—Tessa and Cheryl—know what I am, standing here juggling my cascading images of before and after, all my living perfume washed off because my oldest daughter has gone off to live a life of virtue. Her self-renunciation has even made her choose a corner of Toronto where the pickings are slim. I had to explain the situation to my other daughters, how their sister Norah was in pursuit of goodness. I remember that I sketched in the picture fast, using the simplest and shortest words I could find, as though a summary would take the sting and strangeness away. Yes, a life of goodness, that’s what she’s chosen .
    They’ve been expecting me at the library; I always phone ahead. They have six books stacked on the counter, The Goodness Gap on top, then the Atwood, then a biography and a couple of slender new mysteries for my mother-in-law, Lois, and a copy of The Waves for Christine, who has just discovered Virginia Woolf. These books have