There was only the smell of coffee, the sound of the pot over the blue flame. The heater in the basement ticking on. “It’ll be fine,” Clare said into the quiet, as if she were the one to settle things. “The boys won’t mind. It will be fine.”

There was more silence and into it Annie whispered, “Bet she never leaves.”

As the girls were going out the door, Mr. Keane asked Susan, his voice low, if her father would be around this afternoon. He’d like to call him. Susan said he was usually up by noon.

Standing in the small vestibule, Annie asked him, impatiently, in a way that conveyed her disinterest in both the question and the answer, “Why?” The lack of sleep had turned her father’s skin to gray parchment. It had hollowed out the skin around his eyes. Just last evening he and Pauline had sat in the living room together with their cocktails, discussing retirement and pensions, the high cost of living on Long Island, the bargain that was Florida.

“They’re talking about sending her over to Creedmoor,” he said, quietly, shielding Clare. “For some treatment.” And to Susan: “I’d like to ask your father about that.”

The girls left the house, walking down the front steps into the icy morning cold. It occurred to them both that a year ago, they would have put their heads together and laughed wickedly at the news. They would have said, the loony bin. Perfect. Annie would have said, I knew it all along. She had already said, Grace Poole. But it was a cold morning, the dry air seemed scoured by the cold, and in their shortened uniform skirts and thin jackets they were both shivering by the time they reached Susan’s car at the curb. It would not be worth the effort it took to make a joke out of it all. The cold was bitter enough. Between the sidewalk and the curb the grass was frozen, each small blade frosted white. Annie heard it crunch beneath her feet as she reached for the passenger door. Tramp, tramp, tramp.

There was a car approaching from the opposite end of the street, the white of its exhaust no doubt exaggerated by the cold. Susan leaned over and opened the lock for Annie. Annie got in. Susan already had the heat blasting and the radio turned up and an unlit cigarette between her lips. They were late, but they were seniors, they were obliged to be late. The car passed them, moving slowly in what might have been an illusionist’s elaborate billowing of exhaust. Last night, when she’d gone back to her bed, she’d picked up the diary and written, underneath, “Here it is,” “Well, maybe not. Silly me. Only Pauline.” She and Susan stopped at White Castle for doughnuts and coffee and then spent five minutes in the school parking lot brushing powdered sugar and cinnamon from their plaid skirts. The old nun at the front desk, Sister Maureen Crosby, although the girls called her Chuckles, waved them away as they began to fill out their late slips, saying, with exaggerated patience, “Just get to class, ladies.” And they had only just turned away, heading toward their lockers, when the nun said, “Hold on, Miss Keane.” Annie looked back; the nun was squinting at a small strip of paper, as if it were a bit of late-breaking news, just in. She was soft and shapeless, slump shouldered in the black suit she now wore instead of a habit, a mouth breather, as solid as gray granite, as dependable, as immobile. The challenge was to get her to laugh just once during your four years at Mary Immaculate. “Call home,” she said.

There had been the car, of course, in its cloud of smoke, dreamlike, slow-moving, reading house numbers, perhaps. Chuckles lifted the phone from her desk and placed it on the counter just above her. “Don’t dawdle,” she said. The lights in the office were bright. They were bright against the linoleum in the hallway behind them. “Miss Persichetti, you can get to class,” Chuckles said, but Susan, standing close to her, murmured, “I’ll wait.”

“I am quite sure,” Chuckles said, as nuns did, “that Miss Keane is capable of calling home without your assistance.”

But Susan shook her head, lied easily. “I’ve got my stuff in Annie’s locker. I have to wait for her.” She touched Annie’s arm and said, “Go ahead, I’ll wait.” And then walked with her anyway, the few steps back to the desk. She knew, of course, what it was like to dread every message, every phone call, every change in the day’s routine. She knew what it was like. She watched Annie dial home (“Don’t each of you girls have your own locker?” Chuckles was saying) their eyes meeting briefly as she waited. Her mother said only, “Daddy’s coming to get you.” And then she was in Susan’s arms.

IV

Mr. persichetti was good enough to come along. Mary Keane was in the backseat and she touched his shoulder with her gloved hand to say, “This is good of you.” He shook his head, “No trouble,” he said. It was a wet, gray morning, cold yet somewhat humid: the terrible winter being edged out, once again, by spring. There were green spears of crocus, mere buds against the dirt, under front windows and along the edges of lawns. There would be daffodils soon, too, she knew. Then forsythia, azalea, rose, and rhododendron.

She leaned back against the seat, folding her hands in her lap. Up front, her husband said, “Do you take the Cross Island or go side streets?” and Mr. Persichetti said, “At this hour, the Cross Island’s fine.” At this hour, the neighborhood was quiet, and somewhat sodden from last night’s rain. John Keane drove cautiously, as was his habit. He wore his topcoat and his fedora-he would head for work as soon as they brought Pauline home-and beside him, hatless, wearing only a thin Windbreaker, Mr. Persichetti looked like a youngster. “I cut over to Northern Boulevard,” Mr. Persichetti said, “when it doesn’t look good.”

Mr. Keane nodded. They passed the church and the school, the row of shops. From the backseat, Mary said, “I think Susan and Annie actually left for school early this morning. They said they wanted to see the juniors get their rings.”

Mr. Persichetti turned a little in his seat. “That’s a first, hey?” he said.

“They’re the big shots this year,” John Keane said. “They think they run the place.” He touched his turn signal, pulled cautiously into the mid-morning traffic. “Next year they’ll be lowly freshmen again.”

“Coeds,” Mr. Persichetti said. He was both poking fun at the word and revealing his pleasure in the thought. “Can you believe it? Those two? College girls.”

“Lord help the professors,” Mary Keane said.

“Lord help the boys,” Mr. Persichetti said with a laugh because girl children went off, but they also came back. They were a comfort in your old age, in your sorrow over lost sons.

The three of them rode silently for a while, looking out at the passing homes.

As they neared the hospital, Mr. Persichetti sat forward, a hand on the dashboard, showing John Keane where to park. “It’s short-term,” he said. “But then when she’s ready you can pull right up to the door.”

Inside, he took them just where they needed to go. In his element, Mary Keane would have said, walking them assuredly through the halls to the desk where the paperwork was waiting and an orderly talking to another nurse looked up and waved and said, “What’s a matter? You’re back already? They didn’t let you in at home?”

“Can’t get enough of this place,” Mr. Persichetti said, laughing. When the nurse said she’d call to have Pauline brought down, Mr. Persichetti waved her away from the phone and took Mary Keane’s arm. “We’ll get her,” he said gently. And to her husband, “We’ll go up and get her. It’ll be easier.”

The floor of the elevator was wet, with streaks of mud, as if people had been coming and going all night. Mr. Persichetti pushed some of the dirt with his shoe and said, “Sheesh,” disapproving. He pushed the button for Pauline’s floor and then looked up at the row of numbers, his hands in the pockets of his Windbreaker. He turned to Mary Keane as the elevator began to rise and said, “I’m the regular mayor of this place, you know,” and then, as if to prove his point, the elevator stopped and the doors slid open and another orderly appeared, a middle-aged black man, pushing a wheelchair in which a pale, dark-haired boy was slumped, his long thin arms raised before his bent head, waving. The black man said, in military parody, “Mr. Persichetti, sir,” and Mr. Persichetti held out a hand. “Darrin, my man,” he said. Then he grabbed the pale, yellowed hand of the boy in the wheelchair, gripped it firmly. “How you doing, Larry?” he said. The boy, head down, neck twisted, his mouth veiled with saliva, said a tortured, “Good. Real good.”