Machine Dreams

away and drive down real quickly.”
    She walked into the kitchen and he followed her. Oh, did he have to follow her, as though she couldn’t even put groceries away without being watched? He unbuttoned his coat as she put the sack on the table and opened Gladys’ refrigerator.
    “Reb is bringing his wife tonight,” Mitch said, confiding in her.
    “His wife isn’t well, is she? Gladys says she’s very nervous.”
    “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with her. Reb doesn’t seem to know either.” He paused. “Will you be sure and talk toher tonight at the party? Just in case she stays quiet and doesn’t speak to anyone.”
    Jean turned to put the milk away and felt a little ashamed. That’s why he’d followed her in here; he really did care about Reb. “Of course I’ll talk to her,” Jean answered. “But your Aunt Bess will be there. She always helps at VFW parties, and she’ll certainly be talking to Reb’s wife.”
    “I know, but Reb thinks Cora needs to know more women close her own age. She’s only five or six years older than you.”
    Cora. Yes, that was her name. Jean had only met her a few times; you seldom saw her. How strange—the last time Jean had seen her had been last summer, at the graveyard. Jean had gone out with some flowers and there Cora Jonas was, sitting on a cloth spread across the grass, as though at a picnic. She seemed a sweet woman, but distant.
    Jean shut the refrigerator and moved to fold the paper sack. Where was it Gladys kept these? She’d have to put it in exactly the right place or never hear the end of it. She looked up at Mitch then and realized he was still waiting for an answer. “Don’t worry,” she told him, “I’ll talk to Cora. I’ll be sure to.”
    Mitch patted her shoulder awkwardly in thanks, then turned quickly and left the room as Jean stood with the folded sack in her hands. She heard him at the hall closet, hanging up his coat, shaking it out before he put it on the hanger. She sighed. He certainly was fastidious, even if he talked a little rough. She’d given up saying anything about it—then he only blustered and swore more.
    Once outside, she wrapped her coat tighter around her and pulled on bulky mittens. She’d have to hurry; as it was, she wouldn’t get back before the early dark fell. The blue Nash looked surprisingly bright on the gray street; in dusk light, the houses and dark cars lost definition, powdered with old snow and shadowed. Jean went around to the driver’s side and pulled on the door; heavens, why had he locked it? Now she’d have to take off the mittens, fuss in her deep pocket for the keys. Immediately, her bare fingers ached with cold, but the key fit and she turned it. Nothing. She heard then the dull thud of Mitch’s hand on Gladys’living room window and saw him, in his bathrobe, elaborately motion that she should turn the key the other way. Jean waved cheerily, pretended not to have understood, and opened the car door. There.
    The car started smoothly and easily—not even a clutch or a gearshift; a child could drive it. She sat letting the engine warm, hugging herself in the cold and smiling. If she tried to take off too soon, he’d be running out here in his bare feet to stop her. She could feel him at the window, still watching, but she looked steadfastly ahead. Finally the curtain dropped back into place; she was alone. Jean eased the Nash down the street on the soft cover of snow and heard the muffled road under the wheels.
    Anniversaries were strange; you felt the important ones in your body even if you tried not to remember—and not just the day of the event but the days before and after. A deep change was a short season of its own; you felt the season come and go for years after. Tom had died in the spring, late May, when they were seventeen. Jean felt it, every spring, before she remembered what she felt. Now she knew they’d been children, but still—not such children. They were in love; maybe they would have married in a couple of years, and grown up. After he died, Jean had felt that now she was like anyone else: it didn’t matter so much who she married.
    She stopped the Nash at the turn onto Quality Hill; it was such a quiet car that you could drive along with no diversion from your thoughts. Jean looked down toward town and she could see the traffic on Main Street, the lights of the cars. She turned the other way, up the hill toward the country. She’d go right past the concrete