a matter of time, he would say.
Julia's thoughts had become too boisterous for her to stay in bed with any longer, and she got up. She took off her nightgown, hanging it inside the tiny slanting closet under the eaves. The air was cool and fresh, and she felt her skin tighten against it. She shivered slightly, but she liked this brief moment of nudity, the sense of swimming in the morning's clear river. She dressed and padded downstairs, barefoot. The worn wooden steps were soft beneath her feet.
The kitchen looked abandoned and untidy, strands of corn silk on the floor, dirty pans soaking in the sink. The air was close and stale, and Julia opened the porch door wide and put on the kettle. She took the broom from the closet and began to sweep, enjoying the brisk abrasive passage of the broom, the deep virtuous satisfaction of cleaning. Next to godliness: there was a lofty claim. Certainly it was an instinctive impulse; animals did it, grooming themselves, licking and biting, keeping themselves clean. Dogs licking each other's face, horses biting languidly along each other's back. A healthy animal was clean, a dirty one was ill or wounded. And who was Hygeia, anyway? She washed out the last pans, rinsed out the sink, and made coffee.
She took her mug onto the porch and sat down on the steps, lifting her face. The air was quiet and fresh, and the sky clear. The grass in the meadow was heavy with dew. There was no wind; it would be hot later.
She wished Jackie were here, right now, to see the meadow, still shimmering with dew, the cove beyond showing a cross-hatched glitter. Right now, in this pale candid light, it seemed impossible to think of being troubled, impossible not to feel the certainty of some kind of clarity and grace.
The screen door behind her creaked, and she looked up, apprehensive that it was Edward. But it was Steven, tousled and barefoot, in wrinkled jeans and a T-shirt.
“Hi,” Julia half-whispered, smiling: the morning was still too quiet for talk. “You're up early. Want some coffee?”
“No, thanks.” Steven sat down in a chair above her. He stretched out his legs, crossing his ankles. “Yeah, I am up early. Don't know why.”
They sat in silence, looking out over the meadow.
“So,” Julia said. “You're back. Any thoughts on what you want to do next?”
“Yeah,” said Steven. “I'm thinking of law school.”
Julia took a sip of coffee. “What does your father say?”
“Haven't told him yet.”
“Why do you want to go?”
Listening to Steven's response, she thought, My responsible child. She felt a wave of helpless affection. She wanted to say yes to whatever he wanted. She wanted to make herself into a carpet, flatten the world beneath his foot.
“Of course we'll do what we can to help,” she told him. “I hope you'll end up in New York.”
“Thanks,” said Steven soberly. “I'll see where I get in.”
“You'll get in everywhere,” Julia told him. Steven grinned and rolled his eyes.
They fell silent, Steven squinting out across the field, Julia sipping from her mug. She was trying to prepare herself for the next, the difficult, subject.
“So, how's your brother?” Julia asked finally. “You saw him in New York?”
Steven shrugged, frowning. “Yeah, I saw him.”
Julia waited. “And? How's he doing?” Anxiety began to tick in her mind.
Steven shrugged again. “It's hard to say. I don't really know.”
Steven wouldn't tell, she could see that. She hated asking him to inform on his brother.
“He's not working,” Julia said tentatively, hoping to be corrected.
“He says he's getting a job.”
“That's great,” Julia said. “Doing what?”
“He said working at a video store,” Steven said.
“A video store?” Julia repeated, dismayed.
Jackie, with his quick bright mind, his sense of humor, his reach and grasp of life? In a video store, with its sluggish air, the bored and affectless adolescents behind the counter, the endless loop of action movies on the overhead screen? How had his gaze fallen so low?
But of course any job was better than none, better than sitting around in someone's apartment getting stoned. Anything was better than that awful glazed-eye apathy. Any job was better than those empty claims about rock bands and music production, those sad, noncredible schemes. Any job meant getting up each morning, clean clothes, punctuality. Responsibility. Those small-minded quotidian things. Her own gaze had fallen as well.
“Do you think he has a plan?” she asked. “I mean, long-term?”
“I don't know what he's doing,” Steven said again, not looking at her.
Julia watched him.
“What do you thinks going on?”
Steven shook his head.
“Do you think he's taking drugs?” she asked.
Steven hesitated, still not looking at her. There were certain things he did not want to say to his mother—or to anyone—about Jack. There was the question of loyalty. He and Jack were connected. He could not step across the family space to stand with his parents, though in his mother's question he felt the covert pull to do so.
“Everyone takes drugs,” Steven said flatly.
“Do you?”
After a moment he said, “Not really. Not anymore. A little pot now and then. Not much. But Jacks younger.”
“You think it's a problem,” Julia said.
Steven didn't answer.
“I suppose you don't want to say,” Julia said.
She remembered the afternoon, a few months ago, when she'd come home to the apartment to find Jack in the living room. For some reason she'd felt oddly alarmed at the sight of him; for some reason he'd looked like a stranger.
He'd arrived unannounced, and that too was disturbing, though she couldn't say why. Didn't he often come home without telling her? Or not? She couldn't remember, but this seemed different. And he looked so filthy, his hair so greasy and unkempt, as though for days he hadn't even run his hands through it. He seemed dirty in some alarming way, as though his body no longer mattered. Or was she overreacting? Most of her students were grubby and unkempt. But this seemed different, more serious.
He was wearing blue jeans worn to a colorless gray, an old zippered sweatshirt over a white T-shirt. He turned toward her when she came in, and she was shocked by his face. His eyes were empty.
“Jack!” she said. “How nice to see you!”
She'd tried to act casual and motherly, but her words had frozen. There was a terrifying
