The one on the refrigerator said: Where have you been? Make some time to talk. This, Gregor thought, was not entirely fair. He’d had plenty of time to talk the night before, which he had spent sitting by himself on David’s deck, looking out over the ocean. Last night had been David Sandler’s night to go up to Chapel Hill, where he taught a once-a-week seminar in the philosophy of free thought at the University of North Carolina. Gregor remembered wondering whether anybody ever used the words “free thought” anymore, or even knew what they meant. At any rate, Gregor had been alone, with the first glass of wine he’d had in months. The waves had pounded against the thick wooden pilings that held up David’s house. The full moon had floated in the blackness above the water, looking fat and smug. In the long run, Gregor didn’t think it had been such a good idea, being on his own like that. He had spent too much time on his own in the first six months after Elizabeth died. He had sold the apartment they had lived in together for so many years, and rented a smaller one, and spent night after night sitting on its little balcony, watching the traffic on the Beltway.
