His aunt was in Key Biscayne for the winter. The night before, they had trained the car headlights on the stump where she kept a jar with the house key hidden inside. Leaving New York had been a sudden whim; all day he had been thinking about the farm, and when he had mentioned it late at night to Laura Ann she had sprung out of bed and begun dressing, half seriously, half mocking. This was a just punishment for so much fretfulness. He had already complained that he wanted a garage that didn’t cheat him. That he wished the damned cleaner would smile less and lose his clothes less often. And snow falling on a Friday night—what was the point, when alternate-side-of-the-street parking couldn’t be suspended? “Come on,” she had said. “We act like old people. Let’s go to Pennsylvania. It’ll be beautiful in the morning with the sun on the snow.” It was as predictable as her amazed smile: when she took up things he had halfheartedly instigated, he would then go along with them, gradually convincing himself that he was doing her a favor.
