It absorbs sadness and sops up loneliness. It provides work, company, and entertainment. It makes tasks for idle hands and allows an anxious spirit to hide in its capacious bosom. With no one around her, Polly felt as if she had slipped out of earth orbit. She sat on the edge of the chaise in the bedroom. Her own room looked strange and sinister to her. She had absolutely nothing to do with the hour and a half she had until it was time to go to Martha’s. If she had planned better she could have been baking a cake, but she had not planned. It was a small thing, but a sign of how Polly had let things get out of hand. Since she had not known how long she would be with Mary Rensberg, she had decided not to bake. She had bought an apricot tart on the way home, and now, when she felt so frightened and lonely, she was deprived of the diversion of measuring, sifting, rolling, baking, and timing. A wave of longing for Lincoln broke over her. Not an hour went by that she did not look at her watch, calculate the time in Paris, and wonder what he was doing.
