Shiny varnish on paneled walls, a ceiling that was marked from the frequent hard rains and an assortment of furniture that only a mother could love; all the same, it would be a wrench to have to leave it. She leaned back her head and closed her eyes and she heard Kiel sliding open the door that let out onto her upstairs porch. Unlike his, hers was not screened, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. There was usually a breeze off the ocean and mosquitoes didn’t fly above forty feet, her landlord had told her optimistically. She opened her eyes to see Kiel’s face with a shaft of sunlight throwing into relief the prominent cheekbones and casting a beam behind the irises of his eyes so that she saw for the first time that they were really a clear, deep gray, not the opaque metallic shade she had supposed. He sat on the foot of the sofa, taking care not to jar her foot. “I’ll get you some water to take your pills with in a minute. First, before we get interrupted by the phone or by Dotty or an itinerant encyclopedia salesman, I want to talk to you.”
