"Is there a place nearby?"
      "Not right around the corner, but not too far. Does that mean yes?"
      "Yes. I would like that."
      He drove to a little tavern in the cellar an expensive restaurant a few miles outside of town. The room was made of logs and stone and they sat at a small table beside a monstrous stone fireplace. Shim felt rather cramped and could not find a comfortable way to sit in the ladder back chair, which creaked each time he shifted and seemed about to collapse.
      "This is a lovely place. I'm glad we came." Mollie said.
      "It's not a place I go regularly, but I like to sit and have a drink with friends here once in a while."
      Actually, he had been here only once before, soon after the separation, with the husband of one of his wife's bridge partners. The man had dropped by to invite him out for a drink and a talk, as though they had been close friends. The man was quiet himself, and although at first the conversation was forced, in the end they had some laughs and planned to make this a regular "boy's night out." They had not gotten together since, though each time Shim ran into him around town, they reminisced as if the evening had been more than it was.
      "This is exactly what I was looking for when I decided to take the weekend. I love antiques."
      "There are certainly enough of them around Millford County."
      "I was at Monticello last year with a girl friend. I could have stayed there forever. Have you ever been?"
      "Three of four times. It's wonderful. My wife and I used to drive down to Charlottesville once in a while for little vacations."
      "Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man." she said.
      "Without a doubt." Shim said, convinced and fascinated by the way she looked directly into his eyes to emphasize the gravity of her pronouncement.
      The waiter, a tall, blond man in a flannel shirt, finally came over to them from behind the bar. He filled the aisle and, because of the low ceiling, seemed even taller than he was.
      "Sorry to keep you waiting." he said.
      "I thought you guys wore Colonial costumes," Shim said.
      "Saturdays and Sundays. But I've got a hat under the bar I can slip on if you want." He smiled at Mollie, who sat up straight in her chair and seemed to be enjoying every moment of this. "Food and drinks? Drinks? Or just food?"
      "What'll it be?" Shim asked Mollie.
      "Oh. I'm not hungry."
      "You sure?" he said and she nodded her head. "Just drinks then. I'll have a bourbon and ginger-ale."
      She thought for a moment and then said, "Do you have some mulled wine or hot cider? I know it's summer, but this just seems like the right drink for the surroundings."
      "I'll see what we can do," the waiter said, smiling as he walked back to the bar. He returned a few moments later with the drinks.
      Mollie was from the District, where she worked as a secretary to a curator in the Museum of Natural History. She lived with her mother and a brother who had lost an arm and a leg during the TET Offensive. Another brother lived with his family outside of Philadelphia. All of this was fascinating to Shim, who asked question after question once she had begun telling about herself. In conversations, he was usually the questioner -- it seemed the only way to avoid the embarrassing silences that somehow became a part of most of the conversations he had. He asked questions now because he did not want her to stop talking. His own voice sounded hollow and weak compared to hers, though she leaned forward when he spoke and seemed to listen as intently as he did. In turn she began asking questions and he found himself talking about things he usually did not talk about. When he told her he had a grown child, she asked about the divorce. She seemed sincere.
      "It went through four, almost five years, ago," he said.
      "Oh, so it's been a while."
      He had not thought of it as having been a while, though it certainly was.
      "It all seems stupid now."
      He could not remember the pain clearly, though he knew that there had been ugly scenes and moments when he felt he would not be able to survive. This in itself seemed ridiculous to him. He had the same type of memories about the year following his brother's death. Shim had been ten at the time. Certain events came to him as clear pictures, and with them came a feeling in the pit of his chest that seemed to be a manifestation of his grief, though he could not be sure. He pictured his mother at the backdoor, watching him through the window as he played in the yard. She wore a light blouse and a sweater, buttoned most of the way up. He saw this as clearly as any other image he could conjure. But he could not grasp the anguish that he knew had been there at the time. These things had left him, and what remained instead were more subtle changes. He was not without hope nor even especially bitter, though he distrusted the world and thought he was unhappy. But because he could not be sure that his unhappiness was any different from anyone else's, he diminished its importance, saw it as self-indulgent, could not claim it as his own and therefore could not grow away from it. Instead, he simply kept busy, as he always had.
      But he knew it was a lie that grief passes. It only takes a different form. He never got over his brother's death; he simply restructured his life to live with the fact of it, as one would after losing an arm. He thought of this as Mollie talked; and he knew the grief was still there, like some old school mate who had not been a friend, but who keeps cropping up until eventually a bond, almost a friendship, forms built simply on longevity. The pain of his grief had been diluted through the years until now the emotion was familiar and benign, one that he called forth when he was nostalgic. It was the only emotion he associated with his youth.
      "There are times," she said, "when I wish I could have lived in a cabin like this. I know it's silly. I'd probably be a slave."
      This was the first reference to her being black, and they both laughed knowing that a statement like this was inevitable, that the conversation would take a turn here.
      "Oh, I don't know. Alot of free blacks homesteaded in cabins like this." He had made this up, but thought it was probably true. "You can imagine it any way you like. Think about an evening in front of this fireplace. A big pot of venison stew. One of those big pots. What do they call them?"
      "A kettle? Or a caldron?"
      "Yes. A caldron of venison stew. What season would you like it?"
      "Fall. I like fall."
      "Okay, fall. Just cold enough for a big fire."
      They laughed, and together invented something they could share.
      He had not made love to a woman since his wife left. That last time had been in the Howard Johnsons along Interstate 81 in Harrisonburg, after they dropped Annie off at school. In the room next to them a young couple were banging the headboard against the wall like a hammer. He and Doris had laughed about this, though the noise and the attention they paid to it ended their own lovemaking and instead they listened. Their laughter turned to words and something was said that he or she-- he could not remember now-- had taken as an accusation, a judgement, and they had turned away from each other. When they rolled back over and spoke a few minutes later, they resumed the love making, but the humor was gone and their movements felt mechanical and humiliating, requisite steps in this last dance they were taking.
      When Shim finished his drink, he ordered another round for them both, insisting that Mollie try a Colonial toddy the waiter recommended. They both teased her; and as she laughed and hesitated and then finally said yes, Shim realized he was enjoying himself. He studied her face and neck, found her pleasing, and wondered if she were studying him, too. All of this somehow made him feel very much alone, though it was not an uncomfortable feeling, but more a recognition that he noted and kept to himself as Mollie told him about a trip she once took to Ohio. He thought of his daughter, Annie, who seemed suddenly a great distance away. His wife -- for the first time since she had left-- seemed no longer to exist. He was not sure if this were sad or not. All that was left of where she had been was the knowledge that she had been there at one time. Like his brother who had died so many years before, his wife had diminished to memory. His brother, wearing a plaid lumberjack, waited on a sidewalk for him somewhere deep within Shim's mind, and his wife, with whom he had spent so many years, took up only that much larger an area, but was no more substantial. She had, essentially, disappeared.

      They talked until only the waiter and two men sitting at the bar were left. As they were leaving, Shim took her by the elbow to lead her from the table through the clutter of empty chairs. It was an unconscious move, but one that led naturally into walk ing arm in arm. She seemed to like this and pulled in closer to him. He felt light and a bit ridiculous to be so excited about such a simple thing.
      Once outside she stopped to look up into the sky.
      "Look at the stars! I don't think I've ever seen this many stars. And the moon. Look at the moon!"
      "You want to see stars? There's too much light here. I know a better place."
      He led her to the car, and they left the parking lot. The drinking had made the world around him seem in sharper focus, more comprehensible, and he became quiet on the short drive home, concentrating on the sound of her voice while she spoke about the sky.
      When they arrived, he parked in front of his ham room, where he always parked to make it seem that more people were staying in the motel than actually were. He jumped out and made a great show of rushing around to open her door. She waited, smiling.
      "This way, please." He bowed and offered his arm, and together they strolled to the end of the motel and on around back. A brick path began at the patio behind Shim's apartment, and they walked this to where it ended at a wide strip of grass that divided the huge garden into equal halves. He had planted this year's rows diagonally, so they seemed to shoot out from the center toward the far corners. The moon was high and the shadows cast by the plants made the rows appear thicker and taller. He and Mollie strolled down the strip of grass until they reached the center of the garden where a single chaise lounge chair sat. Shim held her hand, sat in the chair and gently tugged her down to sit between his legs. She leaned back into him and he crossed his arms across her chest and held her as though they had known each other for a very long time. Together they looked up into the night.
      "Now, those are stars." he said, close and soft in her ear.
      "Yes," she said.
      The black sky alive with starlight appeared to swirl out from them; and for a moment, as he felt her fragile weight, Shim believed that all was well with the world, that there had been neither loss nor death, and that all that had ever happened to him and all that he had ever known was little more than a dream.

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