LENA

He did not cross to where I was standing. He was in the specific and patient location of a man who had come as far as the threshold and had stopped there in the way of a person who understood the distance and was not going to reduce it without an indication that the reducing was wanted.

He was quiet.

I was quiet.

The city moved below us in its ordinary and continuous way.

I looked at the roses.

I thought about the word I had for what I was feeling, and I did not have it. I had the specific and approximate shape of a feeling that I...