"Do you want to get something to eat?" he asked, confused by my menu remark.

"We just had dinner," I said impatiently.

"Are you sure?" He knew from my tone he could push safely, appear to care.

"Yes, I'm sure we just had dinner." Fully dressed, there wasn't much for me to do in order to walk out. I stood and put my arms through Willis's jacket. "Good-bye, Sixby."

He looked up from his seat on the floor. "Good-bye, Lily." And then, "I'm sorry."

"Oh, nonsense," I said, taking a candle.

"About your dress."

"Oh, that." The muslin was now spotted, indeed.

*   *   *

Proceeding directly to the attic, shielding the flame of my candle, despair took hold when I saw the exposed brick of the stairwell and smelled the musty rot. Wood stairs creaking beneath my feet gave comfort and the darkness recalled evenings with Willis, the moon in the window.

I lay down on the cushions in the window seat, grateful for their familiar greenness, and gazed out the window into the darkness. Then I sat up and stared out the window and listened to the small night sounds. My Jane Austen was not there, either. A draft extinguished my candle while I moved Willis's table and chair back to their regular summer places. I sat looking at them in the almost darkness, growing thirsty from the effects of the wine.

Perhaps it would rain. The idea that I could collect rain-water on the roof led me to try the door, hopeful that no one had bothered to lock it. Pulling on the rope, the stairs responded, unfolding like always. Climbing to the top, I pushed the trap door open, exposing myself to the cool night air, thankful the breeze was not so strong at night.

The world from the roof looked different in the dark. I sat on the tar and stone mixture and let it cut into my palms. Then I lay down on the stones, curling my legs up to my chest, protecting my head from the stones with my arm. When it began to sprinkle, I covered my face with my other arm. I'd done this before.

I'd held a yard sale to finance the purchase of my airline ticket before coming here. Late on the afternoon of my sale, I was hauling more junk out to the yard when my friend Lisa parked her Saab behind a pink Mary Kay Buick. Sympathetic Lisa, who'd met me in the office stairwell for details and tears after my termination, had come to get my cat, Boris.

"You're not selling everything, are you?" Lisa asked without looking me in the eye.

"Yes, I am." I couldn't afford to pay rent so I decided to sell it all and let the apartment go. I sold all my big furniture to a plump woman in cowboy boots before I even got out of my nightgown. The only things I would keep were the two large suitcases I'd packed, and the chest that held the childhood books my mother collected for me. I planned to store the chest of books in the trunk of my car while I was gone.

"Do you have any Hummels?" a gnarly man with a smoker's voice interrupted.

I had a vague memory of brownish figurines in my mother's china cupboard. "No," I said; Sue had surely tossed them.

Lisa exhaled noisily. "I'm going to say something and I'm counting on you not to fall apart," she said, as her eyes finally met mine.

We glanced to the street as a truck pulled up behind her car.

"Wait a minute." I held up a hand. "That truck is here for my furniture. I have to deal with this first." I pulled up one of the landlord's rusty metal lawn chairs for Lisa. "Would you mind being cashier while I show them what to take?" I handed her the money box as the movers lumbered up to my porch, dirty from whatever work they had done all day. I positioned another rusty chair to keep the screen door open and the driver looked at me sheepishly as if I were the high school social studies teacher he had disappointed.

"Wife says to get the stuff she bought," he said.

"Down the hallway." I took them back to the bedroom and pointed to the bed and the dresser.

"That go?" The other guy pointed to a lamp table in the corner.

"No," I said, and then reconsidered the business of hauling it out myself. "Yes, take it. Get it all out of here." I spoke too quickly, my restless mind struggling to predict what Lisa had to say. I couldn't imagine what she thought would make me fall apart at this point. What was left? I waved a hand and showed them the sofa and the table they were supposed to take. But instead of watching the men, I went to the porch where Lisa made change for my lava lamp.

"So what is it?" I asked; arms folded across my chest, cars slowing as they drove by. Most of my good stuff was sold.

Lisa said, "I think you should reconsider this move."

The men grunted under the weight of the sleeper sofa, passing behind me.

"Now?" I gestured to the people in my yard.

Lisa sat back. "You can still change your mind."

"Why would I want to?" I moved out of the way as the men went in for more furniture.

Lisa spoke. "You've had so many setbacks recently. I just don't think this is a good time to make a big change."

Someone stamped a cigarette on my front walk; a fat woman held one of my shirts up for size. I couldn't wait to get out of this place. As much as I filled my days with personal connections and my evenings with volunteer activities and social events, I was as lonely as the gray-haired widows at the early church service.

"You should consider seeing someone," Lisa said carefully, "as in a mental health professional."

Those were the words she had come to say; we were having an intervention. I shielded my eyes from the sun's glare and watched the men close the back of the truck. One of them waved. "We got it," he called, waving as he pulled away.

"You need time," Lisa said.

I often recited a litany over girl lunches and happy hours: It takes the average single woman two years to get engaged, one to get married, and three to have kids. A woman who has just broken up with her boyfriend is looking at anywhere from four to ten years before she can live happily ever after. Without exceptional beauty or wealth, it would take me ten years. I had no time. "I'm going to England," I said.

At midnight that night, every overhead light in my apartment blazed. I leaned against the bathroom wall and slid down to the floor. I would have fallen asleep on the floor had my phone not rung in my bedroom. "Hello?" I looked at my watch. Lisa enunciated as if a kidnapper held a gun to her head or she spoke to someone whose native language was not English. "Boris escaped when I opened my front door to get my mail. He has been missing ever since. Do you want me to come over?" she asked.

"No," I said. What good would that do?" Boris had made a break with his past. Good-bye Boris, I thought. I hope you find what you're looking for, too.

"I'm going to put up signs in the morning," Lisa said. "I'm so sorry."

"He's a cat," I said, rearranging the future without my precious Boris who had lounged on me through endless novels over the past years. If he were here he would be walking across this barren room to sit on my lap. Barren room.

An alarm went off; my room should not be empty.

I dropped the phone on the floor and ran. "Oh my God. Oh my God." I could barely catch my breath. I ran through my apartment from back to front, searching in case they had moved it somewhere, knowing in my heart it was gone. Just like Martin. Just like the job and the cat. I opened the screen door and ran into the street where their truck had been parked. "No," I cried. "No, no, no, no."

I collapsed on the curb, the heel of my hand landing on a shard of glass, a cockroach scurrying for cover. "Oh my God," I cried, in bursts of grief, rocking back and forth, my hair tangling in my face. I had no way to track them down. They had paid in cash. The blood from my hand got in my hair and on my clothes and I could feel it mingling with the tears and getting in my eyes.

They had taken the little chest and the books it held. The stories my mother had read to me were lost in some rural resale shop. I had not paid attention and now her voice was gone. I tried to remember the sound of Miss Clavel exclaiming, "Something is not right," and the old woman whispering, "Hush" as I'd snuggled into my mother's side, tracing the roses on the floral chintz love seat, wondering how there could be so much purple and blue in the pink petals. When she read, my mother's voice mixed the lush sofa roses with the soft reading light and the romance of storybook heroines. So when I opened the books she saved for me, I could hear not only her voice but everything she told me, using the words of the stories like a special code between us. All for me. Even though she was dead, I'd cherished this last connection to her. The collection of books offered me comfort and hope. Now the books were gone. How could I have let this happen? I sat folded in the grass by the curb and cried; I couldn't hear her anymore. I stared at the stars and a bug crawled onto my arm. Did I remember the feel of the soft inside of her arm as she turned a page of Goodnight Moon or was I creating memories?

*   *   *

I stood and walked to the front edge of the roof. Lifting my arms to my sides as if preparing to dive, the chilly air blew my skirt, my unquiet spirit gnawing from the inside. What if I just go away? Three stories below lay the great stone steps. Jumping would bring immediate and certain death. No more loneliness; no more pain, no more aching spirit.

Thick dark curtains separated me from the life I had known, curtains to guard the privacy of my self-destruction and reinforce my feeling that nothing waited for my return. Nothing lay behind me but darkness and nothing before me but the void.