Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

She lowered herself into the deep, old-fashioned tub despite the pain and let the hot water wash the blood away. She carefully did not think now, but treated her wounds tenderly, with a consideration she seldom gave her own body. The familiar red welts on her wrists were themselves nicked, but not reopened. She was not badly hurt. The long tear in her side was shallow, little more than a scratch, and had stopped bleeding.

When she no longer could keep the memory of what had happened from her, she took one of Dr. Goldman’s pills and lay down.

Before she fell asleep she made herself think over and over again: “I did not start the fire. That was not my fault.” She carefully clung to that thought until she lost consciousness.

When she awoke, she had a panicky moment of dislocation. The unfamiliar, water-spotted ceiling, the strange room, the rough blanket she had pulled over herself against the cold night air.

Then she remembered. The memory beat at her like one of her stepsister’s insistent children, demanding her attention. She remembered.

She felt little curiosity about what had happened to the man. He was dead, or he was not. She realized that she was angry with him. He had not tried to rescue her. She had been awakened by the smoke, not by any human cry. He had either died in the fire or left her there to die. All in all, she thought it would be better if he were dead; otherwise, she would have to see him again and deal with her anger and her embarrassment. She would not go to the authorities, for what could she tell them that would be of any use? Did she know how the fire started? No. The rest was nobody’s business but her own and Keller’s.

It was still a shock to read the headline in the local paper: English Department Chairman Dies in Fire. She felt less anger toward him dead. She felt she should be generous to his memory. Perhaps he had tried to save her. Perhaps she had been mistaken, and his dying cries instead of the smoke had awakened her.

She told no one, not even her stepsister. She still could see no purpose to it. She read the report in the paper several times, and found it to be substantially correct, if a little muddled as to sequence. The article made it sound as though there had been a propane leak that had caused the explosion and fire. The fire she knew had preceded the explosion, otherwise she herself could not have survived. How the fire had actually begun was a matter of indifference to her. An accident was an accident, and dead was dead. She saw no need to set the reporter right.

She did not attend the funeral. Her stepsister Jane did and reported that it was as well attended as might be expected at the beginning of the summer term. Jane said that Keller’s sister had been there but had not seemed to grieve overmuch.

Dana herself did not grieve at all but found Keller would not disappear easily, even so. He came to the edges of her dreams, his lean, tanned face by turns mocking her and berating her for her lack of feeling. On waking in her sweaty bed, she realized that she felt as abandoned by him as she had by James. Death was the ultimate abandonment. “Seduced and abandoned.” She was embarrassed to find herself holding such an old-fashioned view of an act between consenting adults. She knew she was more troubled by these feelings than by his death. She had scarcely known him. A few hours. Some pleasure. Much pain.

She and Jane were walking with Jane’s three small children in the open-air mall the day after the funeral. It was the afternoon of a lovely, soft, cloudless day. The mall was crowded as usual with musicians, acrobats, magicians, students, tourists, and townspeople. She let herself drift mindlessly, without conscious thought, over the smooth brick pavement, absorbing the sights, and the smell of hot dogs, fried foods, and incense, and the sounds: the music of the individual street players merging in mild disharmony, the throbbing of the drums of the Hare Krishnas who had taken one street corner joyously for their own.

She thought she heard someone call her name, and she looked back into the sun, shading her eyes, and thought she saw him: a shape, a momentary interruption of the light, sensed rather than seen.

“Are you all right?” Her stepsister was looking closely at her.

She could no longer see him. He was gone. But then he could hardly have been there at all.

“A new delusion,” Dana said uneasily. “I thought I saw Dr. Keller just now.” Her fingers curved about the vial of pills, yet she made no move to extract one. She felt none of the usual symptoms: the pounding heart, the constriction of her throat, the unfocused anxiety. She did feel shaken, because she thought she had seen him, her lover. Her dead lover whose mouth had the sweet taste of sherry on it.