“Hard to say,” he said, packing a shirt.
“Two days?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“Three days?”
“Where’s my blue necktie? The one with the white mice on it.”
“I never did like that necktie.”
“Would you mind finding the blue necktie with the white mice on it for me?”
She found it.
“Thank you.” He knotted it, watching himself in the mirror. He brushed his hair and grimaced to see if he had brushed his teeth.
“Four days?” she asked.
“In all probability,” he said.
“A week then?” She smiled wildly.
“You can almost bet on it,” he said, examining his fingernails.
“Eat good meals now, not just quick sandwiches.”
“I promise.”
“Get plenty of sleep!”
“I’ll get plenty of sleep.”
“And be sure to phone every night. Have you got your stomach pills with you?”
“Won’t need the stomach pills.”
“You’ve always needed the stomach pills.” She ran to fetch them. “Now, you just take these stomach pills.”
He took and put them in his pocket. He picked up his two suitcases.
“And be sure and call me every night,” she said.
He went downstairs with her after.
“And don’t sit in any draughts.”
He kissed her on the brow, opened the front door, went out, shut the door.
At almost the same instant, so it couldn’t have been coincidence, Mr. Cole and Mr. Clements plunged, blind with life, off their front porches, risking broken legs or ankles to be free, and raced out to mid-street where they all but collided with Mr. Tiece.
They glanced at each other’s faces and luggage and in reverberative echoes cried:
“Where’re you going?”
“What’s that?”
“My suitcase.”