A Doubter's Almanac by Ethan Canin

the quatrant and now Cle—she arrived every other afternoon with a cup of tea and a book—he had no chance. His intention was to work, but she would do something—touch one of her calves, unspool her hair from its bun—and they would move frantically to the bed, pulling at each other. They’d stay there until one of them grew hungry. Then they’d go upstairs to the Indian restaurant across the street. The spices turned her lips bright red. He almost couldn’t eat.
    All the while, he could feel Borland waiting.
    One afternoon she was pounding on the door. She rushed in, threw it closed behind her, and pulled down the shades. A Turkish coffee was in her hand, the blue ceramic cup shaking on its saucer. “It’s from that Middle Eastern place on the corner,” she whispered breathlessly. “I was going to bring it right back.” She lifted one of the shades and dropped it again. “But they came after me. I think he’s out there.”

    “Who is?”
    “The waiter.”
    He regarded her. “Did you just steal a cup of coffee, Cle?”
    “Screw you, Andret.” She peeked out from behind the shade again.
    Then it happened: he was confused. For a moment, there seemed to be two thoughts entering his mind at once. It was a moment—half a moment—of misperception. She seemed to be very far away, her voice coming from some other room.
    Then it cleared.
    “All right,” he said. He took the cup and pulled out a chair for her. “Partners in crime, then. What do you think of that?”
    “You’re not the type.”
    “I’m not? What about this?” From the closet he pulled out a pint of whiskey that he’d bought that morning. He’d wrapped it as a Christmas gift for Borland; but now he tore apart the wrapping and fortified the coffee. He needed calm. “To something different,” he said. When she’d drunk it down, he poured a shot for himself.
    —
    A T C HRISTMAS, HE took the bus home to Cheboygan. The road leading up to the house was piled with snow, and all along the hill the rows of spruces hung low with their winter weight. In Berkeley, he’d boarded the bus in a T-shirt. Now he moved morosely through the old rooms in his flannels, looking out the windows while his mother sat at the reading table and his father tinkered outside. He read his coursework; he slept long hours in his bed; sometimes he went out to the woods, though he felt separated from them now. He would open the thin Pelado and Harkness text on characteristic classes that Hans Borland had lent him, then sit at the radiator flipping the pages in his lap, thinking of Cle.
    Calling felt like weakness.

    Only when he was asleep did he not pine for her. His nights were fitful, disturbed by dreams of plunging. Every morning shortly after dawn, regardless of whether it had snowed during the night, his father would put on his boots and go out to salt the walks. Then came the hollow wallop of the drifts falling to the hedges as the old man worked his way around the garage eaves with a broom. Milo would turn to the wall and try to sleep, thinking of the soft shelf of heat where he’d curled his legs behind Cle’s just a few nights before.
    She’d gone home to see her family in Minnesota. No more than a narrow sliver of land separated them now, but something other than the map made it insurmountable. He’d called her on his first night home and she’d seemed distant, an intermittent stream of laughter emerging on the line from somewhere in the house. She had sisters. He waited for her to call back, but she didn’t. He gave in and tried again two nights later, but the sister who answered the phone hesitated for a moment, then told him she’d gone out. He vowed not to call again till the week was up.
    He wondered what Earl Biettermann was doing over the break.
    Time was interminable. He knew he ought to be working on the Malosz, but watching his mother with her novels and his father with his tools—he was starting another one of his projects—leadened him. It