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“Alba?” It’s Oliver. He opens the bedroom door cautiously. “It is you! You went by so fast I wasn’t sure.” He smiles and opens the door, then looks alarmed as I launch myself at him. He opens his arms at the last second and I huddle into him and erupt into loud messy sobbing.

“What’s wrong, Alba? What happened?” Oliver strokes my hair, holds me as I cry and repeats my name like a spell as I gasp. He assures me that no one else is in the house, just us, just us. We sit on the bed. I try to compose myself, then I start thinking about that phrase, compose yourself, how strange, as though I am trying to rewrite the jangled self that sits weeping into a more harmonious self. Oliver leaves the bedroom and returns with one of his enormous handkerchiefs, proffers it. I blow into it with a weird honking noise as though my nose has been replaced by a duck call. Oliver sits with both feet on the floor, his hands in his lap, watching me apprehensively. There are bloody footprints on the rug, dark against the pale green wool.

“A man chased me,” I begin. “He was in a car, and when I ran into someone’s backyard he chased me on foot and I had to climb a fence because I couldn’t find the back gate. Then I was in another yard and I made it into the alley and started running down the alley. I didn’t know where I was. I could hear him running behind me. He never said anything. The alley ended and I realized I was on Cuyler and I tried to run faster because I thought maybe I could make it here. I ran across people’s lawns because my feet were bleeding. I heard a woman yelling and I think someone might have tackled the man. I didn’t stop, I just wanted to get away.”

“Do you think he saw you come into the house?” Oliver asks. I shrug, then shake my head. He crouches in front of me and inspects my feet, holding each foot gently in his big, warm hands. “Your feet are a mess,” he informs me.

“A hospital visit mess?”

“I don’t think so. But you should take a bath, and then we’ll put that antibiotic cream on them. Come on.” He starts to pull my shirt up and I shrink away from him. “Sorry,” he says. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Ah. I’m thirty. We’re in different eras.” There is a border coming soon, an invisible barrier between yes and no, but today he is yes and I am no, so he stands up heavily and goes to the bathroom and runs the hot water for my bath. He brings clean towels, and I take off my clothes behind the closet door and put on my bathrobe. When I climb into the bath I hear Oliver walk slowly down the stairs and pull up the piano bench. While I soak in the almost-too-hot water, he plays the beginning of The Beatles’ “Good Day Sunshine” and then embarks upon Erik Satie’s Vexations until I shout, “Oliver!” and he veers into The Gymnopédies. I review my scrapes and wounds: my hands are raw from climbing the fence, there’s a long scratch on my right thigh, my feet are covered in cuts and tiny punctures. I must have run across glass. I am careful about vaccinations, especially tetanus, so I’m not too concerned. It hurts, but it’s all superficial. I dread having to let Zach see me all beat up like this. I hate to make him worry.

I dry myself and put on sweatpants and a big black sweater. I sit on the sofa in the living room and Oliver sits on the floor and applies the cream to my feet and hands. I reach under the sweatpants to put some on my thigh. I roll on cotton socks and stretch out on the sofa. Oliver brings pillows. Then he makes us both gin and tonics. He sits on the piano bench, sipping his drink and watching me.

“This is stronger than usual,” I say. “I feel like a little kid, home sick from school.”

“When I was little my mother used to make a special soup when I was sick. I wish I knew what was in it.”

“Chicken soup?”

“It was a fish soup. I remember eating tiny octopuses.”

“Octopi.”

“No, it’s really octopuses. I looked it up once.” He waits to see if I’m going to argue about it.

“Huh. I think that’s the first time you’ve ever corrected me about an English word.” I feel funny about it, but he is so obviously pleased that I laugh.

“You should learn Mandarin, then I can correct you quite frequently.” Oliver wiggles his eyebrows.

“I’m terrible at languages. I only know enough to read scores. I think the part of my brain that could have learned Mandarin has curdled.”

“It took me a long time to learn English. I think the translation robots might have hindered the process. Most of the learning happened here, with you.”

“Really? I’m not a great teacher, I don’t think.”

“You were very patient. Mostly you were older than you are now; when I was a teenager you were much older.”

“That’s kinky.” I’m joking but he blushes.

“Yeah.” He won’t look at me.

“Really?” I say. Oliver manages a smile. “So, like, what kind of age gap are we talking about, here?”

“I’m not sure. I never asked; it seemed rude. I remember your fortieth birthday, that was—very nice.”

“‘Very nice’?! Come on, Oliver, give it up. What happened on my fortieth birthday?”

He shakes his head. “Not what you’re thinking.”

“How old were you?”

“Seventeen.”

“And what was so memorable about it?”