The last time Joanna had been at the sprawling university in western Connecticut, only a few hours away from North Hampton, was at Ingrid’s college graduation. The school had looked particularly fine that day, with its blue banners flying and the apple-cheeked graduates milling among the alumni in shiny black top hats and greatcoats, swinging mahogany canes bedecked with ribbons in the school colors. Oh, she had been so proud that day! Joanna had been nervous, of course, that she would run into her husband, but thankfully he had kept his distance even then. If Ingrid ever discovered that her father had taught at the same university she had attended she was certain to hate her mother for keeping it a secret. Joanna had forced the good professor to take a leave of absence for four years while his daughter was enrolled.
Joanna walked about the tree-lined paths, past the Gothic buildings. It looked the same as it always had, the limestone and the ivy. “Excuse me,” she asked the nearest young person. “Could you help me find Professor Beauchamp?”
Just because she had not spoken to her husband for the better part of the century did not mean she had no idea what had happened to him. Far from it. She had kept tabs on him since their separation. It wasn’t too difficult. She knew he had spent most of his time along the coast; but when the work dried up along the shore, he had left the fishing business and settled into the quiet life of a university professor. He had been teaching for many years now; it was a miracle no one noticed how old he was, but then he was probably just using the same spell she used to be able to live in North Hampton for as long as she had.
She visited his office, but his teaching assistant said he hadn’t been keeping office hours all week. Joanna was able to procure his home address, which turned out to be not too far from campus. In a few minutes she found the small, well-kept building. The superintendent let her inside the front door when she told him she was the professor’s wife. His apartment was on the ground floor.
“Hello? Anyone home? It’s Jo.” She rapped on the door before entering and found it was ajar. She slipped inside. It was a small studio apartment, and Joanna was not prepared for what she found. A tiny room, spare and monastic. There was one small futon, with folded blankets, a refrigerator the size of a small cabinet, one writing desk with nothing on its surface except for a few photographs. There was a picture of Ingrid taken during graduation at the university—he had probably snuck that one while no one was looking—and one of Freya from when she had been on the cover of a magazine, when she used to live in New York. She felt a pang of sorrow and regret.
They had been happy once, as happy in a marriage as anyone could be, imperfect and struggling against each other as all couples did. There had been fights and rages and tempers. He was not a patient man and she was as stubborn as he had been. If not for the trials, perhaps they would still be together. If only he had done as she had asked maybe things would have turned out differently for them. . . . What was she thinking? There was nothing he could have done, nothing any of them could do to stop the trials from happening. That was made clear the moment the bridge was destroyed and they were trapped in mid-world. To remain here, they would have to follow the laws of its original inhabitants; they had no jurisdiction and could not interfere in the human realm.
Joanna removed her coat and sat on the futon, with Gilly perched on her shoulder. She was going to wait for as long as it took for her husband to come home.
After a few hours, she had dozed off, when the door opened slowly.
“Norman?” she called. “Is that you?”