A short time later, Reggie and Laura stood on the brick red cement front porch of Mara’s childhood home, waiting as a real estate agent struggled with the broker’s access lock on the front door.

“I love your accents,” she said as she tried again to get the numbers right. “This lawn will be green as Ireland if you give it a little water.”

Finally the lock fell open. She eagerly shooed Laura and Reggie inside.

Laura stopped for a moment, just at the center of the front room, and Reggie watched her turn and appraise the structure as if she truly meant it.

Reggie just watched and said nothing. He had never seen a woman stand still—in a room or on a stage—as evocatively as Laura. Whether it was strength, or vulnerability, or designed seduction, or all of them together that she sought to convey, she did so with the slightest upward tilt of her jaw, or adjustment of her lower lip, or what seemed an almost willful summoning of a rosy blush to her cheekbones.

Of late Reggie had been seeing too little of that blush, whether willful or involuntary.

The agent began to explain that the gleaming hardwood floors had just been buffed.

“Yes, they certainly have,” said Laura, and then, according to plan, she asked if they could see the backyard.

“Of course,” said the agent.

“So important for the children,” said Laura as the agent took them through the kitchen. The agent smiled knowingly and asked how many there were; Laura replied that there were none yet, but one never knows.

“There’s a beautiful old pepper tree,” said the agent. “You could attach a swing to it.”

Laura walked out under the tree, admired the branches, and said that perhaps one could. Then she casually pushed some fallen leaves about with her foot and studied the ground.

“Don’t worry about all these leaves,” said the agent. “It just sheds seasonally—I think. They’re really not a problem.”

“I’m sure not,” said Laura, smiling and looking up but still nudging the dirt casually with her toe.

“I think I’d like to see all that storage space now,” said Reggie.

“Of course,” said the agent.

Laura said she’d just stay and get the feel of the backyard for a few minutes more, and Reggie and the agent left her there as they went into the house.

Reggie examined the storage space in the garage, and the closets, and underneath the kitchen sink; he asked about the type of wood used in the new flooring and the number of sealing coats used on it; he said something random about the color scheme used for the bathroom tiles; finally, mercifully, as he stood in the kitchen and wondered aloud about the cost of redoing the cabinets, Laura appeared in the doorway.

The agent was looking the other way, fortunately. Reggie gestured subtly, and Laura reached down and brushed the last remnants of dirt from her knees. Then she nodded at Reggie and entered the room.

“Yes, it’s a lovely yard,” Laura announced. “Great for causing a ruckus.”

“It’s a fine house,” Reggie said conclusively to the agent, “but we’ll need to mull it over.”

The agent sensed failure and suggested that she show them another.

“No need at all,” said Laura. “It’s a perfect house. It’s us. Not the house. I mean, I’m just not sure the house is quite us. We need to toss it about a bit. Don’t we, dear?”

“Yes,” said Reggie. “That’s what we’ll do.”

“Well, don’t wait too long,” said the agent. “I’ve already had a second call on it today.”

The agent drove them back and dropped them at the Beverly Hilton.

Laura walked up close beside Reggie as soon as they got out of the car and whispered to him, “What a splendid little eight-year-old she was.”

“No argument, but what makes you say so?”

“The things she chose to keep and protect.”

“Such as?”

“I don’t think I’m at liberty to say; she meant everything in there to be a secret, of course. And I put all of it carefully back. Except these.”

Laura reached inside her blouse and carefully pulled out three thin paper sheets.

“I’m glad they used vellum for these,” she said. “It would have been a bit scratchy otherwise. But I’m afraid they’re a bit damp now.”

She handed them to Reggie.

“Pleasantly scented, though,” he said.

“I did try not to sweat,” she said.

She was smiling in a satisfied but eager sort of way. Reggie recognized it as her victory blush; it was the way she would be when coming offstage on a particularly good night, and in his opinion, there was nothing better in the world.

“I have to take these to someone who can read them. But I can be back in two hours,” he ventured hopefully.

For a moment, the look on Laura’s face told him she would say yes to this proposition. But then her expression changed.

“I won’t have time,” she said after a moment. She hesitated again, looked away briefly, then looked Reggie in the eye. “I have work to do with Robert later—I mean, if we’ve done everything we can here for the moment.”

“Robert?” said Reggie.

“Yes,” said Laura. “When I told him I had to come out here, he said he’d come, too; insisted on it. Very sweet of him, really.”

“You mean he’s here?”

“Yes.”

Reggie absorbed that. “I see,” he said. “What . . . sort of work?”

“Why, script changes, of course. What else would it be?”

“Of course,” said Reggie. “So much of Shakespeare is in need of a good polish.”

Then Laura went up to her hotel room, and Reggie caught a cab.