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“That was Millie on the phone,” Sybill said, slapping her cell-phone shut as she padded into the kitchen in furry slippers.

“Hmm. And what did she want?” Phil asked, only half interested. His index finger was fixed on theLentils with Baconrecipe beside the stove. He had just sliced some cooked bacon and had added it to the onions sizzling noisily in a big pot, letting off clouds of steam. A pair of violins from a radio braided an intricate pattern, and the kitchen was filled with the smell of bacon fat and spices frying.

“Nothing. I called her,” she replied. “To ask about Christopher Plummer.”

That got Phil’s attention. He turned down the radio as the Janacek quartet came to a passage he felt was much too ponderous for that time of morning, and certainly for Sybill.

As he did, he glanced out the window and squinted at the bright snow on the porch and on the thicket at the garden’s edge. It had accumulated overnight, and although it was smooth as icing the snow weighed unevenly along the hedge’s length, undulating where it strained on the branches. The black wires above hung slack and bare and still.

“Was it her, then?” he asked, glancing back at the recipe. “(Mustard.)”

“Apparently.”

“Well, what can I say but sorry again,” he insisted, looking directly at her. “I felt sure it was Karine, or someone else.”

“So you did.” She stood at the threshold between the dining room and the kitchen, toying with a tear on her phone’s latex cover.

“Oh, come on, Syb,” he said, reaching for a teaspoon. “Let’s move on. I did apologize, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did.” Her tone sounded conciliatory but he felt that more was required.

“And I meant it,” he said as he put down the powdered mustard and the spoon, dragging the steaming pot clear off the burner.

“Look, Sybill,” he said, turning. “I regret talking to you like that. I guess I was feeling a bit feisty and maybe not in the best of moods – what with that play I sort of dragged everyone to, and… Well, what more can I say but that I really didn’t mean to embarrass you…?”

Still fiddling with her phone, she said nothing. He took hold of it so she would pay attention; her hand dangled briefly, then rested on her other wrist.

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