Free Shortest Day by Jane Langton

him, that he could not control his wife’s dreams.
    T uesday morning, and there was to be a technical rehearsal of the Revels. At the breakfast table Sarah made notes on her script. Morgan looked at her cautiously, and tried to sound offhand. “Do you mind if I come along?”
    Sarah looked up in surprise. “I thought you were going to spend the day in the field? I thought you said it was important?”
    â€œOh, well, it doesn’t really matter.” But Morgan knew it did matter. He wanted to catch the moment when the Canadas took off for good, when they stopped going from pond to pond and went south in earnest. It wouldn’t be long now. In this cold weather most inland lakes were frozen over. Soon the geese would stop their noisy descents to the few remaining spaces of open water, they would no longer graze in the stubbled cornfields. They would take off for the last time, squawking and shouting, heading south.
    But Morgan couldn’t bear the idea that Sarah would be spending the entire day in the company of Tom Cobb. Tom had grown taller in Morgan’s mind, his black hair was curlier, his muscular shoulders were broader, his encroachment on the territory that was Sarah Bailey was ever more dangerous.
    â€œBut you explained it to me,” said Sarah, “how important it is, trying to catch the day they fly away.”
    â€œI know, that’s what I said, but I’d really like to see—you know—the way the performance begins to come together.”
    Sarah looked at her husband and guessed what was troubling him. She smiled and reached across the table to take his hand. “All right, then, come on. We’ll walk over together.”
    For a moment Morgan’s bluff was called. Then his new protective intelligence took over. His jealousy had made him smarter. Spikes of cleverness bristled from his head like thorns of glass. “No, no, you’re right. You go ahead. I’ll drive out to Concord. The geese have been coming down on the cornfield on Route 117. If they leave there, I’ll try Fairhaven Bay and Flint’s Pond, all the usual places. Maybe this time they’ll take off and not come back.”
    The thing was, if he spent the day with Sarah, he wouldn’t see anything. If she knew he was there, she’d be careful. Morgan wanted to see what she was like when she thought he was nowhere near. Could he trust her? No, no! He couldn’t trust her!
    So he waited only a moment after Sarah clattered down the stairs before hauling on his jacket and following her.
    Mary Kelly spotted the two of them as she strolled along Cambridge Street, coming away from Niki’s Market, where she had bought a couple of sandwiches. It struck her as odd—Sarah was hurrying on ahead, with Morgan hastening after her half a block behind. Look at him! He was pausing, watching Sarah, not trying to catch up. How very strange. At once Mary’s pop psychology reasserted itself. Should she tell Homer? No, he would laugh and she’d get mad again. She was mad already, in anticipation. Better shut up.
    But a few minutes later, in Sanders Theatre, Mary saw Morgan’s shadowy figure on the upper balcony, nearly hidden behind the woodwork supporting the wooden vault. Watching, he was still watching.
    Then Mary forgot Morgan Bailey as the technical director got to work trying different effects of lighting, moving his switches up and down, adding here and subtracting there. He called to Sarah, “Hey, Sarah, where’s Tom?”
    â€œSick today,” said Sarah. “I was supposed to meet him for breakfast, but they had a message. He’s down with a stomach bug. We’ll have to get along without him.”
    The tech director laughed. “A stomach bug, it’s all that chocolate. God, that guy sure has a sweet tooth. Hey, Sarah, how’s this for ‘The Moon Shines Bright’?”
    The lighting effects were for Walter Shattuck, the Old