On the day Daniel made the call, Marion had a coat spread across her worktable. Its owner had asked for the lining to be repaired and the hem checked before collecting it that afternoon. Marion had promised three o’clock. She wrote the time on the corner of an old envelope and set it where she could see it without lifting her head. She did not know when Daniel would telephone. They had arranged only that he would let her know afterward. That left the morning without a useful shape except the one she had already promised to give it.
She worked the needle through the lining, taking care not to catch the outer wool. Every passing car made her glance toward the window. She could not hear Daniel’s conversation from her house, could not know what questions might be asked or whether someone would regard the information as worth pursuing. She tried imagining a courteous voice, then an impatient one. Both were inventions. Neither improved the stitch she had pulled too tight. She loosened it and began that short section again. The work offered no wisdom, only a place where an error could be found and corrected before another person wore it.
At noon she ate standing at the counter until she noticed what she was doing. Then she put the sandwich on a plate and sat down. Frank had gone out, leaving a cup upside down beside the sink. She considered telephoning Ruth, not to ask about the call but to mention some ordinary thing. That was what she told herself while reaching toward the receiver. She stopped before lifting it. Ruth would hear the question beneath whatever small subject Marion selected. Marion returned to her lunch. She would not make her daughter discover that she had been recruited into waiting.
Daniel telephoned while she was pressing the repaired lining. She set the iron upright before answering. He said he had called the FBI and supplied the Midlothian address, along with the information she had given him. His voice sounded like his ordinary voice, which disappointed her before she understood why. She had expected the completion of the act to announce itself somehow. “They have it, then,” she said. “I passed it along,” he answered. She heard the distinction and accepted it. He did not tell her the information had proved anything, and she did not ask him to say that it would.
After they hung up, she telephoned Ruth as promised. The conversation was brief. Marion told her the call had been made and thanked her for listening the day before. Ruth said she was between tasks and could not talk long. Marion said there was nothing else she needed to report. For once she meant precisely that. She replaced the receiver without trying to turn a short conversation into evidence of rejection. On the worktable the coat had slipped partly off its folded towel. She lifted it before the weight could pull at the section she had just finished sewing.
There would have been ways to keep the day occupied with the lead. She could have asked Daniel to go over his part again, or watched for the telephone each time she passed the hall. Instead she carried the coat to the better light and checked the hem against the marks she had made at the fitting. Relinquishing the information did not feel noble. It felt like being unable to reach a shelf after putting something on it. She had wanted responsible people to take over. Now that the next decisions belonged elsewhere, she found herself resenting the very distance she had requested.
At a quarter to three, she cleared the chair for her customer and brushed threads from its seat. The woman arrived carrying gloves and apologizing for being early. Marion nearly said she had been waiting, then caught herself; this was not the waiting she had meant. She helped the woman into the coat and smoothed the shoulders. There was a question about whether the repair would show when the coat hung open. Marion turned back the edge to demonstrate. Here was something she could answer from direct knowledge. She had done the work, and the woman could examine it for herself.
The customer stood before the long mirror while Marion knelt with a pincushion at her wrist. Outside, a delivery truck stopped and moved on. No telephone rang. The woman shifted her weight, and the wool swung slightly above her shoes. Marion asked her to stand as she normally would, without trying to help the garment hang straight. Then she checked the line again. Whatever happened to the address now would happen beyond this room. A customer was trying on a repaired coat, and Marion kept her attention on the hem.