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painfully against his ribs. “I’m going to go down and check out the Westinghouse,” he said, coming to his feet.
    “I’ll run a bath then,” she said with a coy smile that seemed nearly incomprehensible to him, nearly lewd, forbeing so far from the pure and tender vision he was trying to hold on to.
    It’s a two-storey house. There’s his shop on the ground floor at the front, kitchen at the back, living room, bedrooms, and bathroom on the second floor, and in the basement, under the garage, the locked apartment where he stores his vintage vacuum collection. As he passed through the shop he was hit by a tremendous urge to jump in his van and cruise the streets near Rachel’s school on the thousand-to-one chance he’d see her out playing. His head swam, a film of sweat coated his body. Close to panic he opened the door to the basement and thumped down the stairs, fumbling in his pocket for the key.
    Once inside the apartment, he moved around, gripping handles. He went over to the Westinghouse and felt a stab of grief to think of it gone. All his vacuums are in mint condition: chrome polished, motors and brushes refurbished, original unused bags. It’s the Westinghouse, though, with its zeppelin-shaped housing, that gives him the most pleasure.
    No, he thought, he couldn’t sell it. Business was slow, especially on the home entertainment side, what with the cost of parts and labour almost equalling the replacement cost of TVs, VCRs, and CD players. But he’d survive. You don’t sell a Westinghouse Tank Cleaner unless you’re a lot more emotionally prepared than he was right now to deal with the loss.
    Back upstairs he took down the bottle of Seagram’s, half full and untouched for five years, and poured himself a double. Something had to give, he reasoned, and better this. Above him in the bathroom Nancy sang “Yellow Bird.” He’d heard her play it on the banjo (she had an old banjo that usedto belong to her mother) but when he was right there in front of her she sang so softly the strumming drowned her out.
    He went still for a minute, listening. She sounded good. He thought what a nice person she was…not overly bright, but then he could do without bright. All she wanted was for the two of them to get married and live together in this house. Him, a fat appliance repairman, and this house, a redbrick dump in the middle of an industrial strip of auto body shops and burger joints. If he didn’t appreciate how little he had to offer—so much less than she imagined—he’d be flattered. He isn’t proud of the fact that he lets her think he balks at marriage because of her hysterectomy. It’s an excuse she can accept, though. Every so often, as if she wishes she were selfless enough to release him to a fertile woman, she says, “You’d make such a great father.”
    Would he? He once read somewhere that the incest taboo is a powerful deterrent, but people don’t go around admitting to desires like his, so who really knows? And yet look what happened with Rachel.
    His heart started drumming again. What exactly had happened with Rachel? Were his feelings those of a father, a protector, or was he romanticizing his lust? He topped up his glass and tried to think about this honestly. Both feelings were there, he decided, one shielding the other. Like lighting a match and cupping your hand around it against the wind.
    H E WOKE up the next morning believing that whatever had come over him was out of his system. The thought of Rachel gave him the expected pleasure, but nothing beyond that. Nothing he couldn’t handle.
    So he felt at breakfast. By nine thirty he was standing at the window and thinking about her mouth. An hour later, haunted by the image of her playing at recess, he closed his shop and drove to her school.
    He parked two blocks away. The recess bell rang as he was getting out of the van and he had to force himself to keep an inconspicuous pace. At the bank of newspaper kiosks near the northeast