“You’re not going to hurt me, you know,” Bethel says flatly. Mitty almost believes her. Her eyes are watchful, disappointed. Usually, Mitty would at least have to fight off the urge to apologize. But there’s an unusual absence of remorse. So much that she finds herself searching for it, wanting to feel it, if only to be sure that she still can. Bethel returns to the task of climbing toward her bedroom, not pushing herself to move any faster than she usually does. Her consistency is almost impressive, despite everything. Mitty can see the texture of Bethel’s ass, puckered with fat, beneath her thinning cotton nightgown. The stoop of muscle on her upper back. The pleated skin on her elbows. Mitty is so tired of thinking about aging. She shouldn’t have such thorough knowledge of the ways a body can drag itself out. Maybe Bethel is right, and she is preoccupied with Lena’s beauty. But that’s what was so nice about being with Lena, she thinks. Sitting across from a person whose features looked as though they’d been preserved by the glass armor of a china cabinet made Mitty feel like she deserved to be there. As if her proximity to Lena’s flushed girlishness meant she must have some version of it, too, some version of her that had been lying dormant beneath a layer of dust. Suddenly wiped clean.