The Happy Couple

Mr. Tonner and Miss Price live in the end house on Stone Street. It is the last of the original buildings along the now-dry brook. The mill wheel remains, but as a novelty planter. They have lived there since their difficult births, the latter having killed their mother. Their father, the respected spoon designer, raised them to adulthood, and then perished in the storm of ’79.

Mr. Tonner makes his living by feeding hardcopy electricity invoices into a scanner and emailing the results, with his recommendations, to clients in seven states. Miss Price adds to the family fortune painting pastoral scenes on flat rocks she pulls from the brook bed.

They breakfast on muffins and tea, lunch on cold sandwiches of potted meat, and usually dine on a variety of Italian dishes — although Mr. Tonner appreciates the occasional hearty stew. Most evenings they labor together over jigsaw or crossword puzzles. They used to play Scrabble, but Mr. Tonner wearied of losing.

Last Saturday, per his custom, Mr. Tonner spent the first few hours after dusk visiting Mrs. Walter on Sunflower Drive. Mrs. Walter likes sherry, sweet biscuits, and tummy kisses. Mr. Tonner likes the way she rolls down her stockings.

After the usual brief commotion under the bedclothes of her four-poster bed, Mrs. Walter did the unexpected and requested Mr. Tonner spend the night.

Oh I couldn’t, Mr. Tonner said.

I won’t charge, Mrs. Walter said.

I’m expected home, he said.

Mrs. Walter disappeared under the blankets, but proved ineffective. Mr. Tonner was a middle-aged man of dependable habits, lacking the desire to overcome the pleasant relief of being entirely spent. He was already thinking of writing the check and being off.

When he arrived home, Miss Price asked if he had had a nice evening. She was at her sitting-room worktable, painting a sheep-studded meadow on a smooth rock the shape of Rhode Island. Mr. Tonner poured them each a whiskey and took his chair, the stuffed highback their father had been awarded by the city for excellence in spoon design.

Miss Price put away her brushes and paints, sipped her whiskey and said, I was thinking of a picnic tomorrow at the ruins.

The river ruins or the lake fortress? Mr. Tonner said.

The fortress, she said.

A wonderful idea, he said. I think we should ride our bikes.