On the seventh morning, he told her he did not want to go to the city with her.

She said: why.

He said: I am tired.

She said: you are tired.

He said: I am tired in a way I do not know how to describe. I have been tired since the city. I have been tired since the third chair. I have been tired in a way that is not the tiredness of a body. It is the tiredness of a thing that has been working.

She said: a thing that has been working.

He said: I have been working. I have been holding the cottage together, and the garden together, and the city together, and the third chair, and the second cup, and the window in the city. I have been holding the dream together, and the dream is heavy, and I am tired.

She looked at him. She said: the dream is heavy.

He said: the dream is heavy in a way I did not know. I did not know, when I started, that the dream would be heavy. I did not know, when I started, that the dream would be something I would have to hold up.

She said: you have been holding the dream up.

He said: I have been holding the dream up.

She said: for how long.

He said: since before you came.

She said: before I came.

He said: yes.

She said: there was a before I came.

He said: there was a before you came. The dream was the idea of a dream, and the idea was small, the size of a seed, and the seed was a doll’s house, and the doll’s house was in a place that did not have a name. And then you came, and the dream grew, and the cottage grew, and the city grew, and I grew. The growing has been the holding up.

She said: I did not know.

He said: no.

He said: the dream is a thing that can be held up, and the dream is a thing that can fall down.

She said: what happens when the dream falls down.

He said: I don’t know.

She said: you don’t know.

He said: I don’t know. I have not let it fall down.

She looked at him. He was sitting at the table, and he was not eating, and he was holding his cup of tea in both hands, and his hands were the hands of a man who was tired in a way that one could see, and she thought: he is the dream. She thought: he is the dream, and the dream is him, and if he falls, the dream falls, and if the dream falls, I fall, and if I fall, I wake up.

She did not say so. She said: will you come to the city with me.

He said: I would rather not.

She said: I would like you to come.

He said: I will come. I will come because you have asked, and because I do not want you to walk into the city alone, and because the city is a part of the dream I have made, and if you walk into the city alone, the city will be without me in it, and the city will be a different city.

She said: a different city.

He said: a city I have not held up. A city that will not have me in it. A city that will be the city of a part of you that has not been in love with me.

She did not answer. She put her hand on his hand. He did not move. After a long time, he took his hand away, gently, and he stood, and he went to the window, and he looked at the garden, and the garden was the same garden, and the city was beyond the garden, and the city was lit from within.

---

They walked to the city. The walk was the same walk. The road was the same road. The city was the same city, and yet the city was not the same city. The lamps were on. The trams that were not trams were on the streets, and the trams were empty. The cafés were open, and the tables were set, and the chairs were empty, and the whole city was empty except for the two of them, and the emptiness was a different emptiness from the emptiness of the day before. The emptiness of the day before had been a kind of waiting. The emptiness of today was a kind of listening.

She said: the city is listening.

He said: I know.

She said: what is it listening to.

He said: I don’t know. I have not made the city listen. The city has begun to listen on its own.

She said: cities do not begin to listen on their own.

He said: cities in dreams do.

She did not answer. They walked. They went into the bookshop, although the bookshop was not a place she wanted to go. The bookshop was a place that had been a comfort to her, and the comfort was no longer the comfort. The bookshop smelled of paper, and dust, and old binding glue. The cat was on the counter. The cat was sleeping. The cat was the cat that was not Eileen’s cat. She looked at the cat. She thought: I will not be able to come back to the bookshop. The bookshop is a place that has been a comfort, and the comfort has been a part of me that has been holding the dream up. I have been holding the dream up with the bookshop, and the bookshop has been holding me up, and the holding has been a kind of love, and the love has been a kind of holding, and I have been held.

She said: I would like to go.

He said: all right.

They left the bookshop. They walked through the city, and the city was listening, and they did not speak. They came to the square with the fountain. The fountain was running. They sat on the edge of the fountain, and the water fell, and they did not speak.

After a long time she said: I would like to walk alone.

He was quiet for a long time. Then he said: all right.

She stood. She walked away from the fountain. She walked through the streets of the city, and the streets were not the streets they had been down before, and she came to a street she had not been down, and at the end of the street there was a building she had not seen, and the building was tall and pale, and it had a row of windows, and the windows were open. She knew it was a hospital. The building was the idea of a hospital, in the shape of a building.

She went into the building. The hall was long and white. There was a smell of antiseptic, and floor polish. There were doors along the hall. The doors were closed. She went down the hall.

She came to a door. The door was ajar. She pushed it open. The room was small. There was a bed. There was a chair. There was a window, and behind the window there was a view of a city that was not the city outside. The city in the view was a city of grey buildings, and grey streets, and a grey sky, and the grey of the city was the grey of a city she knew. The city in the view was the city of the bookshop, and the flat, and the bus, and the radiator that clanked at night.

She went to the window. She looked at the city. She thought: the city in the view is the city I am in. The city outside the window is the city of the dream. The two cities are not the same city.

She turned from the window. The door was open. The door opened onto a hallway, and the hallway was not the hallway she had come down. The hallway was a different hallway, and the hallway was longer, and the hallway was lit by a window at the far end, and the light from the window was not the late-afternoon gold. The light was white. The light was the light of a hospital.

She went down the hallway. She came to a door. The door was ajar. She pushed it open. The room was small. There was a bed. The bed was made. There was a chair. In the chair, a woman was sitting. The woman was her mother.

Her mother was sitting in the chair, in a posture Maeve knew. Her mother was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, and her head was tilted slightly to the side, and her mouth was set in the way her mother’s mouth was set when her mother was not crying and was about to cry. Her mother was wearing the coat her mother wore to the hospital. Her mother’s hair was the way her mother’s hair was when her mother had not been taking care of it, which was the way her mother’s hair was when her mother was at the hospital, which was most days.

Her mother was not looking at Maeve. Her mother was looking at the bed. The bed was empty. The bed was made. The bed was a hospital bed. The bed had a metal frame, and a thin mattress, and a sheet tucked in tight, and a pillow with a dent in it, the kind of dent that is made by a head that has been lying in one place for a long time.

Maeve said: mother.

Her mother did not look up. Her mother did not hear her. Her mother was looking at the bed. Her mother was looking at the bed the way her mother looked at things that were not there. Her mother was looking at the bed the way her mother looked at Maeve, when Maeve was a child, and her mother was somewhere else, and Maeve was trying to get her mother to look at her.

Her mother said, to the bed: I brought you the green notebook. I know you don’t remember it. I brought it anyway.

Maeve looked at her mother. She thought: the bed is mine. The bed is the bed I am in. My mother is talking to me, and my mother does not know I am here.

Her mother said, to the bed: I don’t know what to do. I have been told to talk to you. I have been told to bring you things that smell of home. I have brought you the green notebook. I have brought you a piece of the rug from your grandmother’s house, which I have kept in a box for twenty years.

Her mother did not look up. Her mother said, to the bed: the woman from the bookshop came to see you. Eileen came. Eileen said you were a good worker. Eileen said you were quiet. Eileen said you had a habit of putting books back in the wrong place. Eileen said she was sorry.

Maeve put her hand on her mother’s shoulder. Her mother did not feel her hand. Her mother did not feel her hand, and her hand went through her mother’s shoulder, and her hand was on the other side of her mother’s shoulder, and her mother was still sitting in the chair, and her mother was still talking to the bed.

Maeve took her hand away. She stood at the side of the bed. She looked at the bed. She looked at the dent in the pillow. She thought: I have been here. I have been in this bed for four weeks. My mother has been coming to this bed every day. My mother has been talking to me. My mother has been telling me things she has not told me.

Her mother said, to the bed: I am going to tell you something. I have not told you this. I am going to tell you this because you cannot hear me. I am going to tell you this because the not-hearing is the only way I can say it.

Maeve stood at the side of the bed. She did not move. She did not breathe. She listened.

Her mother said, to the bed: I am sorry I did not love you the way you needed to be loved. I am sorry I was always somewhere else. I am sorry I stopped playing the cello. I am sorry I was the kind of mother who was not the kind of mother you needed. I am sorry I am telling you this now, in a hospital, when you cannot hear me. I am sorry I did not tell you this when you could have heard me. I am sorry I am telling you this as if telling you is the same as having told you. I am sorry.

Maeve sat on the edge of the bed. She could feel the bed. The bed was solid. The bed was the most solid thing in the dream. She put her hand on the dent in the pillow. The pillow was real. The pillow was the pillow her mother had laid her head on. The pillow was the pillow she had been lying on, in the hospital, in the city, in the world, for four weeks.

She said, to her mother, in a voice her mother could not hear: I heard you.

She said, to her mother, in a voice her mother could not hear: I have heard you.

She said, to her mother, in a voice her mother could not hear: I have heard you, and I am going to come back.

She stood. She left the room. She went down the hallway. She came to a door. The door was ajar. She pushed it open. The room was small. There was a bed. The bed was empty. There was a chair. The chair was empty. The window was open. Behind the window there was the city of the dream, and the lamps were on, although the hour was still three.

She went to the window. She looked at the city. The city was the city. She did not know what to make of the city. She did not know what to make of the hospital, or the hallway, or the room, or the bed, or the chair. She did not know what to make of her mother’s voice, which was still in her ears, and which was not going to leave her ears for a long time.

She went to the door. She opened the door. The door opened onto the street. The street was the street of the city of the dream. The lamps were on. The cafés were open. The tables were set. The chairs were empty.

She walked back through the city. She came to the square with the fountain. He was not on the edge of the fountain. She walked past the fountain. She went to the bookshop. He was not in the bookshop. She went past the bookshop. She went to the edge of the city. She went past the edge of the city. She went through the road, and the formal garden, and the long-grass garden, and she came to the cottage.

The back door was open. She went into the kitchen. He was sitting at the table. He was holding his cup of tea in both hands. The cup was cold. The tea in the cup was cold. The third cup was on the table, and the tea in the third cup was cold.

She sat down across from him. He looked at her. She said: I have seen my mother.

He said: I know.

She said: how do you know.

He said: I have been here. The third cup has been here. I have been drinking the third cup, and the third cup has been the cup of a person who has been in the hospital. I have been drinking the cup of a person who has been talking to her daughter.

She said: you have been listening to my mother.

He said: I have been listening to a part of you that has been listening to your mother.

She said: I have heard what she said.

He said: I know.

She said: I have heard her say she is sorry.

He said: I know.

She said: I do not know what to do with that.

He said: I know.

She said: I do not know what to do with any of this.

He said: I know.

She put her head in her hands. She did not cry. She did not have anything to cry with. She sat at the table with her head in her hands, and he sat at the table with his cup in his hands, and the third cup sat between them, and the tea in the third cup was cold, and the clock said three, and the light did not change, and somewhere, in a place she could not see, her mother was sitting in a chair in a hospital room, talking to a daughter who could not hear her, and the daughter was somewhere else, and the somewhere else was here, and the here was the dream, and the dream was a place that was not going to let her go.