Richard Meets Timothy Sanders and Sees Through Laura’s Story

Richard Flynn’s meeting with Timothy Sanders turns a chance encounter at home into the moment Richard recognizes that Laura Baines’s account of Sanders may be false. Sanders denies the New York trip and says he has been in Europe, directly contradicting what Richard believes Laura told him. The contradiction changes Richard’s understanding of his relationship, but it does not settle what Laura has been doing: as anger takes hold, Richard replaces one uncertain story with another, suspecting that she is with Joseph Wieder and that their shared work has been a deception.

The delayed departure and the keys

Richard is meant to leave for New York, but the plan is interrupted when Benny falls on ice while loading a hired van and breaks his leg an hour before the pickup. After calling from the hospital, Benny asks him to postpone their departure and use a storage unit near the airport instead. Richard spends much of the day moving boxes into the unit, which costs twenty dollars a month, and returning the van. The delay is practical, but it leaves him at home and unable to tell Laura that his plans have changed because she has not left him her friend’s phone number.

Richard looks for Laura at the university, only to find that she has already left. Back home, he decides to go to Joseph Wieder’s house and leaves Laura a note in case she returns. The keys to the professor’s house are kept in an empty jar on the sideboard with loose nickels and quarters. Richard puts them in his pocket before anyone arrives. That small, ordinary act becomes consequential: when Sanders later contradicts Laura, Richard already has the means to go to the house he suspects she is visiting.

Sanders arrives

The visitor is a man about Richard’s age, tall, thin, and haggard. Though the weather is very cold and snowing, he wears only a tweed jacket and a long red scarf; Richard thinks he resembles a French painter. Sanders seems surprised that Richard answers the door. For a few moments, he says nothing, standing with his hands in the pockets of his corduroy pants and gazing at Richard. Richard initially assumes he must have the wrong address.

Sanders identifies himself as Timothy Sanders and says that he was looking for Laura. Richard has several hostile responses in mind, including shutting the door or calling the police, but instead invites Sanders inside and identifies himself as Laura’s boyfriend. The unexpected invitation puts the two men in the same room before Richard has decided what he wants from the encounter. He tells Sanders that Laura described their relationship and complained that Sanders had been harassing her; he also says he knows Sanders came to the house a few days earlier, when Richard was away.

Sanders denies the accusation. Richard adds that he believes Sanders and Laura have been to New York City together, but Sanders disputes that as well. He says they have never gone there together, that he has not been there since the previous summer, and that he has spent the last two months in Europe. He also explains that he has fallen out with his family and now has to fend for himself. Richard notices how quickly Sanders smokes, taking deep drags that nearly finish a cigarette in four or five puffs, and his unnaturally white hands and long, delicate fingers. When Sanders gives his account, however, his voice remains neutral, as if he were stating something self-evident.

A changed understanding, not a settled truth

Richard becomes certain that Sanders is telling the truth and that Laura has lied to him. His response is physical as well as interpretive: nausea grips him, and he stubs out his cigarette. Sanders, looking toward the kitchen, says he had better leave. Richard agrees, recognizing that he cannot bring himself to question Sanders for more information, even though he wants to. At the threshold Sanders apologizes for having put his foot in it and suggests that the situation may be a misunderstanding. Richard says he thinks so too, but privately acknowledges that he is lying.

After Sanders leaves, Richard goes straight back to the yard and chain-smokes two more cigarettes. The cold no longer registers; his attention is fixed on Laura’s face as she told him what he now believes were lies. In the midst of that anger, he remembers one of their early evenings as lovers: sitting together on the couch, he ran his fingers through her hair and was struck by its softness. The memory does not soften his present reaction. Instead, intimacy and betrayal occupy the same recollection, making the change in his understanding feel personal rather than merely factual. He begins thinking about how to find Sarah Harper, the friend whose address he wants to know.

From contradiction to suspicion

Richard’s next conclusion goes beyond what Sanders has told him. He suddenly decides that Laura must have gone to Joseph Wieder’s house and that her story about staying with a friend was another lie. The keys are in his pocket, but their presence proves only that he can enter the house, not that Laura is there. Richard nevertheless becomes firmly convinced that he would find her with Wieder if he went. He imagines that everything has been a lie and that Laura has used him for some purpose he cannot identify, perhaps as part of a hateful experiment devised with her professor. He even recasts the library work as a possible pretext for keeping him nearby and imagines that the two of them may have treated him like a foolish laboratory subject.

The meeting therefore supplies Richard with a sharp contradiction, not a complete account of events. Sanders’s denial overturns Richard’s confidence in Laura’s story, while Richard’s own hurt drives him toward a theory for which the scene offers no confirmation. He has moved from believing Laura’s explanation to suspecting an elaborate deception, and he does not pause to test the distance between those positions. He calls a cab and sets out for Joseph Wieder’s house as the snow grows heavier. The encounter’s decisive consequence is this change in direction: Sanders’s brief visit sends Richard away from home, carrying both the keys and a suspicion that has already begun to outrun the evidence.