She waits for us to get closer, then leans forward and whispers, “Mr. Ewen, he sometimes will hear something that will trigger him to lose track,” she points to her head. “If he starts prattling on about the war or whatnot, just give it a minute and he should snap out of it.”

My dad and I both nod.

Maggie knocks on the door and says, “Mr. Ewen, your company is here.”

There is a loud grumble and Maggie turns the knob on the door and pushes it in.

My father and I walk into a sprawling study. The lights, if possible, are set even lower than the hallway, and I find myself squinting at the man behind a giant desk.

He is bald, save for a few whispers of white hair. His nose and ears take up a third of his face and his Adam’s apple sags down a good three inches. His back is stooped, and his shoulders are in the process of swallowing his head. He’s eighty-nine going on a hundred and twenty. But even in the low light, his blue eyes sparkle. They appear as if they were plucked from a young kid on his skateboard and jammed into Mr. Ewen’s aging carcass.

Books are stacked in giant columns of various heights, some a head taller than myself, and feel as though they will topple over as my father and I amble past.

“Mr. Bins,” Ewen mutters, his voice breathy, heavy. “And who is this, your father, I presume? Mr. Bins Sr.”

Six feet of desk separate us.

I nod, then decide against sticking my hand out.

My father extends his hand and says, “Richard Bins.”

Ewen lifts a feeble arm and takes my father’s hand. “And I am Sidney,” he says.

A blur of orange bounds onto his lap, then once more onto the desk.

“And this is Peaches.”

Peaches is an orange tabby.

A big orange tabby.

The Queen Latifah of tabbies.

She flops down onto the desk, then settles in, her head sinking into the many folds of her neck and back.

My dad reaches out his hand and strokes her long fur. She purrs in delight.

“I know our time is limited,” Sidney says with a curt nod. “So, if it pleases you, we will do away with tireless pleasantries.”

I look down at my cell.

3:11 a.m.

I’m set to ask my first question when Maggie enters with two glasses of brown liquid on a tray. She hands one to my father, then sets one down next to Mr. Ewen.

She leaves without uttering a word.

Both Ewen and my father take small sips, then exhale a satisfying breath. “The nectar of the gods,” Ewen says with what amounts to a grin of his cragged lips. “Perhaps what I will miss most.”