“I put my arm around her and I bent down and kissed her, realizing perhaps for the first time how very tall I was, and feeling awkward in my somewhat new body. Then I let her go.

“As we continued up the drive, one aspect after another swept the same feelings of love and anguish over me, or maybe it was sorrow. I couldn’t identify it. As the wash of childhood memories paralyzed me and humbled me, I only knew I was home.

“Of course I thought of Goblin, but I felt nothing of his presence. And of course I thought of Patsy and I expected to see her by and by. But it was the very landscape itself that evoked these titanic emotions in me—the sight of Pops’ flower beds, the rolling lawns, the oaks leaning their dark elbows over the cemetery, the creeping swamp with its uneven wall of gnawing trees.

“Things happened very fast after this. And my extreme exhaustion made the events of the day fragmentary and disconnected yet bright and clear.

“I remember that there were no paying guests in the house because Jasmine had held all the bedrooms for Tommy and Nash and Patsy.

“I remember that I ate a monstrous breakfast cooked by a tearful Big Ramona who chastised all of us ferociously for having been gone three and one-half years. I remember that Tommy ate with me and that he seemed as impressed by Blackwood Manor as he had been by castles in England and palazzi in Rome.

“I remember that a darling little boy came in, a charming Anglo-African blending of blue eyes, distinguished African features and curly blond hair, who told me proudly his name was Jerome and that he was three years old, on both counts of which I congratulated him, wondering who in the world were his parents. I announced that I found him to be verbally very far advanced.

“ ‘That’s because he lives in this kitchen the way you used to do,’ said Big Ramona.

“I remember that Aunt Queen’s doctor came and said she had to have bed rest for at least a week, and her nurses should be there round the clock. It was old age, he whispered to me. And once she properly recovered from her overexertions she should be right fine. Her blood pressure was a medical marvel.

“I remember that I spent a desperate half hour on the phone trying in vain to reach Mona. Mayfair Medical would not even acknowledge she was there. And servants at the First Street house would give me no information either. At last I reached Michael, who would tell me only that Mona was sick; pray for her, yes, but to see her was out of the question.

“It made me frantic. I was ready to go directly to Mayfair Medical and search for her, room to room, when Michael suddenly said, as if he could read my thoughts: