“Ad astra per alia porci,” Ben replied.

“To the stars on the wings of a pig,” Hudson translated. “I’d forgotten about that.” He laughed, thinking about Steinbeck’s personal logo, a winged pig he called Pigasus. It had appeared in letters to friends, drawn by Steinbeck himself, and it symbolized what he saw as his role as a writer.

“He didn’t think much of himself, did he?” Ben said.

“No, not much,” Hudson agreed. “I don’t think he had any idea how good he really was.”

“Most really good people don’t,” said Ben thoughtfully. “It seems to be the ones who aren’t good who celebrate their own genius.”

“Meanwhile,” Hudson added, “a real genius like Ricketts is sitting in a shack like this actually working.”

“Maybe I should ask Al if I can move my office here,” Ben said. “Maybe it would inspire me to new heights.”

“Where would you put Angela?” asked Hudson. “There’s no room.”

“I guess I’d have to add on,” Ben said. “I feel like that sometimes,” he added a moment later. “Like Pigasus,” he clarified when Hudson, confused, looked at him curiously. “Trying to get off the ground with only a tiny pair of wings.”

“I feel like that most of the time,” Hudson told him.

“Maybe everyone does,” said Ben. “Maybe we’re nothing special.”

“I think you’re pretty special,” Hudson told him.

Ben looked at him for a long, lingering moment. “You have to leave soon, don’t you,” he said.

“Janice and Renata come back on Saturday,” he said, not wanting to answer Ben’s real question. “I should probably get back to New Haven.”

He thought of Marty. What would he say when Hudson told him he’d abandoned the Steinbeck manuscript? And that reminded him, he had to remember to take the original out of the freezer and mail it to Helen Guerneyser. Then there was the decision to be made about what—if anything—he was going to do about a dissertation.

He’d managed to forget that there was a life waiting for him back in Connecticut. Now, when he thought about it, going there felt more like leaving home than it did coming home. He knew, too, why that was. He looked at Ben, who was watching him, and knew that he was looking at the reason.

“I have something for you,” Ben said. He reached into his shirt pocket and took something out. “Here.”

Hudson reached across and took what Ben handed him. It was a card, small and plastic, like any one of the many cards already in Hudson’s wallet. Only this one had a picture of a diver on the front, along with the words “Open Water Diver” printed in blue.

“Turn it over,” Ben said.