The image of Glenna as a child, alone in that sterile monstrosity of a house, sent a wave of sadness through me.

“My whole life,” she said, “it’s been Richard, Richard, Richard. Well, Richard was thrown out of three colleges. My father still sends him money, but has seen him once since 1960. My father’s sick about it. He’s sure Richard’s a genius. Just like he’s sure I’m his cute baby girl—incapable of anything important. Meantime, only something like nine percent of medical students in the whole country are women. Me, I’m seventh in my class at P and S, out of a hundred and forty-eight. And do you know what Richard the genius does?”

“A medical—”

“A medical researcher! Is that what my father said? For your information, Richard was kicked out of a clinical psych program at Northwestern for experimenting on undergrads with LSD—my father had to fly to Illinois to get him out of jail. And now Richard lives on a commune in Boulder, where he and the freaks he communes with all fuck each other like Nero’s throwing the party, then write pseudoscientific horseshit about their fucking and publish it in their own journal.”

Switching off the lamp, she curled next to me and began to cry quietly. I held her, desperately wanting to comfort her and judging it within my power to do so.

“Glenna, I’ve got a question.”

“I can’t talk about it anymore.”

“Not about Richard,” I said.

“Okay.”

“Who dresses your mother?”

Her laughter confirmed my grandiose belief in my power. “God,” she said, “her redecorating makes me insane. And she doesn’t like me. But she’s always loved me.”

I told Glenna that I loved her, and she said, “I love you, too, Gordo. So much.”

I pressed myself against her warm, milky skin and couldn’t believe my good fortune. Yet it would be some time before I understood that this was precisely the problem, the beginning of our end, that Glenna loved me.

So much.

Part III

Present: New York

Chapter 14

LALLY’S TAVERN WAS lit by hanging wrought-iron octagons that bathed the paneling in an amber glow. Through the arched hallway that separated the dining area from the bar, I saw a couple of customers on the red-leather-topped stools, but all around us the tables were still empty.

“Usually people drink cognac after they eat,” I said. “You want a sandwich?”

“I’m fine,” Glenna said, sipping from a snifter of Rémy Martin. “I started drinking cognac after my father died.”

“Sorry, Glenna. When?”

“Seven—almost eight—years ago.”

“And your mom?”

“She moved back to Maine—to Bangor. To live with her sister.”

“You two getting along?”

“About the same,” Glenna said. “When I go see her, she has her projects for me to help with. Her first one was for me to fix up and sell the house in Riverdale. After the house sold, I cleaned it out. There were three crystal decanters of Rémy Martin in the bomb shelter. I’d been down there before, but I’d never seen them. They were locked in a cabinet.”