“What happened?” I asked.

“The day before I left Brooklyn, the phone—”

“The phone what, Ma?”

“The phone rings.”

“The phone rings and?”

“And it was Glenna.”

I was excited at first and then incensed at Glenna for calling. “What did she want?”

My mother shrugged. “Who knows? We only talked a little. I told her you’d be here today and gave her my address and my number. She said she’d call around five.”

“Ma, you didn’t even like her.”

“I never said I didn’t like Glenna. I said she—forget what I said. You’ve been—I don’t know, you’ve been so sad.”

The phone started ringing inside the apartment.

“Go on,” my mother said. “You’ll never know if you don’t answer it.”

I went in and picked up.

“Gordon? How are you?”

I hadn’t heard Glenna’s voice in more than three years, but the soothing familiarity of it made it seem as if we had spoken yesterday. I wanted to hang up while simultaneously wanting to slip through the wires and wrap her in my arms.

I said hello, and she said, “Sorry about your dad. He was so nice to me.”

“Like his son, Glenna, he was a sucker for a pretty face.”

I heard her breathing into the phone, a fragile, windy sound, like her breathing on the nights after we’d made love. That memory made me feel as if I were choking.

I said, “How come you’re calling? You okay?”

“More or less. Can we get together?”

I kidded myself that I’d say no, even pursed the word on my lips. I couldn’t say it, though, and I was exasperated at myself for my weakness. “Where are you?”

“I’m in a deli a couple blocks from your mom’s.”

“I’ll meet you in the lobby in fifteen minutes.”

I got out my toilet kit, brushed my teeth, shaved, and splashed on some Old Spice. I don’t know precisely what I’d been searching for since returning to the World, but when I glanced in the mirror, my face had the tense expression of someone who was growing weary of the search.

My mother was waiting for me when I left the bathroom. I put on my olive-drab field jacket and said, “You going to warn me about Glenna again?”

“Sometimes people will surprise you,” she replied.

“Pleasantly or unpleasantly?”

“That’s the surprise. Have fun.”

Chapter 29

AS I STEPPED off the elevator, Glenna said, “You’re home.”

My heart was racing, and I was scared to touch her, but she was in my arms before I knew it.

“You’re taller,” I said, releasing her.

Her flowing lilac skirt was printed with pink dogwood blossoms, and she raised the hem, performing an impish tap dance in her cork-heeled platform clogs. Then she said, “You hungry?”

“Weren’t you in a deli?”

“I couldn’t decide what to order.”

“Nothing changes,” I said, gratified by her consistency.

“Not true. I used to be able to order by myself.”

Looking at Glenna, I felt happy and confused, and I had so many questions for her I didn’t know where to begin. “What’s going on with you?”