“Oh, yuh. He’s at Serenity Apartments, same as our friend Mr. Gallagher, who’ll read anything and everything as long as it was written by someone who works at Fox News.” Ralph thought for a bit, then said, “Loren loved this truck. Handed me the keys and gave it up for good in 2009.” Ralph turned a wry, wistful look upon me. “We were getting ready to retire it, and he decided to retire with it. He had a bad experience behind the wheel and scared the hell out of himself. He was driving around and suddenly didn’t know where he was anymore. There’d been other disconcerting moments before that. He’d tell me someone who’d been dead for ten years had asked him about a book, that kind of thing.”

“Ah, that’s too bad,” I replied, thinking about my mother, about dementia. “You positive he’d still know it if he saw it?”

Ralph returned my gaze with a blank stare. “Hm? Oh, yes. I’m afraid I’ve given you the wrong impression. Loren can be forgetful, but no more so than anyone else his age. He’s still sharp enough to beat me at rummy. We play the last Thursday of every month, and I usually lose to him. No, he’s still all there.”

“But . . . you said he was driving into town and didn’t know where he was?”

“Yes,” Ralph said. “He was very badly shaken. He couldn’t tell if it was 1965 or 1975 or what. Every block looked like a different decade to him. He was worried he wouldn’t be able to find his way home to the twenty-first century.” He looked at his watch and said, “I should get back to the library. My coffee break has been long enough. You’ll e-mail me with your details? My address is on the library Web site. I look forward to continuing our conversation very soon.”

I followed him out, waited while he locked the carriage house, and said good night. I stood there and watched him go, blue smoke spilling from his pipe and mingling with the blue fog that had started to drift out of the trees. The night had turned clammy while we were inside.

He’d disappeared back into the library before I realized I still had Another Marvelous Thing in my coat pocket.

I PROBABLY SAW A FEW without recognizing them for what they were—the ghosts. That’s what I thought they were at first. Now I know better.

Late returns . . . that was Loren’s term for them, although I wouldn’t hear it for months, wouldn’t meet him until a chilled, soggy day just after Christmas.