“Well. I stopped. And I waved at her. And she went very still, as if she didn’t want to be seen at all.”

“Like you did,” I said to Novo. “Just like you did,” and he smiled.

“My heart went into a tailspin in my chest,” Henry said.

“And then?”

“And then,” he said, “she smiled. She ran downstairs and opened the door. And my heart righted itself and flew straight. I stood at the gate and she stepped out barefoot onto the path. She was wearing a thin black dress and an old black robe, and her hair was black and her skin was the color of honey. I hadn’t opened the gate yet. I hadn’t moved.

“‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she said. Just like that. I walked up that path and I took off my boots before I followed her in. It seemed like the polite thing to do. Outside I could hear sounds, birdsong and wing flap, a light wind in the trees, a passing car. Inside was silent. As if the house was holding its breath. She was already at the top of the stairs, smiling. She held her hands out toward me.”

Henry’s smile was bright with rapture, lost in the story that was so long ago and could be yesterday, could still be happening right now, for him.

“Did she recognize you?” Novo said.

He nodded. “She couldn’t think where from. I didn’t tell her about the boat. Not at first. I didn’t want to make her remember.”

“But you told her later,” I said.

“Yes. Of course. In the end, I told her everything.”

“Tell us about her,” Novo said, and I could see from his face that he was as bewitched by this story as Henry. That it was the stuff of legend now, for him.

Henry sighed. “Everything about her was spectacular. I remember watching her throw a ball into the sky until it disappeared. I remember her careering down the hill from the top of town on a cart she’d made from fruit boxes and an old stroller, heading straight for a tree, swerving at the last minute. I would have sworn an oath that the cart took off. I was utterly convinced that she flew. Dulcie was fearless. She really lived. She did everything better and everything first, before me.

“The morning after I found her, I woke up in a clean bed in a bright room. I felt alive, for the first time I could remember. I came downstairs to find her and she was in the yard. She didn’t look at me. But she always knew when I was there just the same.