But then she asked some other questions, silly things that made them both laugh. Did he remember the name of the man who used to pump their septic tank all the while whistling show tunes in rhythm with the grinding machinery of his pump? Did he remember what went in the recipe for those grasshoppers he made on Saint Patrick’s Day a hundred years ago? Crème de menthe and then what? Did he remember her phone number from when they first met?

The whole car ride was filled with such questions, and it was a good way not to feel the sadness they both were feeling, miles falling behind them like all the years they’d lived there.

Retirement has not been all that others told him it would. They had said he would love not reading student papers or typing a syllabus, but that wasn’t true. He had missed it, and now, even a decade after the fact, he still does. He misses the schedule and the order of it all, the year neatly divided into terms—pauses for the holidays and summers—those chunks of time all the sweeter because there was an end in sight and he had to cram all that he could into those isolated weeks or summer months.

He’d loved having a topic in mind, an idea, and then setting about researching and reading. It was peaceful down in the library stacks, the smell of old paper and glue.

Do you—

Yes.

Do you remember when you looked pale as a vampire because you practically lived in that tomb of a library?

It’s been hard to get anything new started lately, an idea for a paper or article, though he still keeps up with all the readings, or tries to, all the discoveries he would have sent students to the library to explore. As a younger man, he would have wanted to build a vacation around it: the Egyptian boat carvings in the ancient city Abydos, dating back over thirty-eight hundred years; or the pyramids found within a pyramid in Mexico; the mosaic of Noah’s ark in Israel; or the one he feels most drawn to these days, the lost city of Neapolis, submerged off the coast of Tunisia since the fourth century AD.

“Can’t you find something old to excite you in Hawaii or Antigua?” Lil had asked after saying she did not want another hot, sandy vacation unless there was a great big ocean and good seafood within walking distance. “And what about Cape Ann? Plenty of old things there.”

They always said they would go to Paris, and Lil was quick to add that they also needed a return trip to Florence. But now, Frank’s main focus is on exploring the place he’d lived as a boy: the house, the yard, that old root cellar his stepfather dug out near where he’d had his garden.