“No.” Scully didn’t ponder this. “That’s your heartbreak talking. She’s just a girl turned loose in the world with only herself to count on. Trying to figure out each step which is best. That’s what seemed to make you two such a fine pair, maybe, but on the other hand wouldn’t it be natural for her to grasp hard onto someone who knows the way? And that sameness in you both, it could be, she wouldn’t see that as attractive as you do, might be even she could worry over it. This make any sense to you?”

“What do you want, Scully? What’d you come down here for?”

“Why, to check on you. Make sure you were all right.”

“I’m not going to blow my head off, if that’s what you mean. Other than that, I couldn’t tell you how I was.”

“I guess not. But I hadn’t seen you.”

“You expect me to just drop by like old times?”

Scully drank now from the opened whiskey. Offered it over and Jamie shook his head. Scully said, “There’s people want to see you maybe. Out and about.”

“Ones that want it bad enough know where to find me. I don’t need to chase after anything.”

“Maybe it’s just to be sociable.”

“I don’t feel that way right now.”

“Maybe that’s the best time.”

“Could be, maybe not. You got some new girl singing with you yet?”

Scully shook his head. “It’s just me and them other boys. It works I guess but it’s not the same. It’s a sad act right now.”

Jamie took up the bottle and drank a little bit from it. It wasn’t what he wanted—he was ready now for coffee and some food—but had no desire to eat lunch with Scully. He wiped his mouth and said, “I’ve got no interest in being a part of it.”

Scully spread his arms to indicate the empty house, the housecleaning. He said, “Alone this way is sad too.”

Jamie shook his head. “It’s private is what it is. The rest, sad or happy, whatever, is just other people’s ideas.”

Scully stood then and replaced the cork in the bottle and the bottle back in his coat. “Well then.” He looked off at the shining clear glass over the sink, the sunlight prismed there in the small bubbles in the glass. Then back to Jamie. “Don’t be a stranger, boy.”

Jamie nodded, then stepped forward and took the old man’s hand. And said, “All right.”

The summer rolled on, July into August. He retrieved Joey’s clothing from the laundry, the dresses and capes and winter coats packed in long thin cardboard boxes with tops that opened like wings, held together with a pair of hard paper buttons bound one to the other by string. Loaded in the back of the Ford he could not help feeling they were a sort of coffin. Of love or trust or both. He brought them home and stacked them in the unused spare bedroom. Shut that door soft but with a strong pull to hear the latch click to.