Other things did not change. He still could not leave the house of a night without the boy. And the puppy. They could be sleeping and he would not even have the car cranked and they would come out the door, ready to go. As if the door itself, opening and closing, was all that was needed to rouse them. He considered it but in the end could not forbid them.

The doctor came three more times in September, Saturday mornings, to take Foster and Lovey for the day. Those evenings, when they were returned to him, Jamie asked nothing of their days, the fatigued pleasure so clear in both boy and dog that there was nothing more he could know, no understanding available to him. One of those afternoons he decided he should feel some jealousy. But there was none in him.

As if the boy were already gone from him. As if he might only watch manhood overtake his son.

In the Stodd Nichols store in Littleton he allowed the clerk to probe more personally than he’d allowed a man in years. And so came away with a single-barrel .410 shotgun and two waxed cardboard cartons of shells. The gun, he understood, perfect for partridge and timber-doodles, up close, the right thing for a boy. Make him work for it now, the clerk had said, and he’ll only like everything else better as he grows up. Also, the clerk made clear, a boy could only do minor damage with the small-gauge shotgun, if mistakes were made. Jamie wasn’t worried about mistakes. But he liked the idea of the minimal start. Of giving something that implied a beginning. Of working toward a passion. He could not kill a bird himself but he understood the rest of it. And stood with the new gun in a case under his arm, leaning against the glass countertop studying the small array of pistols, revolvers—he didn’t know what they were really called. And would not ask. A couple of little numbers flat without the bulge of cylinder. He liked those. Something for a pocket. And for a moment looked up at the clerk who was watching him. And Jamie felt known. Not at all like a father buying a first hunting gun for his son. He pulled his right elbow tight against the long case and spoke to the clerk. “You’ve been a help. Nice day.” And walked out of the store.

Foster ran both boxes of shells through the gun with nothing to show for them. Coming in afternoons with his face set, grimly carrying his failure silently. When the shells were gone Jamie went back to Littleton and bought this time half a dozen boxes and then spent an afternoon in the sheep pasture tossing up tin cans for the boy until like a singular magic the blast of the gun sent a can spinning hard away from its arc. Foster shot up three boxes of the shells, with the last box hitting near as often as he missed.