I could never look directly at Elsa’s pictures without a stab of guilt. She would tell me she was done with photography, that she had said all she had to say about color and form, that she loved having time to spend with the girls, but these vast images followed us everywhere, a reminder of a time when my wife was the promising one, and when I had no career to speak of.

A cloud of tiny insects hovered around the fruit bowl. I selected the lemon with the heaviest skin, cut two long strips with a peeler, trimmed the edges straight with a long knife.

From the freezer I took a steel cocktail mixer already filled with ice cubes; two cut-crystal martini glasses, each with a wooden spill onto which I had threaded three olives; and an ice-frosted bottle of gin. I poured a few drops of vermouth on to the ice, then cradled the glasses and the mixer in my hands, jammed the bottle between my right forearm and my chest, and walked carefully back on the other side of the apartment. Here the windowless walls damped down the sounds of the world to a dull hum.

I paused in the box room. In his wooden crib our tiny blond baby curled and uncurled his fingers, wrapped himself tightly into his soft panda, limb against limb. He sucked at the panda’s draggled snout with milky lips, as if seeking sanctuary from some unknown force. I stood, watching his chest, listening for the sounds that told me what I already knew.

In. In. Out. Those soft reedy breaths, almost inaudible. An everyday miracle.

Franklin Curtis, his name was, though he did not yet know it.

Elsa was looking out toward the hills when I returned. I placed the glasses on the table as silently as I could, slipped the gin bottle from under my arm with my left hand. I poured gin into the cocktail mixer. The ice fissured and cracked. Elsa turned.

“That sound. Never fails.”

Her transfixing irises; the merest suggestion of a squint.

I stirred gently, poured the liquor into the glasses, held back the ice with a spoon. Elsa watched me all the while. Her eyes flicked to the glass as I set it in front of her, then flicked to me.

“How do you get them so perfect, Cal?”

Always the same words.

“Everything has to be very, very cold,” I answered, as I always answered. “Your olives . . .” I stopped.

“What?” she said.

“You haven’t actually tasted it.”

“Oh, Cal. Don’t screw up the ritual.”

I smiled, waiting for her to taste. She raised the glass to her lips, took a sip. Winced slightly.

“It’s good,” she said.

“But not perfect.”

“All right.” She sighed. “There’s a shade too much vermouth, and I feel like you didn’t check the strength of the olive brine. What? Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”