Surrounded by these artifacts, I remember how happy Caitlin was that I’d bought this house, and that we would finally begin our own family, as well as make her status as Annie’s new mother official. On one mantel inside sits a photo of the three of us, taken by my father only weeks before Caitlin died. In it, Caitlin and I are swinging Annie between us: me gripping her ankles while Caitlin holds Annie’s wrists with the surprising strength in her lithe frame. The photographer captured us at the point of tossing Annie into a pile of autumn leaves. We’re all laughing, the girls’ hair flying, the moment frozen forever in the stream of time. Sometimes I look at that picture and see joy made eternal; other times I see a brutally truncated history, an amputated life.

“Hey, Penn! You’d better fill out that change-of-address form soon, or you won’t see me for a while.”

My mailman is walking up the sidewalk from the direction of State Street. Theo Driscoll is about my age; he went to the public school when I was at St. Stephen’s.

“I can’t keep giving you this special treatment,” he says with a smile, “even if you are the mayor. You need to un-ass that rocking chair, man. The main post office is only four blocks down Broadway!”

“I’ll go do it as soon as Annie gets home,” I promise.

Ignoring the copper box mounted on a brick pillar on the ground floor, Theo climbs the right-hand staircase with a sheaf of mail in his hand.

“Got another letter from Europe,” he announces. “I still can’t believe they publish your books in all those languages. How many now?”

“Twenty-six.”

“What would Mrs. Holland say about that? Too bad she didn’t live to see it.”

Mrs. Holland was a legendary English teacher who taught at both the public and private schools during her long career. “She lived to see my first one published. That’s good enough.”

I reach out for the mail, but he doesn’t hand it to me yet. Like a lot of people I went to school with, Theo likes to talk.

“Went to the clinic two days ago. Had a damn boil on my leg. Drew Elliott had to lance it. It’s so damn different without your daddy there. The nurses feel the same way. Melba said they might not even keep her on much longer.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that. Drew will probably take her over.”

Theo looks skeptical. “I don’t know. She’s old school, like Doc Cage.”

“I’ll check into it.”

“Are you making any headway on getting him out? I swear, not one person in this town thinks he was guilty.”

I’m not so sure this is true, but Theo means well. “It’s complicated, Theo. But I’m not going to quit. There’s still reason to hope.”