Reg thought, Why can’t she take a hint? But then a memory flickered in his mind: a little boy. Chubby cheeks. Thick glasses. Black hair flopping like a puppy’s ears. Pleath can I have a doggy oh pleaaatttth? The funny way he used to talk, that kid. But no. Reg was wrong again. It wasn’t Kate’s son with the funny voice. It was. Oh, it was . . .

“Mr. Sharkey, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.” Reg swiped at his eyes, at the wetness on his cheeks. Tears. Mortifying. The way the body betrays you at this age. Reg thought of that song Kate used to blast when she was a teenager, about only the good dying young. Wasn’t that ever the God’s honest truth . . . He looked at his neighbor. “Run along, Corinne,” he said.

She blinked again. “Remember, Mr. Sharkey, if you ever need me, I’m just right over—”

“I know where you live.”

Corinne started to say something, then stopped. “All righty then.” She turned on her heel and huffed away. Those pistonlike legs of hers, just like her mother’s.

With some effort, Reg was able to back away from the memory. So many things he’d destroyed in his life, that little boy being only one of them.

He looked through the rest of his mail: an ad for a home security device, a book of coupons from Vons, a postcard from his dentist, telling him he was due for a cleaning, his Social Security check, a brochure about the world’s most comfortable shoes. At the bottom of the pile was a letter, addressed to Mr. Reginald Sharkey in neat capital letters. A man’s handwriting, Reg decided. A professional man. He looked at the postmark, turned the envelope over. Strange. The return address was South Pasadena, but the postmark said New Jersey.

He waited to open the envelope until he was back in his own house. It had been written on nice stationery, a watermark and everything. Hotel stationery, as it turned out. Garden Suites embossed on the bottom. It was two single-sided pages long and it began, “Dear Mr. Sharkey” and ended with, “Your grandson, Quentin,” and though Reg wasn’t sure he had any interest in reading it (That boy and his mother. Always up to some scam . . . ) he did anyway:

First of all, I want to apologize for my behavior at your house the other day. I had no right to speak to you like that. It was very unprofessional.

“Okay,” Reg said to the letter. “That’s a pretty good start.”

Second, there is something you need to know.

Reg read on. A group of sentences he would never be able to read again. “Oh God,” he whispered. “Oh Katie.”