“What can you do?” said Roan. “Life really doesn’t make any sense. We all secretly know that. This guy was a drug maniac or something.”

“Still . . .”

“I’m just glad you were there with her when it happened. She always admired you from the time she was young. I think it was because you had so many books,” he said, and laughed.

Owen didn’t react to the joke. An uncomfortable silence followed, and eventually Gerry Roan walked over to the librarian and hugged him. Without speaking, he left. The sound of his car starting and receding was followed by the peculiar tomb-like silence that settled down around the books at evening. The sunlight through the window then could be its most golden on the field for a brief few minutes. The thought of Roan’s statement that Helen admired him because he had so many books came back to him, and he moved quickly to try to dispel his sorrow. The unfamiliar walk home through the woods spooked him. By the time he came out the other side, along the dirt road, night had fallen.

After dinner, he played the classical station on the radio. It turned out to be a big night for the music of Satie. Owen finished the bourbon and gave vent to all manner of bad notions, gave in to every paranoia, ran through the scene in the Busy Bee a dozen times behind his eyes. When it got late and he kept nodding off, his head banging once or twice against the kitchen table, even as drunk as he was, he knew it was time to surrender. He stumbled into the bedroom, knowing he’d have a rough time of it in the morning. Again, he forgot about the wound in his side, felt a jab as he was getting into bed, and had to switch to the right. He fell asleep almost instantly, but before he did, he managed to push himself onto his back, hoping to regain transit to the night world. His sleep was as dark as death, though. Not a shred of dream nor the fearful paralysis.