"Actually, I am. It just sometimes takes me a while to work up to it."

There was a companionable quiet, broken only by the sound of Henry's trowel chunking in the ground.

Finally, I said, "Is Lewis still in town?"

"He flies home tomorrow. I feel better about him, in case you're wondering. I don't want to see him just yet, but we'll work it out in due course."

"What about Mattie?"

"Oh, that's probably for the best. I never expected the relationship to turn into anything serious."

"But it might have."

"'Might' doesn't count for much. I generally find it wiser to deal with what is than with what might have been. Having made it to the ripe old age of eighty-seven without a long-term romance, there's no reason to suppose I'm even capable of such a thing."

"Couldn't you at least call?"

"I could, though I'm not sure what that would accomplish. She made her feelings clear. I have nothing else to offer and nothing much to add."

"What if she called you?"

"That's up to her," he said. "I don't mean to sound like a sad sack. I'm really fine."

"Well, of course you're fine, Henry. It's not like you're crushed because you've dated her for years. On the other hand, I thought you were great together and I'm sorry things didn't work out."

"You were picturing... what?... a little trip down the aisle?"

"William got married at eighty-seven, why not you?"

"He's impetuous by nature. I'm a stick-in-the-mud."

I threw a handful of grass at him. "You are not."

Reba called at 5:00, interrupting what I realized in retrospect was an award-winning nap. I'd stretched out on the bed with my favorite John le Carre spy novel. The light was soft. The temperature was mild and the sheet I'd thrown over me was the perfect weight. Outside I could hear the dim buzz of a lawn mower, followed by the pft-pft-pfi of Henry's Rain Bird, firing jets of water across the newly trimmed grass. Thanks to my sleep deprivation of the past two nights, I sank out of consciousness like a flat stone settling lazily to the bottom of a lake. I don't know how long I might have gone on like that if the phone hadn't rung. I put the handset to my ear and said, "Uh-huh."

"This is Reba. Did I wake you?"

"I greatly fear you did. What's the time?"

"Five minutes after five."

I checked the skylight, squinting in an attempt to determine if the sun was coming up or going down. "A.M. or P.M.?"

"It's Friday afternoon. I was just wondering what you'd heard from your guys."

"Nothing so far. Cheney's currently on surveillance, but I know he's trying to reach his contact in Washington, D.C. It may take a few days to set up the meeting. With so many agencies involved, the protocol's tricky to negotiate."