Everybody in the family hated him—he was “estranged,” nobody talked to him anymore. They said he was selfish, that he’d cheated on his wife for twenty years—there was crazy stuff the mother accused him of, a secret family he had hidden in Denmark—but besides that there were real things, that had been proven. He cut off Linda’s sister’s college money—after a screaming fight in which Jeannine called him “Phil Donahue”—while he went on spending millions on himself, commuting to work every day in a helicopter. And then he dumped the wife. Once every six months Linda would tell me he’d phoned, and that was it. I think I talk to my father the same amount, although we keep it down to that intentionally, to stay on good terms.

Linda’s father was wearing gold sunglasses, and he had a ring of white hair that was fluffed up on the sides. He had on loafers and linen pants, a white shirt, and a black golf sweater. He was tan—it was part of his look. The woman with him had on a long gauzy sundress and sandals, and as she stepped from behind the car into the sunlight her body cut a perfect silhouette through the dress. She was tall and beautiful. She wasn’t anybody’s maid. She looked like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. He’d dumped Linda’s mother for this woman. They held hands. She took off her sunglasses and flipped her long brown hair and waved at us. I looked at my wife, whose skin rash was covered up by a dense orange powder. Phil put his hand out and we shook. Linda kissed her father. He introduced the woman—her name was Barbara—and when he spoke his voice was smooth and deep, with a familiar little crackle in it. It dropped and rose, and you found yourself staring at him—just like on television. “Nice to see you, Mike,” he said. “The house and yard are lovely.” That same careful presentation, the same painstaking delivery.

Linda said to Barbara, “Your hair is a gorgeous color.” Barbara said to her, “You have such beautiful blue eyes.”

Linda coughed, trying to breathe, and smiled in that rash-makeup, and we went in and showed them the house. Through the bay windows in the living room you looked out on the whole valley; there were grain sheds and farmhouses, and on a road in the distance you could see a truck and a car moving slowly along like toys.

Barbara said, “This is amazing,” and put her hand on Linda’s father’s shoulder and kissed him. She said, “We should do something like this,” and he nodded, and Linda and I smiled. The father looked around. He had his hands in his pockets. The lenses of his glasses were fading inside the house.