Amy shook her head. “No. It’s beautiful, but I can’t take it. It’s yours.”

The film of tears again glittered in Jean Archer’s eyes. She raised her face and closed her eyes for a moment, then she looked at me.

“I’m glad we met,” she said.

“Me, too,” I told her. “I feel privileged.”

She folded her arms around Amy, held her for a trembling moment, then she turned and walked away from the house.

We watched her drive away and then Amy closed the door.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Do you want to be alone?”

She turned to me. “I want to go to bed. I want you to hold me.”

I did not ask her to talk about her mother and Jean Archer. In bed, she curled into my body as a child who needs comfort curls against a parent, and she slept. I do not think she dreamed. When I awoke in the morning, she was still against me, still curled.

I slipped from bed and went into the kitchen and made coffee. It was early—the morning before morning. Outside, the black of night was fading against a promise of light. I could hear a bird fussing energetically, as though it had decided to quarrel with the laziness of the night, and I remembered that it was Sunday—the day of Avrum’s kaddish. I went to my briefcase and took out the envelope that he had marked for me as Avrum Feldman’s kaddish. To be opened six days after his death. A.F. and I opened it. His instructions made me smile. Not even Sol Walkman, or the rabbi, would object.

I put the envelope back into my briefcase and sat at the kitchen table and had coffee and listened to the fussing bird and watched the bluing of morning, and again I thought of Kelly Pender. Soon after her talk with me, and on my advice, Kelly had admitted to the headmaster that she was lesbian and her contract was not renewed. I wanted to advocate for her, but she would not permit it. “Don’t you see?” she argued. “It sets me free.” And she had been right. She had become an activist in the gay rights movement and was often quoted by the media. One night, in a restaurant on Highland Avenue, Carolyn and I saw her with the woman who was her lover. Kelly bounced across the restaurant and threw her arms around me gladly, causing Carolyn to burn with indignation. On the drive home, Carolyn blurted, “How can you be friends with someone like that?” Her question stunned me. “How can you turn your back on a friendship, for God’s sake?” I snapped. Carolyn sat against the car door, glaring at me. After a moment, she said, “I can’t believe how much you’ve changed.”