“Nothing,” I told him. “We were just talking earlier about the four of us being together, and you mentioned Rene. It’s just funny.”

“Not without a Bloody Mary or two,” Carter countered. “You sure you guys haven’t been celebrating without me?”

Amy turned to me. “Do you want to answer that?” She laughed again.

“Forget it,” Carter said. “I withdraw the question. It was stupid.” He pulled a chair from the table and sat. “I’m hungry.”

We ate breakfast leisurely. Carter directed that I serve and he would clean the table and Amy would leave a generous tip. It would be like retired baseball players playing in an old-timers’ game, he reasoned. Going through the motions for the sake of memory.

“And that’s how I plan on handling the tip—going through the motions,” Amy told him.

“Suits me,” Carter replied. “Bobo always got most of the money anyway, and somehow I think he’s had enough reward for his miserable display of work.”

Amy flashed a look at him. “You wouldn’t believe it,” she said in a teasing voice.

“Jesus, Amy, don’t do that to me,” Carter sighed.

After breakfast, Amy opened a bottle of champagne and we sat at the table—still uncleared by Carter—and made toasts.

“To childhood,” Carter proposed.

“To adulthood,” I countered.

“To now,” Amy said.

We toasted Rene and Joey Li and Nora Dowling and Ben Benton and Harry Burger and Eddie Grimes. We toasted Arch and Avrum.

“Ah, yes, to Avrum, who pulled this little party off in his own oddball way,” Carter said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think the old cockroach had it planned all along. I think he knew his dying would bring the two of you together.” He tipped his glass toward us.

Amy raised her glass. “To Avrum.”

“To Avrum,” I said.

“Who did we leave out?” Carter asked. He let a smile build on his face. Then he said dramatically, “To Jean Archer, who knows beauty when she sees it.”

Silence struck the table like a sudden blow.

Carter was holding his champagne glass in front of him. “Did I just hear the fall of a lead balloon?”

“Ah—” I began.

Amy interrupted. “No, Bobo, let me.”

Carter pulled his glass back. “What?” he said.

“Jean Archer came to see us last night,” Amy replied calmly.

“She did? Why?”

“To tell me about my mother.”

“Your mother?” Carter asked.

Amy paused for a beat, then she said, “They were lovers, Carter.”

And then she told Carter about the affair between her mother and Jean Archer. Carter listened intently. The frown on his face was not his lawyer’s frown, but Carter’s frown, the one he wore when he cared and when caring made him ache.

“Amy, honey, I’m sorry,” he said when Amy finished her story. “God knows, that must have been hard to take.”