A puff of ash billowed from the hole when I pushed the first scoop of dirt into it.

“There go my toes,” Avrum said gleefully.

We went to Margaretville after the burial of the fireplace ashes, and we stood in front of the Galli-Curci Theater for Avrum to gaze at the name that sustained him. At dinner, in a small restaurant, Avrum ate heartily and joked with the waitress about being old enough to be her great-grandfather. The waitress thought he was funny. She asked him, “How old are you, anyway?”

“Ninety-one,” he replied proudly.

“No,” she said in genuine awe.

Avrum bobbed his head. “Maybe I will live to be a hundred, maybe two hundred.”

“Well, you may at that,” the waitress said.

“When I die, this man will bury me,” Avrum told her.

The waitress looked at me with surprise. “Oh,” she replied.

I did not tell Amy that I needed to be alone to bury Avrum’s ashes and to prepare for his kaddish, or what he called, in mockery, his kaddish. I told her only that there were some details that I had to attend to before leaving, and she understood. I promised to call her in the afternoon.

“It won’t be late, will it?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“We have so little time left,” she said. “I don’t want to lose any of it.”

The impression, driving into Pine Hill, was that the village had been invaded, or that a festival was taking place. Couples strolled the street and sat in the chairs on the front porch of the Inn. They were wandering into and out of Dan Wilder’s Coffee and Pastry Shop, and, surprisingly, a few were standing at the opened door of Arch’s. I could see Sammy inside as I drove by. He was waving his arms dramatically toward a display of his sculpture.

I parked my car on a side street and went into the Inn. Lila was behind the counter, working furiously at a calculator. She seemed relieved to see me.

“Jesus, Bobo, where have you been? I could have used an extra waiter this morning.”

“That’s why I stayed away,” I told her.

“You’re a lot like another man I know,” she said. “You’re all worthless, even the best of you.”

“How’s it going? You look busy.”

“Like the only whore at an all-male convention.” She pushed the calculator aside. “Do you think these love-ins work, Bobo?”

“For some, I suppose. Carolyn and I tried it once. We went to a place called Callaway Gardens with a group from the church. The azaleas were on fire. It was beautiful.”

“And what happened?”

“We argued all the way home,” I said.