On the mantel lay a gathering of seashells—sundials, jewel-box shells, great lilac volutes. Beside them was a talking radio.

From the radio, a woman broadcaster predicted gale-force winds and snow tomorrow, with a disaster snow blizzard on Sunday; possibly a foot of snow.

“Let it come!” Dottie said.

We ducked under a blockhouse door and crossed the front lobby, where Dottie bopped the bell on the registry desk. The chime brought Fredo, the freckled dog, writhing and leaping in greeting.

“Say hello but be a nice chap,” Mom told him. “We’re baked.”

We came to the saloon. She stepped behind the bar and toe-tapped a floor switch that ignited yellow lights—spots trained on a shimmering assembly of liquor bottles in back of her.

“You and Mario?” I said.

For now, the storm sounded far away, a reminder of storm.

Mid July, right before Houston, I had driven to Providence to visit my dad. He was out in his garden, tying up tomato plants.

“So thin,” I thought.

Mario held a Tootsie Pop in his mouth. I could smell the orange candy.

His face was tanned but his flowing hair had gone foam white. He seemed a few inches shorter. His cheeks had collapsed inward and his eyebrows were bushy.

He cracked the lollipop and finished it, poked the white cardboard stick into the ground of his garden.

Monteverdi blew from the kitchen. So did the odors of rosemary and wine.

A cool twilight was settling down the ribbed hill from Mario’s, and the city in the light glowed lavender.

After kissing me, my dad said, “See da garden? It’s not for me, it’s for the groundhogs, the rabbits. This is the thing I’m supposed to mind. I plow, plant, weed, spread manure, bone marrow. The food comes up. It’s good food. The animals is hungry, they eat it. They’re hungry so they do. I’m supposed to mind and blow out their brains or poison them? Oh, listen!”

“I know,” I said.

“Lee-la-da-deeee!” Mario sang. “Let them eat, I think. I’m not going to get them for it. Who am I, Elmer Fudd guarding carrots? No-lo-ta-deee! You have good legs, woman.”

“Thank you,” I said. “But, so, Dad? Why have a garden?”

“Endeavor! Exercise! I buy my carrots and da vegetables in a grocery store same as you. But now, as to the tomatoes. I care deeply about these tomatoes. So I drive a bargain. Eat the fucking cucumbers, radishes, zucchini. Stuff yourselves and God go with you. But leave the tomatoes for Mario. And they do. They’re honorable.”

He wore a workshirt and a flower-printed tie, corduroys with deep cuffs.

Patting my bare arm, his hand was callused, hard as a ram’s horn.

Under a Dutch elm, the tire swing threw an O shadow on the velvety grass.