Outside, the new night sky was low and black, the wind like a series of wet towels blown from the sea. He sought refuge when a taxi stopped.

“Take me to any good bar. And wait, please.”

Park Square. The name of the place was The Sands. The lighting was dim but the scotch was definitely unwatered. When he came out the taxi was there, a ghostly charger that galloped him, meter ticking, to the neon-bright pleasure palaces of the living. They worked their way north, pausing frequently. Alighting before a tavern on Charles Street, grateful for fidelity, Rafe pressed a bill into the driver’s hand, realizing his mistake when the taxi went away.

When he left the place on Charles Street all objects were blurs, some brighter than others. The wind off the Charles River was rude and wet. Rain drummed and hissed along the pavement at his feet. His clothing and his hair accepted it until they could hold no more and then they streamed like the rest of the world. The rain, hard and cold, bit into his face, making him unaccountably nauseous.

He passed the Massachusetts Eye Infirmary and the wet outlines of the Massachusetts General. He was uncertain at which point the moisture within him rose to meet the wetness outside but he suddenly found that from deep, deep down he was crying.

For himself, certainly.

For the brother he had loathed so and would never see again.

For his dead mother.

For the father he scarcely remembered.

For his lost uncle.

For the days and places of his childhood.

For the lousy world.

He had reached a lighted canopy outside a spotlighted haven where man-made fountains splashed in the rain.

“Screw off,” the Charles River Park doorman said in sotto voce menace. He edged aside to let two women pass, smelling bruised roses. One of the girls had entered the cab. The other came back and held out her hand as if to touch him. “Doctor?” she said unbelievingly.

Remembering her from somewhere, he tried to speak.

“Doctor,” she said, “I don’t recall your name. We met in the coffee shop at the General. Are you all right?”

I am a coward, he said, but no sound came.

“Elizabeth,” the other girl called from the cab.

“Is there something I can do?” she asked.

Now the other girl had left the cab. “We’re already late,” she said.

“Don’t cry,” Elizabeth said. “Please.”

“Elizabeth,” the other girl said, “what do you think you’re doing? How long do you think those guys are going to wait?”

Liz Bookstein put her arm around his waist and began to steer him down the red-carpeted canopy, the color of blood, toward the entrance to the hotel. “Tell them I said I was sorry,” she said without turning around.