“I called the art department over at Vanderbilt and asked them what a painter like you would need,” Vanessa said. “I had Scott pick everything up. I hope he got the right things.”

“This is about a year’s worth of stuff,” I said.

“We didn’t know how much to get,” Arch said. “Better too much than not enough.”

“Will you teach me how to paint?” Dolly asked.

“I would love to,” I said.

After dinner, I took Dolly back out to the carriage house. I set up three small canvases on the floor over butcher paper. With a piece of charcoal, I drew the head of a bull on one panel, a can of tomato soup on the next, and a bouquet of flowers on the third. Dolly filled the lines with random colors.

When we were finished, I took her back over to the house to be bathed and put to bed.

“Are you tired?” Arch asked.

“Not really,” I said.

“Then what do you say we go to Jamie’s place? He’s dying to see you. Might be good to get that out of the way so he doesn’t show up at the farm half-drunk or hungover.”

The sign that once read CAFÉ CABERNET had been replaced by another, which read harpeth junction. The old white plaster exterior had been replaced by reclaimed wood, no doubt from one of those collapsing barns I’d seen along the road out to Leiper’s Fork. A pair of wrought iron gaslights framed the door beneath an antique-looking neon sign. Steely Dan and Supertramp had been usurped by Kenny Chesney and the Dave Matthews Band. The restaurant floor was mostly empty—it was nearly ten on a Tuesday—but the bar was full, with the same sort of people I remembered from when my mother worked there, different only in the change of hairstyles and clothing. Cigar smoking seemed to be experiencing a renaissance of popularity. The whole place reeked like a riverboat casino.

I spotted Jamie behind the bar, dressed in a garish plaid blazer and a white shirt that stretched at the collar despite being open to the third button. His hair was thinning on top but boyishly long on the sides.

“Charlie Boykin!” he bellowed. “I’ll be goddamned!”

He barreled around past the cocktail waitresses’ pickup station, knocking over an empty wineglass with his elbow. The glass fell to the floor and shattered. Jamie didn’t break stride. Before I could speak, he’d embraced me, pulling me tight against his girth.

“I know,” he said. “I’m a big lard-ass now.”

“No,” I said. “You look good.”

“You were always a shitty liar. Want a drink?”

“Scotch,” I said.

“Excellent, excellent. I’ve got a fleet of single malts. You ever tried Oban? I love Oban.”

“Johnnie Red is fine,” I said.

“Oh, don’t be such a cheapskate. I’m putting it all on Arch’s tab.”