Yes, Terrence was home for good, but he was significantly changed in ways great and small, not just his speech patterns. He sugared his coffee and used milk in it, when he used to take it black. He had put on weight. He said it was all those meals with the Cookes—Mrs. Cooke’s cocoanut cake, Aunt Patience’s snap beans, and Alice Washington’s short ribs took him right back to childhood. He spoke of a Mrs. Gilmour’s pork and greens and sweet potato pie. He spoke of music I had never heard of before, music he had never heard of before, for that matter, blues musicians who played in Montgomery bars and honky-tonks. He had brought back some records, Muddy Waters, Big Mama Thornton, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, music utterly unlike the sophisticated West Coast Cool of the Comet Club. On the old upright he thumped out some of their bluesy chords, repetitive progressions with a melancholy undertow and a rumbling bass line. He played for half an hour and then looked up and smiled. “Sorry,” he said, “I just got lost.”

“I missed you every minute you were gone,” I said, going to him, putting my hands on his shoulder and my cheek against his hair. “I love you, and I will always love you. Do your worst. I will always love you best.”

“My worst? What does that mean?”

“Just some lyrics rolling around in my head, I can’t remember the song. Put a dime in the juke box, and see what you get,” I said, as he turned to me, wrapped his arms around me, pressed against my breasts, ran his hands up under my shirt.

“You’re not wearing a bra,” he whispered, “not even a lacy one.”

“I wanted to be ready for you.”

His hand slid down between my thighs. “Are you ready for me?”

“Oh yes. I’m ready.”

Later that afternoon Terrence took Charlie’s surfboard out, but it was too cold to surf, and besides, Bruno jumped his enclosure and raced to the water’s edge, mad with doggy delight to see Terrence home. Terrence splashed out of the water, lay the board on the beach, knelt, and greeted the dog. Shivering, his teeth chattering, he wrapped up in a towel and sat down beside me. I shared my body warmth with him, and Bruno plopped down on the other side. The brief saltwater swim seemed to have washed off the last of his weariness, and his old energy returned.

“You know, Liza Jane, I look out to that horizon and all I see is middle age staring at me. I’m twenty-seven, and I oughta do something now if I’m ever gonna do it.”

“I thought you loved being a reporter.”