“September,” Scott said. “If we make it that long.” He laughed.

John didn’t know what to say, so he laughed too. He’d heard from Poppy that things were not great between Scott and Lisa, but he didn’t know all of the details and didn’t particularly want to.

Scott sipped his Scotch and ran his gloved hand through his hair. He was feeling chatty and generous and open to being vulnerable. “Man to man,” he said to John, “you’re still in love with Pop, then, are you? Twenty years later?”

“In love with her?” John said. He too was getting pleasantly drunk. It occurred to him that he probably shouldn’t be driving the golf cart, since he’d had a few drinks after taking his pill, but he felt perfectly competent and judged that he was a good deal less sauced than Scott at this point.

“In love?” John repeated. “I don’t reckon I know what that even means anymore. Can’t remember. I guess I’d say . . . I can’t imagine my life without her. Whether that means I’m still in love with her or just that I’ve got no imagination . . . hard to say.”

This made Scott laugh very hard, and he clapped John on the back. He took off his sunglasses to adjust the little rubber feet, fitted them back over his nose, took them off to adjust them again.

Scott said, “Your boy do any golfing?”

“Ryan? Nah,” John said. “He’s never been much into sports.”

“Shame,” Scott said, squinting. “He’s built for it.”

“I suppose.”

“Your younger one’s got some balls, shaving her head like that,” Scott remarked, then he screwed his face up, appearing to regret his choice of words. “I didn’t mean she’s actually got balls. Not that there’d be anything wrong with that. What I meant was that I think it’s cool.”

John laughed. “I think it’s cool too. Alex is her own bird. Always has been.”

Scott wiped a dead insect from the dashboard of the golf cart. “Man, you’re lucky, ya know,” he said. “I love my girls, honest to God I love them more than anything, but sometimes I feel like I’m living with three of my wives. If you can imagine what that’s like.”

“How’s that?”

“Oh, Rae and Kimmy are both Lisa’s little Mini-Me,” Scott said. “Always harpin’ on me, all three of them. Wears me out. Enough to drive a guy mad.” Scott was looking down at their scorecard, tapping it with the three-inch-long pencil. He said, “You ever cheat?”

John glanced over at him. “Nah. This is pretty much my first time, like I said, except for putt-putt, and that’s always with the kids.”

Scott made a face indicating that he found this answer boring or disagreeable, and John realized that Scott might not have been referring to golf.

It seemed that the easy banter John and Scott had established in the past hour might already be running dry.

They were coming up on the putting green. John parked the cart and wiped sweat from his brow. The sun spread across the baked grass. Scott downed the rest of his Scotch in a single swallow and swayed a bit as he got out of the cart. John pointed out a gator just up the way, sunning itself next to a small pond.