Even when we’re inside, he still hovers in the hall, not seeming to notice the cobwebs and the brokenness of it all. So now I have to offer him something. The refrigerator yields the sour stench of old milk. I feel a twinge of despair.

“Beer,” he suggests, looking at the contents.

“Sure,” I say, feeling immediately more cheerful. I take a look in the cupboards. “I bet you’ve never had a pickle with peanut butter.”

“You would win that bet,” he says.

We sit in the broken lawn chairs out back. It is a beautiful day. Dandelion clocks dance in the low sun. The trees whisper in the slight breeze. I turn my face up to it. For a moment I feel almost normal—sitting in my yard in the late summer heat, just like anyone might, having a beer with a friend.

“Hospital,” he says. “You must have missed being outside. You like the woods.”

“I did,” I say.

“Hey,” he says, but not to me. The tabby cat steps out of the undergrowth. She looks even thinner than usual. “What’s up?” She slides and curves around the rusty chair legs. He puts some peanut butter on the ground for her and she licks it, purring. “Poor girl,” he says. “She belonged to someone, once. They took her claws out then they abandoned her. People.” The cat lies down at his feet. The sun shows up the dust in her fur.

I try to think of a question a normal person would ask. “What’s it like, being a park ranger?”

“It’s good,” he says. “I always wanted to work outdoors, ever since I was a kid. I grew up in the city.” I can’t imagine him among tall buildings, on busy sidewalks. He seems designed for great distances and solitude.

“You and I have talked before,” he says. “At the bar we say hi sometimes.”

“Oh,” I say. I am too embarrassed to tell him that I don’t remember much about the times at the bar. I think Little Teddy took over toward the end. He’s not good at talking to grown-ups. Or maybe I was just drunk. “I picked that bar to take women to,” I say. “How dumb is that?” I tell him about my date with the woman in blue.

“But you kept going there, on your own. Even after you realized what kind of place it was.”

“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, to drink.”

Something is happening to the air between us where we sit. Time seems to stretch out somewhat. I can’t stop looking at his forearm, where it rests on the rusty chair. Pale skin, covered in fine hair that glows in the sun like burning wire.

Fear ripples through me. “I’m not like a regular person,” I say. “It’s hard being me. Maybe even harder being around me.”

“What’s a regular person?” he says. “We do what we can.”