“Trish is the overall tour manager. My boss.” He glanced at the house. “Must be nice, living up here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you’re a psychologist.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was a psych major in college. Studied psychoacoustics at UC Davis. Used to be a sound engineer.”

How nice for you. “Hmm.”

“Robin’s going to be part of something important.”

“Hey,” I said.

Robin came down the front stairs with Spike on a leash. She wore a pink T-shirt and faded jeans and tennis shoes and big hoop earrings, began directing the roadies as they loaded her valises and her toolboxes into the van. Spike looked stoned. Like most dogs, his emotional barometer is finely tuned and for the last few days he’d been uncommonly compliant. I went over and stooped to pat his knobby French bulldog head, then I kissed Robin, and recited, “Have fun,” and turned my back and trudged up to the house.

She stood there, alongside Sheridan. Waved.

Standing at the door, I pretended not to notice, then decided to wave.

Sheridan got behind the wheel of the van and everyone piled in behind him.

They rumbled away.

Finally.

Now, for the hard part.

I started off determined to maintain my dignity. That lasted about an hour and for the next three days I turned off the phone, didn’t check with my service or open the curtains or shave or collect the mail. I did read the paper because news coverage is heavily biased toward the hopeless. But other people’s misfortunes failed to cheer me and the words danced by, as foreign as hieroglyphics. The little I ate, I didn’t taste. I’m no problem drinker but Chivas became a friend. Dehydration took its toll; my hair got dry and my eyes creaked and my joints stiffened. The house, always too big, expanded to monstrous proportions. The air curdled.

On Wednesday, I went down to the pond and fed the koi because why should they suffer? That got me into a scut-work frenzy, scouring and dusting and sweeping and straightening. On Thursday I finally collected my messages. Robin had called every day, left numbers in Santa Barbara and Oakland. By Tuesday, she sounded anxious, by Wednesday, confused and annoyed and talking fast: The bus was headed for Portland. Everything was fine, Spike was fine, she was working hard, people were being great. Iloveyouhopeyou’reokay.

She called twice on Thursday, wondered out loud if I’d gone off on a trip of my own. Left a cell-phone number.

I punched buttons. Got: Your call cannot be completed.

Just after 1 P.M. I put on shorts and a workout shirt and sneakers, began stomping up Beverly Glen facing the traffic, easing into a clumsy jog when I felt loose enough, ending up running harder and faster and more punishingly than I’d done for years.