He understood that, in his case, creative talent was twined with a tendency to obsession. He needed to stay in touch with this place, this important period of his past; but if he didn’t resist its attraction, he would be consumed by it.

The time he spent here began in denial and hope, but week by week the denial gave way to guilt, and the hope melted into sorrow.

After he had unpacked, he stood for a while staring at the queen-size bed. Then he removed the spread and folded it and put it aside on a bench. His hands trembled when he turned back the sheets.

Later, at a restaurant on the harbor, where the decor was black and silver with blue accents, full-on Art Deco, he had a drink at the bar and then dinner at a window table.

Sailing yachts and motor cruisers plied the waters, returning from an afternoon at sea.

He would dine here most nights. He always did. The food was excellent. If he drank too much, there was strong coffee or a taxi.

He didn’t recognize any of the staff from earlier visits. If any remembered him, they didn’t say so. That was as he wanted. He preferred anonymity and had no desire to engage in conversation.

At the bar and again as he repaired to a table, an expectation overcame him—of what, whether of good or bad, he couldn’t say. Alert, he sat alone at a window table for two, surveying the other patrons, but they were as ordinary as they were well-to-do.

The fleecy clouds alchemized to gold against an azure sky and then curdled blood-red against a sapphire backdrop. But it wasn’t the sunset that filled him with anticipation.

Gradually his presentiment faded as the stars came out. On the dark water of the harbor, reflections of shoreside lights cockled like colorful skeins of rippled-ribbon sugar candy.

He and Emily had come here back in the day, when the decor had been somewhat less glamorous. But she didn’t haunt this place, only his heart.

During the ten-minute drive home, he felt that the night was as incomplete as the half-moon.

He dreamed of the many-chambered cellar, that labyrinth of wickedness and cruelty. Although it was a real-world place, he had avoided watching news film of it; but his imagination took him there again in his restless sleep. So vivid were these nightmare images that when he woke at three fifteen, he went into the bathroom and threw up.

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