[Omitted: A few years later he was walking through the dunes, following the little paths worn into the poison ivy and reindeer moss, looking out at the Atlantic, cool and gray below a veldt of thick clouds; there were storms in the air, a distant low grumble of thunder working in from the east; so many years had passed and he still felt some ancient grief prodding. He walked down to the dune head and stood at the top and saw, down below, a man walking his dog, the dog darting far ahead of him, reaching some compromise between his desire to run forever and his gratitude toward his master before he stopped, looked back, and made a loop partway to the man and then forward again, so that along the beach there was a pattern, a looping crochet of his paw prints; and seeing this he wondered what kind of dog was best at spotting, at working outward in concentric circles until the thing thrown, or tossed, was found; dictated beneath the surface of the dog’s mind were governing forces that led him to do so, just as bees danced to give their fellows a message. Here he was, alone on yet another morning, his fingers fine, having practiced for two hours before dawn, softly so as not to wake Margaret, who slept deeply and was never bothered by his playing anyhow. He felt the grace. He knew it was there in the notes, and he played, he was sure, without an error, a whole cycle of Shostakovich etudes, beautiful pieces that reminded him of Bach. This is the morning I get my touch back, he thought, not sure if he would or not. But he did. He played a bit of the Bach suite that had failed him years ago in the recording studio; this time it came out fluid and beautiful. He was saved. He woke Margaret up, ruffled her long hair, which was just starting to turn gray, and buried his nose in it, lying beside her, nudging against her legs until she yielded to him and then, rolling over, waking, became alive with motion. I’m going out, he said afterward, and he went down the flagstone path wet with salt spray and dew and mounted the hill up to the dunes and then the paths and now was watching the dog. In this manner the touch would stop eluding him; he would play again, first a recital at Juilliard for faculty, and after that some larger venues until he was invited to Israel to play; he would be greeted again with shouts of joy and flowers tossed onto the stage. He would never exactly know, of course, what had caused the long period of inability. All he could remember of Antoinette was the way her hair whirled around her ears and the tapping she made on his back when she came, her index finger working his spine like a Morse code key. In the fall of the next year he would return to the house and walk up this same dune at about the same place and stand at the same spot and look bewildered and bemused at the churning sea; on the sand that morning there would be someone walking, too, and that person would look up at him as if at an old friend and wave; she’d have a scarf tied up around her head, bright red, and a long, pale face (from what he could see) that gave off a sense of resolute survival—a cancer survivor, a self-starver. He’d go down to the beach to see what she looked like up close, and she would, surprisingly, prove to be an old student of his, a woman named Hillary who had given up trying to play professionally. She’d been sick, yes, but was recovering, according to her doctors, with miraculous zeal. She had a wonderful daughter who also played. And he would share with her the news of his daughter’s success, her recent performance of Petrouchka. You look happy, she would say. I am. I am, he’d answer, looking out at the waves that seemed to approach somewhat reluctantly before looming over themselves, tearing headlong with great urgency into a marly white edge that was forming, reforming, and always pulling back. ]