Inside the boat, Sadie thought, I am not a vengeful person, but. It was six o’clock the day before they were to fly home. How could they salvage this trip? This honeymoon? She could see people across the canal. Eventually—if he did not come back (he would come back)—she could open the window and call for help. The very thought of it made her feel shy, and the shyness turned to anger. I am not a vengeful person, she told herself, and she opened the window, the porthole. She decided to send a message. The first thing would be his underpants, she told herself, striped orange, knit, she was very fond of them, pants, Jack called them, there were certain things he could only call by their English names, things essential to childhood, pants and trousers and biscuits and pudding. Should she throw out his things piece by piece, or all at one time? Do your best, she told herself.

But then there was Jack at the foot of the bed, his cell phone in the flat of his hands. She could not interpret the look on his face. “You’re kidding me,” she said, because what else could the phone mean? But he shook his head. She let go of the underpants. She went to her husband.

* * *

She loved puppets, too, of course she did. Before, and during, and even after, she loved them, those dear beings—twee, of course they were, which was what made them dear—who died of abandonment over and over. And then were resurrected.

Acknowledgments

I owe much gratitude to many people:

The title “Two Sad Clowns” is taken from an illustration by my great good friend Marguerite White, with whom I have been talking about art and other things for nearly forty years. I thank her for that and so much more.

Everyone at Ecco, especially Helen Atsma, Daniel Halpern, Miriam Parker, Sonya Cheuse, Allison Saltzman, and Sara Birmingham.

Everyone at Dunow, Carlson, and Lerner, especially Henry Dunow, who has been my agent and dear pal for thirty years.

Megan Lynch, for early faith in this book; my colleagues, particularly Lisa Olstein and Deb Olin Unferth; Catherine Nichols for last-minute name assistance; Lisa Sweasy of Vent-haven, for an interview about the late Jimmy Nelson that inspired a story.

Jonathan Green and Elizabeth Gallant Green, for shelter in any number of storms.

Arno, Claudia, and Callum Nauwels provided some notable architecture, Irish and Dutch.

Søren Lind and the Brecht Hus, for inspiration and lodging in Denmark.

Yiyun Li, with much love and gratitude for ineffable things, amid all the words.

Paul Lisicky and Ann Patchett, as usual, read this manuscript and were enormously helpful, kind, and generous. Scott Heim read these stories and gave me irreplaceable help, from sentence to paragraph to story.