The dispute in his dream unsettled him, because there were always doubters. But he smiled when he woke from it, because he was so young in his dreams and, awake, he knew he was sixty-two. And at once he was aware of Olive’s warmth and her nakedness, and he turned over and slid toward her. She parted her legs to welcome his searching hand and enclose his body. Then he lay in the dark against her, as on a wave, and rode her while she clutched at his arms as though climbing through a hold-down, and in their delirium their bodies were phosphorescent, lit with desire.

He sank to sleep after that, then floated, drugged and wrung out by the convulsive lovemaking, lying on his back, his mouth half open, like a castaway, adrift again.

As the sky above the treetops paled at his uncurtained window, he stirred—the light seeping into him, reddening his eyelids—and he settled lower into his soft bed in a body-shaped pod of warmth. In the rising light the dream came again, more vivid now, in full color; he was flat on his board, paddling in turbulent water, and anxious—the anxiety woke him—and he blinked, recognizing his room, and was free of the dream.

Every morning he woke and was content, knowing the whole day was his. He flung out his arm, snatching at emptiness—Olive was no longer beside him. She’d risen, one of her early starts, to work at the hospital. Their lovemaking now seemed unreal, a ghostlike hold-down in the dark glimmer of dawn. But he could smell her body on the sheet, which was still damp where she had lain.

Sharkey stretched, he yawned like a dog, he roared with satisfaction, then kicked away the sheet and swung himself off the bed, swallowing air, roaring again. His voice alerted the geese outside on the lawn, which replied in urgent squawks, startling the peacock into a fit of screaming. Now the sun was a hot blade at the window, and a dewy blue stillness of thick dampened petals sweetened the morning.

In this blossom of solitude he remembered the night before, and he fell back on his bed to recall the details of the evening.

It had been party at a beachfront house overlooking the surf break they called Off the Wall. “Party” meant a small room crowded with shrieking young people, the heat and smack of their sweat, the sustained pressure of their bodies and bare legs, jostling boys with big shoulders, girls in shorts, a woman with purple and blue fish scales tattooed on her upper arm, a ring in her lower lip, others with nose rings and wearing T-shirts with slashes. A TV screen on the far wall showed surfers on the boil of curling waves.