He remembers his life in Middle Falls nostalgically, as a magical exploration of his male nature, but he forgets the seedy underside—the fear of discovery, the squeezed brevity of the trysts, the guilt that gnawed his innards into gastritis, the messy aftermaths. With Faye there had been legal threats and with Alissa a pregnancy. Once he and Alissa had tried meeting at the Whitefield’s Rock preserve, in the woods where he and Faye had gone that wondrous first time, and midsummer mosquitoes feasted on her exposed skin. She stood above him in forest concealment as he tugged down her underpants; her lovely plump legs became quickly hairy with the frantic bloodsucking little creatures. Out of mercy, he said after a minute, “Let’s get out of here.” He forgets more and more but still remembers trying to brush away the mosquitoes from her thighs as his mistress gazed down at him uncertainly, looking to him for leadership and sexual stimulation, for a sheltered site where they could be themselves.

The children are gone now but Julia and Owen live with another presence in the house, their approaching deaths. And before that, if they are unlucky, Alzheimer’s with its idiotic life-in-death. They are both forgetful, she of errands she means to run and he of names, especially of their friends in Haskells Crossing and Haven-by-the-Sea. Names planted early in the brain seem to last; a curling, brittle photo of the Willow second grade awakens names row by row, without a gap, whereas yesterday’s golf companion, met on the street, draws a blank, although Owen can picture his swing—a vulturous hunch, a spectacular hook—perfectly. Former President Reagan hangs heavily over the infant millennium: this foggy-voiced actor, this handsome snake-oil salesman who persuaded the poor to vote with the rich, as if indeed they were rich, has become a haze of pure existence, unencumbered by any memory of his venturesome life or even by his faithful wife’s name, while his own name, thanks to his grateful party, is attached to the capital’s airport and a huge downtown building of appropriately vague purpose. He haunts the national village; he warns us of what, even with salubrious amounts of brush-cutting and horseback-riding and plenty of sleep, can happen. In Pennsylvania they used to speak of old people “going back”—reverting, that is, to infancy. Owen and Julia are already turned in that direction, talking in baby syllables, touching each other as if for orientation in the dark, squabbling like mated toucans in a tropical jungle and then flying away in perfect forgetful unison.