“Well, but that can happen—”

“No,” said Anne decidedly. “He’s not right for me. He never was right for me. He doesn’t have enough to say! And he has these periods of time where he literally does nothing. The other morning he sat in an armchair for twenty minutes, literally twenty minutes, without doing anything. Not reading. Not talking. Just staring at a tree. What’s that about?”

“Perhaps he was silently contemplating the beauty of nature,” offered Ellen. “Or just taking a few moments to meditate and be thankful for his life. Or he was practicing mindfulness—”

“It was a rhetorical question, Ellen. Honestly, I thought he’d lost brain function. Anyway, as the young people say so eloquently: whatever. I don’t care what he’s doing, I just know it drives me nuts. We will be friends, of course. It’s all perfectly amicable. And he says that he would love to see you again, if you’d like that.”

“That would be nice,” said Ellen. Actually, the thought of meeting up with her father now seemed perfectly acceptable, even quite soothing. She thought of rainy Sunday afternoons as a child, when she would lie on a rug on the floor mesmerized by the raindrops sliding down the windowpane, and her mother would keep walking in and out of the room saying, “Ellen, what are you doing? Let’s go out! Let’s talk! Let’s do something.”

Perhaps she and her father could linger together, without the need to say a word. No need for awkward “getting to know you” conversations. They could just be. Father and daughter. And if they didn’t feel a thing for each other except a mild friendliness, then that would be perfectly fine.

“So, at the tender age of sixty-six,” said Anne, “I might be finally ready for a real relationship, now that I can let go of my silly obsession with a romance that never really was. I might even do a little online shopping for a new man. Apparently it’s the latest thing for the over-sixties. And look how successful it’s been for you!”

“Yes!” said Ellen. He would never love another woman as much as he loved Colleen. Maybe not that successful.

“Speaking of which”—Anne lowered her voice—“I’ve been meaning for a while to say that I’ve become very fond of Patrick. Really. Very fond. I took some time to warm to him—”

“He’s right there!” hissed Ellen.

“Well, that’s OK, I’m saying nice things about him. I like the way he looks at you. You’re right. Jon was entertaining, but he didn’t look at you the way Patrick looks at you.”

“How does Patrick look at me?” asked Ellen.

“And he’s a good father.”

“Am I interrupting?”

Ellen and her mother turned to see Maureen at the door, with her arms full of plates.

“I was just saying what a good father your son is.” Anne stood up and took some of the plates from her.

Maureen beamed. There was a sound of running footsteps and they heard Jack scream, “I hate you!”

“Fine!” shouted back Patrick. “Break your other arm for all I care!”

Maureen’s beam wavered. She got it back under control and began scraping leftover food from the plates with the edge of a knife.

“This windy weather really puts people on edge, doesn’t it? I wonder, is there a medical reason for that, Anne?”

I must have fallen asleep because it seemed like I just blinked my eyes and Tammy had materialized. She and Lance and Kate were sitting in a little semicircle of chairs next to my bed, eating chocolates.

Tammy had changed her hair from long and dark to short and strawberry blond. A mistake, I thought.

Lance and Tammy were talking excitedly to each other in peculiar accents, shrugging their shoulders and jutting out their chins.

“They’re trying to talk like Baltimore drug dealers,” explained Kate when she saw I’d woken up. “They’ve discovered they’re both obsessed with The Wire. Some weekends Lance talks like that for an entire day. Can you imagine? I mean, fine, if he actually did sound like a drug dealer, that might be quite sexy.”

“Tammy?” I said.

“Saskia, honey!” She stood up and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. She must have still been using the same fragrance as she had three years ago, because I was immediately taken back to a different time and place.

“It’s so good to see you!” she said. “But you’re meant to be sitting next to me in a bar, not lying in a hospital bed. Lance and Kate said you were sleepwalking and fell down some stairs? That’s terrible! How long have you been sleepwalking for?”

“Since I last saw you,” I said mysteriously—the sort of profound comment that Ellen would appreciate—but Tammy took it at face value.

“Really? Is there a cure? You know, I was thinking on the way here about the last time I saw you. You’d just had your heart broken by some guy. That surveyor? What was his name? Pete? Patrick? It’s been so long you probably don’t even remember the guy.”

Oh, how I laughed.

“El-len!”

It was Patrick, shouting from the second floor.

“Goodness, is he all right?” said Ellen’s mother, startled.

“I expect he needs your help working things out with Jack,” said Maureen to Ellen. “A woman’s touch, you know.” She gave Anne a “You know what I mean” smile, which was totally lost on Anne.