“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July, sir.”

“I’m aware of that,” he said.

The dog still raced in a circle, just out of reach, as though it’d been bred to bring obese women to bay on open ground.

“I’m afraid Mr. Russell will be gone through the end of the week. Who may I say’s calling?”

“I’ve seen the man naked. You can tell him that’s who called.”

“I guess I know why you blocked your number.”

The receptionist’s voice was strained but now also curious.

“I guess you do,” he said.

In Sheridan he pulled through the drive-up window at the Dairy Queen and ordered two Butterfinger Blizzards, then parked at the curb across the street from Helen’s split-level. He was halfway through the first one when she opened the gate from the sideyard, walking out wrapped in a lime-green beach towel. She bent to pull a garden hose farther away from the house, and a muscled-up Rottweiler straddled the sprinkler, biting at the water until she told him to quit. When she was satisfied the spray wasn’t soaking the fencing she called the dog back through the gate.

He carried the untouched Blizzard in his good hand, staying out of the flowerbeds, standing finally up against the chin-high board fence, staring into the backyard. “Hello,” he called, and heard the dog growling but couldn’t see it. A voice he didn’t recognize was repeating something in Spanish.

“Is that you?” Helen called.

“It’s Crane.”

“That’s who I meant by ‘you.’”

He eased the gate open. The Mexican said something about would she mind if he used the bathroom.

“Is your dog friendly?”

“Why don’t you come ahead and we’ll see.”

Around the corner of the house he found her on a redwood chaise. The top half of her swimsuit lay in a little heap on the ground, and she’d pulled the towel up under her chin. Both she and the dog were staring at him. He held up the Blizzard. “I brought you something.”

She punched the off button on a boom box, where it sat unevenly on the flagstones, and the voice stopped asking for directions to the airport. “Larry’s taking me to Acapulco in September.”

He nodded, sitting on the edge of a second lounger.

“What’s in the cup?” she asked, and then more pointedly, “You know it’s been twelve years? You do know that, don’t you?”

He’d been staring at the dog and didn’t realize he wasn’t listening. He scooted forward, offering the Blizzard.

“Something sweet,” he said.

She popped the lid, stared inside, then laid the cup on its side in front of the dog, who immediately pinned it between its front paws and buried its nose in the ice cream, its dark eyes still on Crane.

“I had to check,” she said. “A large dose of chocolate can kill a dog.”

“I didn’t know that. I didn’t even know you had a dog.” He looked around the patio, at each piece of lawn furniture. “I was surprised to see you come out and change the sprinkler.”

“And you were just driving by?”

“I was across the street.”

“How often does that happen?”

“This is the first time. I had to look up your address in the phone book.” His mind kept drifting, and he stared down between his boots to focus. There were ants at work in the cracks between the stones. “I would’ve thought Larry could afford an underground system,” he said.

“One of the zones sprung a leak. There’s supposed to be someone out later today.”

“You look good.” He was still staring down.

“I’m a vegan now,” she said.

He looked up when he heard the dog tearing the cup to get at the last of the Blizzard. “Larry going without steak and eggs and milk and whatever else too?”

“The man needs his red meat,” she said.

When there were only a few shreds of paper left the dog started a low, threatening growl, and Helen slapped him on the head with the flat of her hand.

“Hush, now,” is what she said when she slapped him a second time. “I’m guessing you already know Larry’s not home, or you would’ve brought him a milkshake too.”

“I called his office.”

“Did you really?”

“I told his secretary I’d seen him naked. It seemed kind of funny at the time.”

“Does it still seem funny?”

He shrugged. “Not as much.”

She stroked the dog’s head, and it settled its chin on its front paws. “Did you tell Kathy that the time you saw her boss naked he was on top of your wife?”

“I didn’t realize it had been twelve years already.”

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

He brought it into his lap, holding it there, wondering if its uselessness was obvious to everyone. “It sort of buzzes.”

“Like what? Like a bee?”

“I haven’t been feeling very well.”

“Not just your arm?”

“Generally, I guess.”

“So you thought after twelve years you’d check in to tell me you’re sick?”

“I was just driving around.”

“Did you think it would cheer me up?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it one way or the other. I was driving around and then I called Larry, and then you changed your sprinkler.”

“Are you dying?”

The question surprised him. “We’re all dying.”

“But are you over here to tell me you’re going faster than the rest of us?”

She was wearing sunglasses, but it didn’t matter, he’d never been very good at reading her expressions. “That’s a pretty big leap,” he said.

“Not really. You look like hell.”

“I’ve ended up with what my granddad had.”

She stared at him. Long enough that he looked away, and then back to see if she was still staring at him.

“That’s absolutely fucked.” She pushed the glasses to the top of her head.

“I guess I just needed to hear somebody say that out loud.”

He stood up, and the dog growled and got slapped again.

She gathered the pieces of the cup and scrunched them together. “If you want to know, I divorced you because I was afraid,” she said. “We’ve never talked about that.”

He watched her squeeze the paper even tighter. “When we were married? You were afraid of me?”

“Yes, I was.”

“I never laid a hand on you.” He was massaging the bad arm, watching her place the scraps precisely on top of the boom box, still holding the towel across her breasts.

“But it felt like you wanted to. Like you had to remind yourself not to.”

They heard a truck pull to the curb in front of the house.

“That must be your sprinkler guy,” he said.

“Can you turn around?”

“What?”

“I need to get dressed.”

He stared at the mountains. “Maybe what you felt was something I brought home with me? From being a cop?”

“Maybe that’s all it was,” she said. “It was a long time ago. We were very, very young.”

The sound of a truckdoor closing, the drop of a tailgate.

“You never felt like that with Larry? I mean uneasy.”

“I guess living with Larry’s kind of like a diet without meat.”

She stepped to his side. She had her top on now and the towel wrapped around her waist. They could see the cab of a white truck over the fence.

“I must’ve been feeling homesick or something,” he said.

Her smile had a certain ease, a coziness that reminded him of an apartment they’d rented in their twenties.

“Will you turn off the hose on your way out?”

“Sure I will.”

“It was good to see you.”

“You too.”

“Tell the sprinkler guy I’ll be out in a minute.”

“All right.”

She turned, circling his neck with her bare arms, and pulled him against her. Her chin just cleared his shoulder, the wind catching in her hair, fanning it into his face. It smelled like he remembered, like when they were just kids, in high school.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Truly I am.”

He raised his arms like he might embrace her, then let them drop to his sides. “Thank you,” he said.

She stepped back and the dog got to its feet, its lips bunched in a soundless snarl.

“At least you didn’t get bitten.”