Switching through the channels, I thought of Hugh’s box marked “Tarzan Hotel” and how he enjoyed not knowing what was inside. He’d once said, “Never try to avoid the rain by walking close to a building. You always get hit by the big drops falling from the roof.” Thoughts, pictures, memories of him flooded me.

I would have been swept away if a high tweedly whistle from the television set hadn’t begun playing “Ring’s End Rose,” a happy Irish song about new love that was one of Hugh’s favorites. Before I focused on the TV to see why it was being played, I thought, This is what it’s going to be like now and maybe forever—everything will be Hugh Oakley. I’d better get used to it or it will drive sorrow and remembrance into me like a mallet driving a stake into soft earth.

On the television screen, Hugh sat by the side of a swimming pool playing an Irish pennywhistle. In the pool, Charlotte and the now familiar little boy held hands and danced together to his music.

Hugh looked ten years older—heavier and redder in the face, less hair, the kind of slow carefulness in his movements you see in aging people. He might have been in his late fifties. His great years had passed; he was at the age where you take what you can get. But his expression blazed happiness watching the two dancers, and it came through in the way he played.

Charlotte looked gorgeous. Although she was a decade younger than Hugh, she too looked older than when I had last seen her. Her still lovely figure was accented by a simple black one-piece bathing suit that emphasized her high square shoulders and long neck. Her platinum hair was cut very short and smart. She wore minimal, chic steel-rim eyeglasses. The severe, scaled-down look suited her brilliantly. It said, Yes, I’m older, but I know exactly what to do with it: pare my beauty to its essence so that what’s left shows only the best.

“Daddy, come in! You promised you’d come in.”

“Daddy’s happy playing for us, honey. Come on, let’s you and me dance some more.”

They did, and there was so much love around the three of them that I cringed. Hugh played “Foggy Dew.” Hugh was on television. Hugh ten years older, balder. Hugh still alive but with Charlotte again. And their son.

They danced and splashed and sang along. Still playing, Hugh stood up and did a jig by the side of the pool. The boy jumped around and threw himself into Charlotte’s arms. Her glasses flew off but with the most beautifully precise gesture she snatched them out of the air before they hit the water.

When he had finished playing, Hugh walked into the house. The boy grabbed onto the side of the pool and tried calling him back. Hugh only waved and kept going. He went through the kitchen, the living room, out to the front porch. Opening a mailbox there, he took out a handful of letters and magazines. Shuffling through, he didn’t stop until he uncovered an oversized postcard.

On the front was a photograph of a picturesque port with whitewashed buildings set against a green hillside and the bluest sky. He turned the card over. The handwriting was instantly recognizable. Mine.

He finished reading and clicking his tongue, shook his head. “Samos. Samos.” He said the word twice, as if trying it out on his tongue. The expression on his face was clear: relief. He wasn’t in the least sad I was gone.

“Darling, did the mail come?” Charlotte walked into the room followed by a young dalmatian that was growling and pulling on a pink towel she held behind her. Hugh held out my postcard. She looked at it and, raising an eyebrow, asked, “Miranda?” He handed it over with no hesitation. Tipping her head in a way that indicated her glasses were too weak, she read it quickly and handed it back.

“How long has it been since you last saw her? Eight years?”

He bent the card in half. “Nine. A long time.”

“But she’s been writing you ever since.” It was a statement, not a question.

He lifted a hand and shrugged as if to say, What can I do?

The dog put its front paws on him and stretched languorously. Hugh grabbed its head and kissed it.

Charlotte patted the dog. “Isn’t it strange? Miranda’s the only one of your girlfriends who’s stayed true to you. All the trouble and pain you had with her at the end, but a decade later she’s still sending you postcards from her travels.”

Tongue lolling out of its mouth like a long red belt, the dog started humping Hugh’s leg. They laughed. Hugh said, “Perfect timing,” and pushed him down.

The boy rushed into the room. “Dad! It’s getting dark outside. The eclipse is starting! Come on!” He took his father’s hand and, finding him immovable, rushed back out of the room.

Charlotte’s mouth tightened and she gestured toward the boy. “What if you had stayed with her? Then we’d never have had him.”

Hugh reached out and touched his wife’s cheek. “But I didn’t stay with her. Don’t think about it, sweetheart.”

“I think about it all the time. Thank God you stayed.”

“You won, Char. Look at these postcards. She’s pathetic.”

She touched a finger to his lips. Be careful what you say.

The television picture changed abruptly to a scene from Amarcord, Hugh’s favorite film. Above the TV noise, a sound rose behind me that was difficult to place. But then I knew it—toenails clicking across a wooden floor.

I turned as the young dalmatian entered my kitchen. He plopped down on the floor and stared at me. His tail began to thump. The same dog that had been on television with Hugh’s family a moment ago was now here with me.

“His name is Bob.”

Nothing is more ineffable than a voice, yet a few remain recognizable as long as we live. Even if we lost them a lifetime ago. James Stillman stood in my doorway. But this was James the man I had never known, the face I had seen only once, in a photograph.

He was thinner, hair fashionably short, the beginning of a few concentric wrinkles framing the corners of his mouth. But his eyes were the same. Eyes I had once memorized—a rascal’s eyes, the eyes of a guy who’s got tricks up his sleeve or a great joke to tell. He leaned easily against the door frame, hands deep in his pockets, one leg crossed nonchalantly in front of the other. He did it all unconsciously. His mother used to call it his Gary Grant pose. I smelled his cologne. I smelled the Zizanie cologne and somehow that was the most shocking thing of all. It made it all the more real. Dreams don’t smell.

The dog jumped up on him and scrabbled furiously for his attention. James picked him up. Bob went nuts. He wiggled and licked and twisted all at the same time. It was too much, and James put him down again but continued to scratch his frantic head.

“I remember your dog, Miranda. What was its name?”

“Oscar.”

He grinned. “Oscar! That’s right. Loudest dog I ever knew. Remember how he snored? And farted?”