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one of them, I guess.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    â€œ
Yeah
,” Gayle said slowly, that night at the table, turning her knife back and forth beside her plate and frowning at it, drawing the word out as though it had been an extremely fine thread of some delicate fabric that would fray and then break if pulled too hard, “remember back before Roy was conceived, when we were still living in Brighton? And I was still doing my training research? Remember that patient I had? That mild mousey young woman from Everett who dressed like she was Miss Jane Marple in real life, and looked like her, too, even though she was fifty years younger, but then turned out to have that, well, rather unusual habit?”
    â€œSure,” he said, “the cockgazer-spinster. Male subway riders were complaining. She wanted what she didn’t have. But, geez, Brennan? I doubt that it’s that. The old bastard does have four kids.”
    â€œOh,” she said, “not penis-envy, no.
Money.
But it amounts to the same thing. His younger brother’s success is something he doesn’t have. But he can’t be jealous of it, as he could—and most likely would—if someone else had it. No, no. To disapprove of Dougie’s big money would disapprove of himself, if he did that. He’d be a jealous big brother. So instead he disapproves of Doug’s pretty wife—and I’ll bet, I would
bet
, his good wife’s plain, and he ignores her—but he puts it in terms of her conduct. And now even his mother agrees.”
    Dell’Appa didn’t say anything for a few minutes. “
Yeah
,” he said, “yeah, that could be.”
    â€œNow, Natty Bumpo,” Gayle said, slyly smiling, “wanna talk about how come he’s so glad to see
you
back from your wilderness days? Since you claim you mean him no harm?”
    â€œI didn’t say that,” he said.

3
    Late Monday afternoon Lieutenant Dennison had been careful in all respects. “No need for hastiness, Harry,” he had said to Dell’Appa. “No call for concern. Take your time. Proceed calmly. Be of the best possible cheer. People and things change so constantly, but so gradually, that when—heck, because—we’re around them all the time, we don’t even notice what’s going on until the whole commotion’s over. And then, when we start trying to figure out just when the whole rigamarole started, and what we’ve got on our hands now, we get slam-dunked again. Our watches’re no good. The calendar’s what’s called for. And when we do get the main time-frame sorted out, well, we have to deal with the inner clock.
    â€œSee, while everything else was changing, so were we. We were changing too. You’ve been gone almosta year. A whole year that Bob’s spent adding to that file, Short Joey’s file. While you were out of here, loose in the woods by yourself, as far as he’s concerned—because you weren’t where you could see him, watch him like a hawk, and he wasn’t watching you, because he couldn’t see you either—during that year he was changing. Just like the file that he was working on was changing. And like you were, too, yourself. Independently of one another. So was I.
    â€œWell, there’s no need to get all lathered up when that happens, let alone when it finally dawns on you that it happened. Take your time. Like I’ve had to. Like we all’ve had to, one reason or another. I’ve got a brand-new house.”
    â€œWhat was the matter with your old house?” Dell’Appa had said. “The house in Canton, right? With the sunken living room, picture window, overlooking the golf course? One good strong lefty golfer with a nasty slice, you’re getting fresh air up the ass? I thought you and Tory liked that house. Never understood quite why, but I did get that impression.”
    â€œAnd you were