When he could talk again, Els said, I think I must have been mentally ill.
Maddy swung to face him, twisted her head. This is what I’m wondering.
No. Back then. I never should have left you and Sara for music. Even to change the world.
He’d said the last thing he needed to say in this life. Peace came over him, one he hadn’t felt since Fidelio died. She looked away, her gaze now as blank as the past. The middle-aged lovers at the next table — married, but so obviously not to each other — stood and walked away, giggling and licking ice cream off each other’s fingers.
We already had music, Els said. All the music anybody might want.
The high lonesome denim band went into some kind of finale. The child wizard contest was coming down to the final four. Maddy inspected the food court — the sounds they had — then turned back to the sounds he still wanted.
This cell thing. You were trying to live forever?
Could be, Els admitted.
Her chest rose and fell. That was always your problem. She looked for something in the bottom of her cup. I only ever wanted now.
They sat in the cauldron of sound and light, as they once had in Cage’s Musicircus. He held his pepperoni crust aloft. This was our first meal.
Was it? She asked.
You’d just read through my Borges songs. I’d posted an ad at the Music Building, promising pizza for an hour of woodshedding. You answered.
Did I? I was always hungry back then.
I was mad at you for not loving them at first listen.
Oh! She looked up, surprised. But I did!
He fell back, puzzled. He’d driven here to admit to this woman the central mistake of his life. But more mistakes than he could number filled the air around him. Something loosened in him, a landslide of dread. Your quilt, he said. I buried it with the dog.
She shook her head, not getting him.
I was in bad shape. I didn’t know what I was doing.
Oh, for God’s sake. She pawed the air. I’ll make you another while you’re in prison.
Really? You’re quilting again?
Retirement. Something to do.
Careful, he said. That’s how it starts.
She reached across the red plastic table and covered his fist in her palm. Her hand was cold. Her shot skin no longer held in heat. Peter. They’re going to use you. Make a lesson out of you.
He opened his hand and took her finger. His life had been full of fearless music. The trick was remembering the sound of it, now that it was no longer playing.
She squeezed his hand hard, then flicked it away. Speaking of which. Your daughter is beside herself. She’s tried every possible way of reaching you for the last three days. She told me last night she was afraid you might kill yourself.
Tell her I’m good. Tell her I’ll be all right.
You want me to lie to her?
His eye fell on a kiosk near the center of the court. Its banner read Because there is no such thing as natural beauty. .
Tell her what I told you.
All right, she said. I can do that. But you should tell her yourself.
Maddy stood and stacked the trash, the plastic plates and disposable silverware.
It was all fear, she said. Fear got us. By the way: Who’s Kohlmann?
The name came from another planet. So did the note of jealousy. Els glanced at Maddy, but his ex-wife was taking a last, too-large mouthful of now-congealed cheese and trying to hide her pleasure.
Friend. With a phone.
She led Els to the garbage station, where they jettisoned their final meal. Then they ran the gauntlet of shops back toward the entrance, Maddy leading, Els stumbling two steps behind her, through the world’s endless profusion.
Outside, it had begun to drizzle. At the car, Maddy said, Let’s blame Richard.
Els snapped a finger. Perfect! Why didn’t I think of that?
They slipped into the Fiat as if they’d just made a pit stop and it was now back to the highway, license plate bingo, and the annual trip to Yosemite. She fiddled with his shoulder, absently, as he cranked the engine.
How does he seem to you these days?
He goosed the pedal. You hear from him?
Wait. You don’t?
He backed out of the parking slot right in front of an SUV, whose driver laid into his horn for a full ten seconds. The Fiat lurched forward. The lot was a maze of perverse and pointless turns, leading nowhere but toward more shops.
He said, I haven’t spoken to the man for seventeen years.
She took her hand back into her lap. He called me a few months back. He’s in a clinical field trial out in Phoenix. New Alzheimer’s-arresting drug.
Phoenix? Els asked. His head was wrong. He was driving at random. Why Phoenix?
Because that’s where the old people are.
He turned toward her, but she looked away. He looked back to the parking lot, crisscrossed with hazards.
She said, He calls sometimes.
He’s calling you?
Only at night. When he’s terrified. Mostly around two a.m. Charlie wants to kill him.
Does he. . is he. .?
Much the same, Maddy said. For now. A little flakier. Early-stage. That’s why he’s in the trial. He’s pinning everything on this drug. He calls me up to prove that it’s working. He talks like the two of you are as thick as ever.
Els didn’t even see the stop sign until he was through it. He pressed on, his field of vision narrowing to a brown tube.
You’re in touch. I thought you hated him.
Richard? I loved Richard. And I loved you. I just hated the two of you together.
After two more capricious right turns, he asked, Where exactly am I going?
I was just going to ask. Peter? Her chin rose and fell; her eyes shot down the road. What are you going to do? You don’t think I can shelter you, do you?
Of course not, he said.
I can help you, she told the glove compartment. Get you a lawyer. Run interference. Character witness. Whatever you need. There’s still the law, isn’t there? You are innocent, right?
He caught her eye. Too late for foolish optimism. She closed her eyes and held up one hand.
Let’s not go there yet.
He’d gotten them onto a quiet residential street full of modest ranch houses. He nosed the car to the curb along a maple-lined parkway. The rain had turned real and the sky was indigo.