Gaits of Heaven

to say. She isn’t allergic. She’s phobic. I restrained myself. Not everyone appreciates puns. I said, “Dolfo should be on leash. And I thought he was with Barbara and George.”
    “They aren’t speaking,” Ted whispered. “Well, he’s speaking to her, but she isn’t speaking to him. To George, I mean.” For the second time in less than a minute, I tactfully kept quiet. “Awkward,” I said.
    “But they’re here. Barbara brought Dolfo with her. They’re in the living room. Frank Farmer isn’t here yet. Dr. York and Dr. Youngman and the others are in the family room.”
    “What’s the Reiki woman doing here?” Caprice asked. “She was very special to Eumie,” Ted said. “I thought she ought to be here. And my acupuncturist. She’s here, too. I’m waiting for Wyeth. The hospital is sending his social worker with him. It was all a misunderstanding, but they’re—“
    “Wyeth tried to kill me,” Caprice said, “and he could’ve killed you, and there’s every chance that he killed Mommy. Now, where’s the misunderstanding?”
    “Caprice,” I said, “let’s let that wait for the meeting, okay?”
    She might not have listened to me. Luckily, her father, the false Monty, as opposed to Phyllis’s dog, arrived at that moment, and Caprice and Ted competed for his attention. Competed. As I’ve said, a dog show. Caprice won. Like the real Monty, Caprice’s father was a gentleman. His polite acknowledgment of Ted struck me as especially civil and admirable; Ted had, after all, stolen Monty’s wife when she’d been a patient of Ted’s. Even so, Monty Brainard nodded to Ted and said hello. Then he wrapped Caprice in a bear hug and greeted her with his favorite term of endearment: “Hi, baby girl.”
    Caprice, I was happy to notice, looked far less babyish than she had at Eumie’s memorial service. She wore a black linen dress with only a few of Lady’s hairs clinging to it, and her blond hair was curling back from her face on its own, with no childish barrettes or bows. Monty’s tan had faded a little since the last time I’d seen him, but he looked hearty and strong, and his thinning hair had been cut very short.
    It must now have been about five minutes before seven. I heard people at the door. Eager to spare Caprice a face-to-face encounter with Wyeth in the absence of a protective coterie of mental-health professionals, I said, “The meeting should be starting soon. Let’s move to the living room.” As she, Monty, and I started to make our way there, I looked back and saw that Wyeth was, in fact, among the new arrivals. With him were his mother and a woman I’d never seen before. As Johanna entered the hallway, the light from an overhead fixture seemed briefly to zoom in on her and to illuminate her face in an unflattering way, as if she were being photographed for the before picture in an impending makeover; her short blond hair showed a quarter-inch of white roots, incipient jowls appeared, and she acquired a vaguely ravaged look. The accompanying woman, whom I assumed to be the social worker Ted had mentioned, was a comfortingly familiar Cambridge type. At the age of fifty-five or sixty, she had waist-length gray-streaked black hair tied at the nape of her neck with an ethnic-looking scarf. Her flowing skirt and tunic had been handwoven in some Third World country. She had weathered skin and wore no makeup. I was willing to bet that the shoes she’d left on the porch were Birkenstock sandals. It seemed to me that she should occupy a place of honor in some living museum of Cambridge. I wanted to clone her.
    The living room, apparently intended as the site for the meeting, was all pale green and silk. It had a large fireplace that held a massive display of fresh flowers. In front of the fireplace, two long couches, a love seat, and a glass-topped coffee table formed what I thought was called a conversation area. Unfortunately, Dolfo’s activity there had not consisted of conversation. As one of the world’s leading experts on pet stain removal, I accurately diagnosed the cause of the yellow marks on the silky upholstery materials and knew that they were permanent. The urine splotches did, however, look dry, and the odor in the house was less pronounced than usual, in part because several windows were open and in part because Nixie Needleman, Eumie’s psychiatrist, was exuding a nose-assaulting scent of musky perfume. As on the night of Eumie’s memorial service, Dr.