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This marital connection was sweet early on and a possible clue as you imagined those newlyweds in Central Park, in the middle of Sheep Meadow, Andrew reluctantly posing while Isabel framed Essex House for its maximum subliminal message. Click. Hard to believe that was fifty years ago. © Isabel Dyer. The photo remained even after the affair that produced Andy and finished the marriage and secured the final estrangement from his already distant sons. I suppose nothing keeps the end from being hard. But for most readers, A. N. Dyer was forever twenty-seven, so when he took the lectern in that church and looked as old as he had ever looked, the congregation practically gasped as if aging were a stunt gone horribly wrong.
    Andrew flattened his eulogy. Hands frisked pockets for reading glasses, the microphone picking up a few grumbles, all vowel based. “Okay,” he said, after which he cleared his throat and pinched his nose clean. “Okay,” he said again, the sentiment towing an unsure breath. Finally he began to read. He was like a boy standing in front of class trying to get through an assignment without a possibly catastrophic lull. “What are we in this world without our friends if family is the foundation then friends are its crossbeams its drywall its plumbing friends keep us warm and warmhearted friends furnish and with a friend like Charlie Topping I was never without a home.” Andrew paused for breath, which was a relief for all our lungs, until he glanced up and asked if everyone could hear him. A handful nodded while a fewof us lowered our heads. He went back to reading. “Whenever I was in need of succor—succor,” he repeated the word as though surprised by its appearance, “I could count on Charlie.” From here he started to read slower. “He was an unlocked door with something smelling good in the oven. He was the fire in the fireplace, the blanket draped over the couch, the dog at my feet. He was the shelter when I was the storm.” Andrew paused again, interrupted, it seemed, by higher frequencies. He turned around and pointed to the top of the gilded altarpiece. “Zadkiel,” he said with newfound authority, “that’s the name of that angel up there, the fifth from the left. Zadkiel. Kind of like a comic book character, that’s what Charlie always said to his audience. Mandrake the Magician. Zadkiel the Absolver. Faster than a speeding regret.” Andrew turned back around. “Sorry,” he said to his audience. “I am the storm, right, that’s where we were, me as the raging storm.” Watching him was like watching Lear forget his lines on the heath. He removed his glasses, shielded his eyes from the glare of the inner dim. “Has anyone seen my boy?” he asked. “Andy Dyer?” He searched the crowd as if every face were a wave and there was a small boy overboard, possibly drowning. “It’s important, please,” he said. No answer broke the surface, though I could imagine the whispers of bastard, the giddy apostasy of gossip. “Is he even here?” Still nothing. “Are you here, Andy?” Silence. “I need to find him. Please.”
    Somewhere within this infinite realm of being, or potential being, I’m the one who stands up and approaches the lectern, who gently takes A. N. Dyer by the arm and guides him back to his pew, rather than my stepmother, who did the charitable thing while I just sat there and waited for my name to be called.

I.iii
    O UTSIDE ON THE STEPS , Andy Dyer smoked cigarette number five and watched the well-heeled walk up and down Madison. The newly minted warm weather offered an exuberance of flesh, women the main demographic on this avenue, their shopping bags swinging on a spring harvest of clothes. Many of them circulated through the nearby Ralph Lauren store, and I wonder if Andy realized or even cared that old Ralph was originally Lipschitz from the Bronx. Oh, the ironies of American reinvention: we appreciate the striving, the success, the superior khaki, while also