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disreputable sort, a gambler she had met in St. Paul and lived with, on and off, for three years. She had heard the story several times, but she had never before heard the legendary Sam O’Gara compared with Bobby Quinn.
    “What do you mean, he was like Bobby?”
    “Well, sweetheart, Sammy wasn’t as tall as Bobby, nor as good-looking. He was a small man, truth be told, but he was a man with big ideas. You know what I mean, dear. He had big ideas in the right places. He knew how to treat a girl. I was just crazy for that man.”
    “Why did you leave him?”
    “Oh, sweetheart, I don’t know. I was busy with you and your sister, too busy to take care of a man as well. I bought you that little red dress on your third birthday. You looked so cute in that dress. And then I met Anthony Alan. It wasn’t so long ago, was it? You were a beautiful child, Barbaraannette.”
    Hilde smiled, remembering Barbaraannette in her red birthday dress. She thought she had a snapshot somewhere, but where? She had a lot of snapshots someplace. In a closet, if only she could remember which one. Which house. She turned her head to ask Barbaraannette where all her snapshots had gone, but instead of Barbaraannette she found a smiling young man sitting at her bedside holding a clipboard.
    “Where did you come from?” she asked. The man was wearing a teal-blue golf shirt that did not go well with his complexion. The name “Reed” was embroidered in white on the left chest of the shirt.
    The man’s smile wavered. “Do you mean, where did I grow up?”
    “You just walk into a woman’s room? What kind of manners did your mother teach you, young man?”
    “I, um…Mrs. Grabo, we were just discussing this evening’s croquet tournament.”
    Hilde frowned. “Where’s Barbaraannette?” she demanded.
    “Your daughter?”
    “Of course she is.”
    “I’m sorry,” said the young man, and he really did look sorry. “Both your daughters left about twenty minutes ago.”
    “Oh!” said Hilde. She thought for a moment, then smiled slyly. “Would you like to hear a limerick?”
    The young man said, standing up, “Maybe I should come back later—”
    Hilde recited, before he could reach the door,
    “There was a young lad in a pickle
    Cuz he sat on his favorite testicle
    He said, while it smarts
    In my tenderest parts
    It’s better than breaking my dickle.”
    “Uh, I’ll stop back later, Mrs. Grabo,” said Reed as he closed her door.
    Hilde giggled. Now, what had she been thinking about?

9
    I ’M THIRTY-FOUR AND ONE third years old, Art Dobbleman thought. Six feet four inches tall, one hundred seventy-six pounds. My car has eighty-six thousand, two hundred eleven miles on it. Last month I wrote four hundred sixty thousand dollars in retail loans. I’ve been working at Cold Rock S&L for nine years and four months. I wear size thirty-six trousers, a forty-four jacket, and I have twenty-eight teeth. My golf handicap is an embarrassing thirty-three. I made forty-one thousand dollars last year. I have been married once, divorced three months, and I am sitting in my car waiting for the woman I have loved for twenty years to come home so that I can lend her one million dollars to help her find her husband.
    With his right hand, Art took the web of skin between his left thumb and forefinger and pinched, grimacing. He squeezed until his thoughts shattered and tears spurted from his eyes, held it for an agonized count of ten, released his grip with a blinking gasp. Galvanized, he yanked open the car door and got out and climbed over the snowbank, rubbered shoes sinking into the crumbly gray ice, overcoat flapping in the brisk wind, briefcase held high for balance. Art made his way up the walk to Barbaraannette’s front door, his vision spotted with floaters in the bright sun. He lifted the back of his coat and sat on the landing. The concrete felt warm with stored sunlight, and the house blocked the chilly wind. He set his briefcase down,