Two weeks later, in mid-August, he and Tommy turned the draft in to Ruby Hand. They both thought it stank but were of different minds about what was wrong with it, agreeing only about two things: that the script was unlikely to get better without additional input and that their producer was an even bigger dickhead than they remembered. Good luck getting valuable notes from him. He was prompt, though, give him that. He called the very next day, when Tommy was out. He’d read the script and thought it was definitely “a step in the right direction.” How about they all think about it for a few days and exchange notes later in the week?

“That’s that, then,” Tommy said when Griffin told him about the conversation.

“What do you mean?”

“God, have you really been gone that long? That ‘step in the right direction’ jazz is code.”

“You think we’re fired?”

“No, I know we’re fired.”

He’d always had an almost preternatural gift for knowing when the ax was about to fall, but in this instance Griffin wasn’t sure he agreed. “Our contract calls for a polish.”

“He’s going to eat the polish, Griff. Trust me, we’re shitcanned. You might as well pack your bags.”

Griffin decided to come clean. “I called the college last week,” he said, “and they’re granting me a year’s leave.”

Tommy nodded, then shook his head. “Joy knows about this?”

“Possibly. There aren’t many secrets in small colleges.”

“But you haven’t told her.”

“Not yet, though it won’t be a surprise. She predicted it, in fact. Also, I might’ve found an apartment.”

Tommy just sighed.

“I’ve stayed too long,” Griffin said. “If we land another gig, maybe we could rent a small office.”

Later that week, both their cells rang at the same moment. Griffin ’s said MOM CALLING, so he took it outside onto the patio. He’d been in L.A. a week before remembering his promise to visit and bring her the books and journals she wanted. “Maybe I can find what you need out here,” he’d offered, after telling her where he was and why, or at least the small part he wanted her to know. “August is soon enough,” she’d told him, confirming his earlier suspicion that she didn’t need them to begin with. Their conversation had been short, suspiciously so, he thought. It was almost as if she was relieved he wouldn’t be coming to see her as planned. Nor had she called him since, which was stranger still. For her, summer was open season for pestering.

“Mom,” he said now, “how are you?”

But it wasn’t his mother. The woman identified herself as Gladys, her next-door neighbor. She’d become concerned when Mary didn’t answer her knock that morning. They were on the buddy system, Gladys explained, which meant they each had a key to the other’s apartment, in case she locked herself out or something else happened. This was something else. She’d found Griffin’s mother in bed, still in her nightgown, the curtains drawn and the room dark in the middle of the day. She was staring at nothing and gasping for breath, barely conscious, unresponsive. A heart attack, the emergency people thought. They’d given her oxygen and just minutes ago taken her to the hospital. “She keeps your number on the refrigerator,” Gladys said. “I hope she won’t be upset with me for using her phone to call. I could’ve used my own, I suppose, but I didn’t think.”

Griffin told her he was sure it would be okay.

“She hasn’t been feeling good,” Gladys said.

“I didn’t know that.”

“She didn’t like to say anything.”

Since when? Griffin thought. Were they talking about the same woman?

“We aren’t really buddies,” Gladys admitted. “That’s just what we call it. The buddy system. When you’re all alone, you need someone close by.” Hearing this, Griffin swallowed hard. “I’m not sure your mother even likes me very much, but I didn’t mind bud-dying with her. She could be very nice when she wanted to.”

Griffin thanked her and said he’d be on the first flight he could catch, then hung up and just stood there on the balcony until Tommy poked his head out to check on him. “That sucks,” his friend said when Griffin told him what was up, that he had to fly to Indiana.

Tommy insisted on driving him to LAX. At the curb they parted awkwardly, like a married couple in the middle of a spat.

“Okay if I call Joy about this?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“I might anyway.”

Griffin saw no reason to argue. “I’ll let you know what’s up once I get the lay of the land.”

They shook hands.

“I never told you I found my mother.”

“No kidding.”

He nodded.

“And?”

“And you were right.”

The Hedges occupied the tip of the peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water. The main building was a grand old structure with a huge porch bordered by eight-foot-tall yew trees that were painstakingly sculpted into a massive hedge. Farther down the sloping lawn, more hedges formed what Griffin guessed was a labyrinth. When he pulled into the gravel lot, he saw Joy’s sister June emerge from an opening in the hedge with a crying child in tow. They were quite a ways off, but it was incredibly quiet, especially after L.A., and he could hear her say, “Poor sweetie pie, did you get lost? Didn’t Grammy tell you that might happen?”

It was still an hour before the rehearsal dinner was scheduled to begin. Griffin thought it would be good to arrive early, but now he wished he hadn’t. There were a couple dozen cars clustered near to the hotel. The lot was huge, though, big enough to handle a convention, so he parked in a remote spot. Joy’s family probably would regard this, too, as standoffish, but during his year in L.A. he’d had two minor but costly auto mishaps-one on the freeway, not really his fault, the other in a mall parking lot, entirely his fault-and his insurance premiums were again on the rise. (Interesting, he thought, that his late mother yapped at him incessantly, whereas his dead father was content to communicate via crumpled bumpers and detached side-view mirrors.)

The evening was cool, with a nice breeze off the water, so he decided to just sit in the car for a few minutes and gather himself for what promised to be an ordeal. But Joy must have had an eye out for him, because right after turning off the ignition he caught a glimpse of her in the rearview mirror, coming down the porch steps. On the dashboard was the literary magazine that featured “The Summer of the Brownings.” He’d brought a copy along with the idea of giving it to Joy, but he now realized the timing was wrong and left it where it was. All is vanity, his mother said, quoting whom? Shakespeare? Thackeray? The Old Testament? Google it, she suggested. Lord, Griffin thought. Last year, based on slender evidence, Joy had been convinced that his father was haunting him. What would she make of him losing arguments with his deceased mother? Not that he had any intention of telling her.

“Joy,” he said, getting out of the car and giving her the best smile he could muster, “you look terrific.”

Which she did. She’d lost some weight, which showed most flatteringly on her face. Her eyes, though, revealed the strain of the last year, and a wave of guilt washed over him, its undertow jellying his knees. He could tell she was registering the physical changes in him as well, and these, he knew, were even more pronounced. What he’d been wondering since leaving the inn was whether they would embrace. He didn’t want to presume anything and reminded himself to react, not initiate, though now the moment arrived and his wife of thirty-five years was in his arms before he could react. Then just as quickly she stepped back before he could even evaluate what kind of hug it had been. This, he told himself, was probably how the next twenty-four hours would go. One moment moving on to the next with a terrible efficiency, before it could be really taken in. Dear God, how would he ever get through it?