“I don’t know. I suppose there could still be a miracle. Anything can happen.”

“It’s getting bigger. You gave your tumor a name, and now it’s bigger. Don’t you think maybe you gave it too much love? You encouraged it.” Then he shakes his head. “Listen to me, talking like this. Like any of this is really real. Blix! Why the hell couldn’t you have used all your . . . whatever . . . your power to stop this from happening?”

“Oh, Houndy baby, everybody eventually has to make their transition, and I’ve done what I could, but maybe we have to face it that Cassandra is the way I’m meant to go. Come over here, you big old lug, and let me love on you for a minute.”

He says no but then he scootches over and holds on to me. I’ll bet he was a fine specimen when he was young, because he still has the strongest, broadest shoulders and the softest little earlobes and the reddest cheeks and a light in his eyes that you don’t find on most humans today.

One time he said to me, “You know, I had a great six-pack when I was young,” and I said to him, “Bragging about beer is so unbecoming for an old man.”

The truth is that he is still a beautiful man.

“Why do you want to leave me?” he says, his voice all choked up, and I can’t speak for a minute. I just rub his back in circles, closing my eyes tightly and drinking him in—the smell of him, the way his muscles ripple underneath my hands, the labored breathing that comes out of him in bursts.

This, I think, is my life. I am living my life. Right now. This is the moment that we have.

I stroke his head and look deeply in his eyes. There is no answer. I don’t want to leave him, but I believe we all create our own reality, so I must have planned this. I can’t figure it out, why it went down this way, and it hurts to try, to tell you the truth. I just know that some ailments aren’t meant to be healed, and that Houndy and I—and Marnie, too, and everybody that I know—are engaged in some kind of dance of our souls and we are here to help each other. So I tell him this, and he kisses me, and then in his regular voice he says I’m his very favorite lunatic, and maybe I could do a spell to make the lobsters simply jump out of the sea so he doesn’t have to haul them in today for the party, how would that be; and maybe while I’m at it, I could do a spell that his back would stop hurting, and that we would both live forever here in this perfect little brownstone that threatens every day to fall down around us but so far hasn’t.

“Okay, I’ll try to get the lobsters to come right to you,” I say. “And I also have another new project, that I didn’t tell you about yet. But I need to tell you.”

“I hope it’s you staying alive.”

“Sssh. I think Marnie and Patrick are supposed to be together. I’m working on that.”

He pulls away just slightly. “Marnie and Patrick? Are you out of your mind?”

“No, she’s right for Patrick. I’m convinced of it. They’re supposed to be together. That’s what all this has been about, Houndy. All of it. My meeting Marnie at the party. Patrick coming to live here in the first place. Who knows how far back this goes?”

“Oh, no,” he says. “What are you doing this for? Blix! You can’t possibly want to torment poor Patrick any more than he’s already been tormented.”

“Torment? Love is not torment,” I tell him firmly. “Trust me. These two are a match. I knew it the moment I saw her, but I just didn’t know I knew it.”

“Blix.”

“Houndy.”

“He doesn’t want love. He’s hurt.” He gets up out of bed, pretending to be all grouchy. “Patrick just wants to be left alone.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said to me. Everybody wants love, and the ones who appear to want it the least actually need it the most. Remember when you first came to me? Huh? Remember that? You didn’t know you wanted love.”

“Yeah, but, with all due respect to your matchmaking ways, let’s not overlook that Marnie married Noah. What about that? He’s the one she wants.”

“Well, she did marry him. But he’s left her. The universe works in mysterious ways, Houndy, and I know what I’m doing. You just have to trust me.” I hug myself and laugh.

He starts waving his hands in the air around his head, like there are gnats bothering him. He can only go so far with this kind of talk. And sure enough, he’s pulled his clothes on by now, and he goes to the bedroom door to leave, grousing again about how he has to go get the lobsters, and I remind him that Harry said he’d get the lobsters, and then I say, “Okay, you. I think you need to come back to bed for some special attention.”

“Blix. I don’t wanna.”

“Oh, Houuuuuuuundy . . .”

“No.”

“Ohhhhhhh, Houuuuuuuundy . . .”

“No, no, no.” But he is standing at the bedroom door again, trying to hide his smile.

I waggle my fingers, like I’m sending over some fairy dust. I crook my finger at him. “Houndy, Houndy, Houndy!”

“Damn it, Blix. What are you doing to me?”

“Youuuu knooooow.”

He comes over to the bedside, and I reach over and lift up his shirt, and unbutton the cargo pants he’s just buttoned up.

“Blix, it—it’s not going to . . . ohhhhh!” And then he comes down onto the bed, tumbling really, and he’s laughing in surprise, so I roll him over and put my nose right up to his, and then—and this is an effort, let me tell you—I hoist myself up on top of him, and sit there, straddling him. And slowly, slowly the light comes back into Houndy, and he gives himself over to me. It’s almost like that moment when you’re sautéing mushrooms, and they give up, yield themselves to you, and the alchemy is complete.

That’s Houndy and me, making love. Mushrooms in a pan.

Like we’ve done for so long, thick and thin, sickness and health, all that. You never know which time is going to be the last time.

He wasn’t my first love, or second, third, fourth, or maybe even thirty-fourth. But Houndy, as I’ve come to see—simple, uncomplicated, straightforward Houndy—is the love of my life.

And when I tell him so, he squeezes his eyes shut tight, and when he opens them again, the light of his love nearly blinds me.

Lola comes over to help me get ready for the wake. I’m washing bowls and trays while she unpacks the streamers and tiaras and confetti left over from our last bash early in the summer.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Somehow I don’t think streamers are quite appropriate for a wake, now are they?”

“Everything should be appropriate. I’m changing the rules of wakes, remember? I’m going out with a bang. Streamers and whatever else. I personally will be wearing a tiara and I hope you will, too. I’d like to die in a tiara, as a matter of fact.”

She turns and smiles at me sadly. “Ah, Blix, you’re not dying. I’ve seen people who are about to die, and they’re nothing like you. They’re not washing bowls for a dinner party, for one thing. And they’re not thinking about sex.”

“Oh dear, did you hear us?”

“Did I hear you? Are you kidding me? Damn straight, I heard you. I was walking outside on the sidewalk, and I thought, that Houndy sounds like—wait, is that why he’s called Houndy? It is, isn’t it? He baaaaays like . . . Oh!” She bursts out laughing.

“That’s it. He’s an old hound dog.”

“God, I miss that.”

“Sex? Do you, really?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Really really?”

“I said yes. But it’s been so long, it would probably kill me. It’d be like sandpaper down there.”

“Oh, that’s no excuse. They have stuff for that now. At the drugstore. And you could be having sex, you know. You know you could.” I can’t resist saying it. “And speaking of which, how come you’re not telling me about that guy who comes and picks you up? He would sleep with you in an instant.”

“Oh, him.” Her face goes cloudy. “You sent him, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did. Not him, per se. I don’t even know who he is. I just put out in the universe that you needed somebody to love again. So tell me why you’re so secretive about him.”

“You want to know the truth?”

“Yes, damn it. You tell me everything, except now suddenly you’re keeping this man all to yourself. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how mean you’re being.”

“Well, I haven’t told you this because I don’t want you making a big deal out of it. Putting all your magic dust all over it. He’s a friend, okay? From the past. Nothing more than that.”

“Uh-huh,” I say. The truth is, I did concentrate real hard on having her find someone who could win her trust, someone she’d perhaps known from before, because Lola is a little bit cowardly when it comes to meeting new men. I wrote journal entries; I did chanting; I threw the I Ching coins. I did a couple of spells just for good measure. And I sent prayers out into the universe. It’s all a mix.

“See? There you go, doing it again. Matchmaking when there’s nothing there. Sorry. Just wishful thinking this time, Blix.”

I simply smile.