“Just health, sweetie.”

Also there is this: I think the nurse’s aide who comes into the room is in love with the guy who brings the wheelchair to take Lola for a scan. I also think the woman in the next bed is in love with her doctor. I wouldn’t be surprised if I wandered around the hospital for hours and found so many matches we could hold a dance party on the roof and have everybody paired up.

Later that day I take Bedford to Prospect Park, where we find ourselves partaking in a Halloween street fair/farmers’ market clearly attended by every child, parent, and dog in Brooklyn. There are games set up and face-painting booths, an artisanal ice cream truck, a guy selling both organic vegetables and hand lotion. I spend a lot of time looking at a table filled with vintage clothing, candles, soaps, and stained glass lamps. And here I am, just another human who has a dog on a leash, a human carrying a take-out cup of coffee and a phone.

And then he is out of sight. The leash slips from my hands when I stop to pick up a bar of olive oil soap, and away he goes.

I walk for a bit, then sigh and lie down on the grass. Okay, I think, watching the sky. I had a dog. Maybe this is what life is teaching me now, how to let go. I had a life in California and a marriage. Then I had a life in Florida with a man who wants to marry me. Now I have a moment in Brooklyn with a house and my ex and a guy downstairs who is maimed and claims to be irredeemably misanthropic, and I have a new friend who has a child and a wound where her heart is supposed to be, and an old lady who thinks she can’t possibly love again.

The gold sparkles are all around me still. If I squint, I can see them. The same ones Blix saw. It makes me feel so close to her, as if maybe she’s somewhere nearby, floating about in the ether.

After a while, I feel something touching my leg, and then I hear panting and feel hot breath on my face. I sit up quickly and put my hands over my mouth. But Bedford doesn’t care that I don’t want dog slobber all over my face. He stretches out next to me, wagging his tail, smiling, and his eyes look right into mine.

I’m back, he says. When shall we head back home? Oh, and by the way, I brought you a baby shoe.

Please know that I am totally on your side, no matter what is going on upstairs, but IS there a cattle drive situation you are living with? Should I be concerned?

Oh, sorry. I seem to have acquired a canine.

You see? I thought it must be a greyhound, but Roy was sure it was a whole pack of wolves.

LOL. A mutt. Named Bedford. His middle name is Avenue, but that’s only used on formal occasions or when he has ripped up all the garbage in the kitchen. Which, by the way, he just did.

I suspect you are turning into a Brooklynista. There is no other excuse for that name. Fun fact: Roy’s original name was Seventh, and Avenue was HIS middle name, too. #justkidding

Perhaps Bedford and Roy need to meet each other, as the two animals of the house.

You are so adorable. Cats and dogs don’t so much enjoy meeting each other.

Patrick, would you ever go for a walk with me, do you think?

Hey, how is Lola doing?

She’s fine. They’re doing tests. Lots and lots of tests. Patrick, would you ever go for a walk with me?

When is she coming home?

Not sure. Patrick, so you never go out? Never? At all? How do you get groceries?

Marnie, where you’re from, do they not have delivery services? It’s a wonderful system! But now, sociologically interesting as this is, I really must get back to work. Toenail fungus is a serious disease, and people are waiting to hear my thoughts.

Fine. Gotta go because a stormtrooper is at the door anyway, wanting candy. #mightbesammy

Oh, these quaint customs of people and their children! Pro tip: Sammy is one thing, but if other children come to the door, you don’t have to open it for them.

You are a curmudgeon of the highest order.

The very highest. A higher curmudgeon you will not find in today’s world.

I stare at my phone for a few minutes, wondering if I dare take a chance, say what I want to say. And then I type:

Were you always such a high curmudgeon? Or is this because of what happened?

Whoa. Good talk. Off to describe toenail fungus! The fun doesn’t stop. Ask Roy.

“Look at this magnificent stormtrooper!” says Jessica. “At least I get him for Halloween!” She’s standing in my kitchen doorway, pointing to Sammy, who is all dressed in white with a white helmet. He’s carrying a pillowcase full of candy. He says, “Oh, Mom.”

“Well? If Halloween had fallen on one of those alternate weekends, then you would have been in Manhattan with your father and with her. And she, being all of about twenty-four, probably wouldn’t know that children even go trick-or-treating. And that they need costumes. Or who knows? Maybe she’s so young she still goes herself.” She shrugs, both hurting and pleased with herself.

“You’re my costume person,” he says. He looks at me and rolls his eyes, the universal signal of the exasperated child. “Also, Mom, Dad told me he isn’t even seeing her anymore.”

“Dream on!” says Jessica. “This is the relationship for the ages, to hear the way he described it to me.”

I interrupt her before she can continue with her tirade. “Come on in. I’ve made hot chocolate for you. And show me all your loot! Oh my goodness, you’ve filled that whole pillowcase to the brim!”

Jessica and I make him spill out his whole sack of goodies on the table—luckily it’s a huge surface—and for a while the three of us are laughing and picking through the candy bars and lollipops and bags of M&M’s and toys, exclaiming over everything. We drink our hot chocolate and eat candy bars and Skittles, and Bedford organizes one of his cattle drives—a “puppy blowout,” Sammy calls it—and the two of them race through the apartment, barking and laughing, until Jessica says enough is enough and they have to go back home.

Before he leaves, though, Sammy sidles up to me and whispers, “Have you looked at the book yet?”

I shake my head, and he says, “Please. You’ve got to at least look at it.”

I glance over at it, still on the bookshelf. But I don’t go open it up.

Although I can’t say for sure why not.

THIRTY-TWO

MARNIE

Once it’s the first week in November, the weather turns sharply colder, becoming at last what I’ve been expecting from New York all along. The wind whips around corners and up and down the streets. It plays with the litter, sending papers and plastic bags dancing along the sidewalks. Taking Bedford out for one of his daily walks and squirrel-chasing sessions, I watch a white plastic shopping bag do a tantalizing waltz until a bare treetop reaches out and holds it close.

I tell Jeremy in one of our daily phone calls that it’s as if a referee suddenly blew a whistle, and said, “CHANGE!” and the old summer team limped off the court, and the wild, windy fall team came dashing out, young and energetic and whirling around. It is so un-Florida-like. So un-California-like.

Winter will come after that, and it will be Christmas, and then I will leave. Less than two months from now. My family is already talking about how fun it will be when we’re all together again, Amelia’s first Christmas, the stockings, the Christmas turkey, the millions of little shiny ornaments my mother thinks it’s fun to hang everywhere.

Jeremy says it’s going to be amazing, having a big family Christmas for once, and not the tiny little twosome Christmas he and his mom usually endure. Already my mother has invited him to bring his mother over to be with my family. He’s actually been taking our two moms out for breakfast some weekend mornings, and he says it’s lovely, seeing them chatting so amiably about us. I cannot imagine.

“Us,” he says, and my nerve endings curdle with guilt when he utters that word. Then he says, “You know, maybe you should contact a real estate agent so that when the time comes to sell, everything will be in place.” He says, “I miss you so much that I’m going to have to be physically restrained from carting you off somewhere when you get off the plane.”

“Huh,” I say.

One morning I awaken because the entire building is banging and clanging, and then shuddering like the Huns have arrived and are pelting its bricks with iron bars. Noah is up, already taking a shower. The whole commotion seems to be originating from downstairs, so I grab my phone and start typing.

Patrick, are you okay?

Yes. Welcome to the heating system poltergeist. Harbinger of winter.

What does it want? Money? An animal sacrifice?

No, it’s friendly. It just has air in its pipes. Wants you to know about it. (By the way, curious that your thoughts go right to animal sacrifice. Things going okay, dog-wise?)

Why do you ask? I happen to LOVE wearing chewed-up shoes.

This is what gives dogs a bad name. And I’m not referring to the rather brilliant name of Bedford.