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“Okay.” Artie stuck his legs out in front of him. Then he said, “Are you going to tell her?”

Rob looked over at him. “I don’t know. That week before you fell into the water, I went over to the house to tell her. She said that you were going out sailing so she would be alone, but when I got there—and, remember, you hadn’t gone for your sail yet?—well, I chickened out. I just couldn’t do it, couldn’t say the words. So I told her about Francesca instead. But I guess now that you’ve found out, when you tell her, then—”

“I have no immediate plans to tell her,” Artie said.

“That’s up to you,” Rob said, and Artie said, “No, it’s up to you.”

Rob was silent for a while and then he looked at Artie plaintively and said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Nothing to do,” Artie said, sitting up straight in the chair. “You’re my son. It makes no difference to me.” He added, “Does anyone know about this?”

Rob said, “Only Francesca. She was amazing.”

“In what way was she amazing?” Artie asked.

“She cared. She felt terrible for me. And she felt terrible for you too. But she also thinks what you just said, that it wouldn’t matter to you.”

“She was right.” After another moment Artie said, “You haven’t told Rachel?”

Rob shook his head.

“Why not?”

Rob looked at the floor and then finally at his father, and he shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know, I just haven’t. I don’t feel like it.”

“Then don’t. This is yours to do with what you want.”

Rob gave Artie a wan smile. “This will hit you, Dad. It took a while for it to hit me, but then it did. And it will hit you too.”

Artie nodded. “Probably. But you’re my son.” Chills went down Artie’s legs.

—

There was a noise from the doorway, and they both turned and watched as Francesca walked in, struggling with a wheelie suitcase. “Chessie!” Rob stood up and went to her, and Artie was amazed to see them embrace. “You’re home early,” he heard Rob say quietly as they pulled apart, and Francesca murmured something, and Rob took her suitcase from her. “My father’s here,” he said just as Francesca looked up and over at Artie. “Artie,” she said with such genuine pleasure in her voice that Artie was moved.

She was a lovely-looking woman. Rob had told his parents after he married her that it had been difficult for her to be so pretty, which Artie had never understood, but she walked toward him now with her arms out, and her long coat on, and her brown hair waving down over her shoulders. Artie rose and they hugged each other, she did not seem to want to let him go, and so Artie continued hugging her until she released him.

“Artie, I’m happy to see you,” she said. This was baffling to Artie.

“Babe, give me your coat,” Rob said to her, and she slipped her coat off and handed it to Rob, who went to hang it up by the door.

She was wearing a dress that went below her knees, it was navy blue, and it fit around her narrow waist. There was—there always had been, Artie saw now—something oddly provincial about her. She came originally from a small town in the very north of Maine, and it was as though, in spite of her years at Juilliard and her world travel as a pianist, she had never quite donned the clothes of her new world. She wore navy blue tights and small brown boots, which, sitting down, she kicked off, and Rob took those from her too, placing them back by the door.

“How are you?” she said to Artie, seated on the couch across from where he sat once again in the easy chair. “I’m jet-lagged,” she added, shaking her head.

“Where did you—?” Artie started to ask, and she said, “Paris. I got homesick after the concert and came home today instead of tomorrow. But tell me how you are, Artie.”

Rob came and sat beside her on the couch. He put his hand on her knee. “I’ve told him,” Rob said, and they looked at each other, and then Francesca looked at Artie.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He sat for a long moment, looking from one to the other. In some part of his mind, he understood that this was—in the past—when he would have made a joke, but her question was serious, this was a serious thing that was happening.

“I am,” he finally said.

They both continued to watch him. Francesca placed her hand over Rob’s hand that was on her knee. “Quite a thing to learn,” she said gently.

“Yes. Quite a thing for Rob to learn as well.” Artie said this, leaning back now. He was not unhappy to be with the two of them, there was a bizarre, almost childlike, sense of safety he felt at this very moment as they all three sat there. He did not believe that what Rob had told him was true.