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it was had disappeared around the front of the house. I had never seen this car before. It was a top-of-the-line sedan, a sleek black Mercedes. Long after the sun had set and all the lights were on in my house, I could see that the car was still there. I kept going back to the window and the car kept being there. Whoever it was, he was staying to dinner. For, of course, I knew it was a he.
    The moon was out, and so it was somewhat risky for me to go around to the dining room and look in the window. The shades were drawn—what was she trying to hide?—but not completely; there was an inch or two of light above the windowsill. When I bent my legs and peered in, I could see his back, and the back of his head, and, across the table from him, my smiling radiant wife lifting her wineglass as if in acknowledgment of something he had said. I heard the girls’ voices; the whole family was there, having themselves a grand time with this guest, this special guest, whoever he was.
    I lurked about through dinner; they took their damn time, all of them, and then there was coffee and dessert, which Diana liked to serve in the living room. I ran around to that window and again saw his back. He was a well-tailored fellow with a good head of salt-and-pepper hair. He was not particularly tall but sturdy, strong-looking. It was no one I knew, not anyone from my firm, not one of our friends come to hit on Diana. Was it someone she had met? I was determined to keep watch and to satisfy myself that he did not stay past dinner. But surely that was not in the cards, not with the twins in the house. Nevertheless, I lingered at the window, even though the night was cold and getting colder. And then he did leave; they were handing him his coat and I turned and ran around the back of the house and took a position at the corner, where I could see the driveway. I was looking at the front of his car, and when he got in and the cabin of the car lit up, I had a clearview of his face, and it was my former best friend, Dirk Morrison, the man from whom I had stolen Diana, a lifetime ago.
    THE NEXT DAYS were busy ones. I washed as best I could with melted snow and dried myself with one of Dr. Sondervan’s towels, a gift from Herbert and Emily. I took my wallet out of the top drawer of the old broken-down bureau. In it was all the cash I had come home with that night of the raccoon, my credit cards, Social Security card, driver’s license. I dug around for my checkbook, house and car keys—all the impedimenta of citizenry. I then contrived to get myself to town, cutting through the Sondervan backyard to the next block and thence to the business district.
    My first stop was the Goodwill store, where I replaced my tattered rags with a clean and minimally decent brown suit, unironed shirt, overcoat, wool socks, and a pair of brogues that were no better fitting than my wingtips but more appropriate to the season. The ladies at the Goodwill were shocked when I walked in, but my courteous demeanor and the clear effort I was making to better myself left them smiling approvingly as I left. And don’t forget to get yourself a nice haircut, dear, one of them said.
    That was exactly my intention. I walked into a unisex place on the theory that my shoulder-length hair would not alarm them as it would a traditional old-time barber. Still, there was resistance—Can’t come in here without an appointment, the hairdresser-in-chief sniffed—at which point I laid two crisp hundred-dollar bills on the cashier’s table and an empty chair materialized. A layered cut and not too short, I said.
    I watched in the big mirror as, snip by snip, I traveled back in time. With each falling hank of hair, more and more of the disastrous lineaments of my previous self emerged, until, big naked ears and all, staring back at me was the missing link to Howard Wakefield.Yet a shave was still required for the transmogrification, and this took another fifty dollars, shaves not being in the