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psychosis crouched at the foot of the bed.
     
    Henry came back and life got busier. We began running together—his idea, like nearly everything else I now did. But Henry ran six miles, or ten kilometers, every other day, always in the park. The distance around the Central Park Reservoir is 1.5 miles, or 2.4 kilometers, which meant four complete circuits—a lot. Usually we went our separate ways at the end of the run. But one day in March—patches of dirty snow underfoot, mist on the water, breath visible—we cooled off by walking to the Ramble. We found a bench and sat down.
     
    A bird sang, and Henry pointed a finger at a small, black-headed bit of fluff that hung upside down from a naked twig.
     
    “Black-capped chickadee,” he said. “Wonder what he’s doing here.”
     
    The bird fluttered away.
     
    I began to shiver. I pulled a thick sweatshirt out of my daypack and put it on. This did little good. The sweatshirt had no hood. It captured less body heat than the amount that was escaping through my scalp.
     
    I said, “Henry, let’s go. I’m getting a chill.”
     
    He looked me over, nodded, and got out his cell phone. By the time we walked to the gate, the car and driver were waiting. I expected to be taken home, but instead we headed west. Traffic was light. The car, which smelled brand-new with the heater on, was toasty. Gradually I dried out and warmed up. Henry asked if I was feeling better. I replied that I was fine now. This was a lie. I just didn’t want to be alone.
     
    I asked him about the black-capped chickadee. Why had he been so interested in it? Had it been in the wrong place, far from its usual habitat, or what?
     
    Henry said, “Why do you ask?”
     
    “Well, magnetism has something to do with bird migrations, no? I just wondered if the patterns might be changing as a result of what’s happening to the magnetic field.”
     
    “Interesting thought,” Henry said, “but the bird wasn’t in the wrong place. Its range includes Central Park, but just barely, so I was a little surprised to see it, that’s all.”
     
    At West End Drive and Seventy-ninth Street, Henry asked the driver to pull over. The driver, showing no surprise, stopped the car and got out. Leaving the driver on the sidewalk, Henry drove onto the West Side Highway and we sped north on back roads along the Hudson River. He was a fast driver. Pretty soon we were in Westchester, then beyond it. It began to snow. Henry didn’t slow down one iota as he rounded curves at eighty miles an hour. Somehow I kept from gasping and waving my arms.
     
    Around noon Henry turned into a driveway that led to a house overlooking the Hudson. It was a showplace, pillared and porticoed. The view of the river alone was worth millions. Three other cars, all made in Germany of course, were parked in the driveway.
     
    A fiftyish man who looked like the young Vittorio De Sica— hawk-nosed, tall and trim, with a head of curly, jet-black hair— opened the door. With a brilliant smile and a glad masculine cry he embraced Henry, then extended his hand to me.
     
    “Amerigo Vespucci,” he said, slowly and distinctly pronouncing the first name correctly: Am-air-EE-go.
     
    The foyer was cavernous. The decor seemed to have been chosen by a decorator. A faux Flanders tapestry hung on the back wall. Bland white nineteenth-century statuary stood in ranks, portraits of ancestors hung on the walls. From deeper in the house, voices floated. Amerigo led us toward them. A tall, dramatically slim woman with a Garbo face flew to Henry and kissed him three times on the cheeks before pulling him into the crowd. Others greeted him so enthusiastically I thought the party might at any moment burst into applause or “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” They were a stylish crowd. No woman in the room was wearing less than ten thousand dollars’ worth of clothing and jewelry. I was still in my sweats and sneakers. Garbo noticed. Before leaving me alone in a corner,