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into the anthology now and then, skipping nothing, not even the sermons of those early fire-and-brimstone preachers, keeping his place marked with a matchbook, no more than one writer in an evening of reading. Most of them, he figured, he’d never read before. But once in a while he had a hit—a flash of recognition, a certain knowledge that he’d read, and probably studied, one of these writers before. Hawthorne, Melville, Poe, Mark Twain, Sinclair Lewis, Hemingway, Whitman. The excerpts in the anthology led him to the novels. He read as many of them as he could find at yard sales. He’d liked these writers before, he knew, and now he liked them all over again. Some of the Walt Whitman poems, he only needed to read the first few lines to be able to close his eyes and recite the rest.
    Now, after five years with the anthology, he’d read his way well into the twentieth century.
    Tonight it was a Katherine Anne Porter short story called “Maria Concepcion.” It sparked no memory flashes, but Calhoun rather liked it—liked Porter’s clear, no-nonsense writing, the complexity of her characters, the irony in the story. When he finished it, he closed the heavy book and put it on the table beside him, dangled his hand, and gave Ralph a scratch.
    He hadn’t noticed when the radio station switched from classical to jazz, which meant that it was sometime after midnight. Calhoun laid his head back and closed his eyes. He recognized Miles Davis on trumpet, Red Garland on piano, John Coltrane on tenor sax. Bluesy, moody music, more déjà vu that brought Calhoun a flood of memory fragments which he didn’t bother trying to sort out.
    The first thing he’d bought for his new house—as soon as he started sleeping inside—had been an expensive stereo system with top-of-the-line Bose speakers. Pretty ironic for a man who was completely deaf in one ear and could not really hear in stereo.
    He loved music, got a lot of those déjà vu rushes when he heard something from before. He wondered if he’d ever played an instrument. Figured he had. He expected that one day he’d pick up a saxophone or guitar or sit down at a piano and music would come bursting out of his fingers. Things kept happening to him that way.
    That’s how it had been the first time he’d picked up a fly rod after the hospital, and the first time he’d sat down to tie a fly. The memory was all there, in his brain and in his muscles, waiting to be let out.
    He resisted sleep, thinking about Maria Concepcion, trying to analyze the story, wondering who he’d known before that Maria reminded him of. But he must’ve drifted off, because he jerked up when Ralph scrambled to his feet, scuttled over to the door with his toenails scratching the floor, and barked.
    â€œShut up, you,” said Calhoun mildly. Ralph barked whenever a coon or a porcupine wandered into the yard. His ears were considerably sharper than Calhoun’s.
    Then he heard the grumble of the busted tailpipe, growing louder, coming up his driveway, pulling in outside, falling suddenly silent. A car door slammed. Soft footsteps on the deck, the rattle of the doorknob, the click of the latch.
    Then Kate came in.

CHAPTER
FIVE
    K ATE USUALLY PUT ON MAKEUP and wore a dress and stockings and jewelry when she came in the night, but this time she had on the same shorts and T-shirt she’d been wearing that morning.
    It didn’t matter. Kate always looked great.
    Ralph’s entire hind end was wagging. Kate knelt down to scratch his ears. She looked up at Calhoun. “Evenin’, Stoney.”
    â€œHi, honey,” said Calhoun. “You’re right on time.”
    Calhoun had started working for Kate Balaban a week after they met beside the tidal creek. At first he’d just waited on customers and tied flies in the shop, giving her a break and allowing her to guide clients occasionally. By September he was