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D’Angelo’s, was I? Not since school, anyway. Why would he invite me over? It wasn’t as if he’d ever done it before.
    The weather had changed; the warm, hazy air felt more like August than late September. D’Angelo’s wife was setting a table in the backyard. Although we’d only met once, she greeted me warmly with a kiss on the cheek. It was the first physical contact I’d had with a woman in months, and it sent a tiny shock through me. D’Angelo got us beers; their six-year-oldboy was driving a toy truck across the lawn. The setup seemed so conventional, almost too ordinary, like some magazine advertisement portraying suburban life. I took a long gulp of cold beer that went right to my head—I’d skipped breakfast and was drinking on an empty stomach, I realized.
    “Do you like comic books?”
    Excited at having a guest for lunch, the boy had come and sat beside me while his parents got the meal ready.
    “There weren’t too many of them around when I was a kid. Do you like them?”
    “Yes. My favorite character’s The Shapemaker. Do you know The Shapemaker?”
    “Afraid not.”
    “He’s this man, his real name’s Mike Brown, and one day he took some bad medicine, so now he can change shapes, and he has a friend who’s a police officer like Dad, and sometimes he calls The Shapemaker, and The Shapemaker changes into other people, and helps him catch criminals …”
    The boy’s eyes shone with enthusiasm. We talked more about comic books then suddenly he jumped up and shouted: “Try and catch me!” We ran around the garden for a while until I brought him down with a playful tackle. Stimulated by the beer and physical exertion, I was invaded by a brief feeling of euphoria. Was this what it was like to have a wife, a child? I glanced at Maureen. She wasn’t wildly attractive, but she had a nice, gentle face. She’d put on weight since I’d first met her, and I could see that she’d end up plump, but right now she had a beautifully voluptuous figure. It felt good to be walking to the table, holding hands with the boy, looking over to his smiling mother. For a moment, I was living in a parallel world—this was my house, my son, my wife, and we were about to have lunch outside on a sunny fall afternoon.
    D’Angelo took me aside before we sat down. “There’ssomething inside I want to show you first.” We went through to a spotless living room. A photo album sat on a coffee table. D’Angelo picked it up, flicked through it, took out a photograph. “Here, I found this.” He handed it to me. A picnic scene: a young Abby staring straight out of the photo; me looking furtively to one side.
    “Wherever did this come from?”
    “Don’t you remember that time you invited me to a picnic? In Central Park? I found it this morning. I want you to have it.”
    I nodded, shoved the photo into my pocket, and walked back out to the garden.
    The steaks were good. An atmosphere of easy conviviality descended across the table as we chatted about everything and nothing. D’Angelo was in an expansive mood, talking about the boat he was going to buy for weekend outings. He put his hand on my back: “What the heck are you still doing in Manhattan? Why not get out? There’s space here, there’s air here. There’s water. We can go for a swim after lunch. I’ll lend you some trunks. Probably the last time this season.” I nodded—the woozy sense of euphoria still lingered. Why indeed was I still in Manhattan? Why did life have to be so difficult, anguished? Surely it was all here. As simple as having lunch in the garden. Or watching a boy lying on the grass, laughing.
    At one point Maureen turned to me: “George never told me how you two became friends.”
    “We were at school together. I don’t really remember exactly how we …”
    D’Angelo butted in: “David was the smart kid, the popular kid. I was the loner. Truth is I was being bullied. David stuck up for me and got the bullying stopped. No idea