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you to talk about anything you feel like talking about.”

“I’d like to hear you talk about God,” Willy said. “The god I know never explains anything.”

Philip smiled. “Tim, you’re just being polite. And Willy, one of the main problems with gods is that they seldom feel the need to explain themselves. If you have any genuine interest, ask me about it later. All right?”

“Certainly,” said Tim, impressed by Philip’s display of restraint.

“Now that that bit of awkwardness is over, will you tell me about this project of yours?”

“Yes,” Willy said. “Please be as explicit as possible. I’d love to know more about your project.”

“You’re full of curiosity today,” Tim said. “Unfortunately, I can only describe what I know at the moment. I can’t predict the future.”

“Why would you want to do that?” Philip asked.

“I mean,” Tim said, “that I can’t describe what hasn’t been created yet. No doubt God had the same limitation.”

“All right, describe what has been created.”

“Before he does, could you please get me another glass of Coke? I’m awfully thirsty.”

“Of course, Willy,” Philip said, giving her a slightly curious look, and made the round-trip to the kitchen in less than a minute. He handed her the glass and said, “Please, Tim.”

“Okay,” Tim said. “I hope you won’t object to this, Philip. I’ve been trying to write a book about Joseph Kalendar’s daughter.” Remembering the appalling figure that had glared down at him from the top of the street, Tim felt the necessity to employ a considerable degree of caution in what he said.

“She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s what you said in lost boy lost girl.”

“Your neighbor Omar Hillyard led me to think her father murdered her. Hillyard was just making inferences based on what he saw at the time. But he wasn’t watching the Kalendar house full-time, and he could have missed a lot.”

“Wait a second. Is this book fact or fiction?”

Willy laughed. “That’s the question I always want to ask him.”

“Philip,” Tim said, not very kindly, “anyone who believes in the virgin birth and the performance of miracles, not to mention walking on water, shouldn’t be so quick to make that distinction.”

Philip immediately retreated. “I suppose that’s an excellent point.” Then he changed the subject. “By the way, you might be interested in hearing that Mr. Hillyard passed away two days before Christmas, last year.” Philip stared at Willy, who was tilting the last of her second drink into her mouth. “Anyhow, Kalendar had a real daughter—you’re sure of that.”

“Oh, I know he had a daughter,” Tim said, failing to mention that his primary source of information was Cyrax, a citizen of Byzantium who had been dead for six hundred years. “I just assumed she was dead, so I never bothered to do any research about her. In my book, she had been killed; that’s all I cared about. In real life, she was taken into the child-care system, and she wound up at the Foundlings’ Shelter. The question is, what can she be today? Is she even still alive? Was she ever put into foster care? Did she ever go to college? Is she in prison? A mental hospital?”

“I bet she never broke into any warehouses,” Willy said, darkly.

“I mean, what kind of life can you have after a childhood like that? How healed can you be?”

Philip shook his head and regarded Tim with what looked a great deal like fond resignation. “You never give up, do you?”

“What do you mean by that?” Tim found himself unreasonably rankled by his brother’s words.

“Childhood, healing, childhood trauma . . . sound familiar?”

“I’m not writing about myself, Philip,” Tim said, irritated.

“I didn’t say you were. But you’re not exactly not writing about yourself, either, are you?”

“You’re not my brother,” Tim said. “My real brother is hiding in the attic.”

“I know why you say that, believe me. I wish I could have been more like this—like the self China let me discover—with Nancy and Mark. Those regrets are astoundingly painful.” Philip seemed to travel inward again, and he clasped his hands and lowered his head, perhaps in prayer. “Yes. They are.” Then he looked back up at Tim. “Did you know the Kalendar place is going to be torn down next Wednesday? The view from my backyard is going to improve by a hundred percent.”

“The Kalendar place is in your backyard?” Willy asked. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“It’s across the alley,” Philip said. “Ever since Ronnie Lloyd-Jones got arrested, people have been coming over here to look at the