Gold Coast

I had made a point of ru

Anyway, Susan broke away from the Stanhope guard and came over to me on the steps. She smiled. "Hello, John."

"Hello, Susan." I had congratulated her on a successful court appearance, and she had been cheery and buoyant, which was to be expected after walking free on a murder that was witnessed by about six federal agents, who fortunately couldn't seem to recall the incident clearly.

We'd spoken briefly, mostly about our children and not about our divorce. I asked her at one point, "Are you really crazy?"

She smiled. "Just enough to get me out of that courthouse. Don't tell." I smiled in return. We agreed that we both felt bad for A

"It possibly could have been." Since you killed him. I mean, really, Susan. But maybe she had already disassociated herself from that unpleasant incident. She was looking very good, by the way, dressed in a tailored grey silk shirt and jacket, appropriate for courtroom appearances, and wearing high heels, which she probably couldn't wait to kick off.

I didn't know when or if I'd see her again, so I said to her, "I still love you, you know."

"You'd better. Forever."

"Yes, forever."

"Me, too."

Well, we parted there on the steps, she to go back to Hilton Head, and me to Long Island. I was sharing the Stanhope gatehouse with Ethel Allard, who had insisted on taking me in when Susan sold the guesthouse. Ethel and I are getting along a little better than we had in the past. I drive her to the stores and to church on Sunday, though I don't go to stores or churches much myself anymore. The arrangement seems to be working out, and I'm glad for the opportunity to help someone who needs help, and Ethel is glad she finally got a chance to take in a homeless person. Father Hu

Je

I had actually gone to Bellarosa's funeral as I told Susan. The Mass was at Santa Lucia, of course, and Monsignor Chiaro gave a beautiful service and spoke well of the deceased, so I guess the cheque cleared.

The burial itself was at an old cemetery in Brooklyn, and it was a real mafioso affair with a hundred black limousines and so many flowers at graveside that they covered a dozen other graves in all directions. Sally Da-da was there, of course, and we nodded to each other, and Jack Weinstein was there, and we made indefinite plans to have lunch. Anthony was there, too, out on bail for some charge or other, and Fat Paulie was there, and a guy whose face was half eaten away who I guess was my godfather, Aniello, and there were whole faces, too, that I recognized from the Plaza soiree, and from Giulio's. A

Also with A

And so, I thought, as I walked between Alhambra's stately poplars that had so impressed Frank Bellarosa, there is an ebb and flow in all human events, there is a building up and a tearing down, there are brief enchanted moments in history and in the short lives of men and women, there is wonder and there is cynicism, there are dreams that can come true, and dreams that can't. And there was a time, you know, not so long ago, as recently as my own childhood in fact, when everyone believed in the future and eagerly awaited it or rushed to meet it. But now nearly everyone I know or used to know is trying to slow the speed of the world as the future starts to look more and more like someplace you don't want to be. But maybe that is not a cultural or national phenomenon, only my own middle age, my present state of mind combined with this dark winter season.

But spring follows as surely as winter ends. Right? And I have my eye on a used Allied fifty-five footer that I can pick up for a song in the winter months if I can get my prestigious law firm to settle up with me. And Carolyn and Edward will crew for me over Easter week on a shakedown cruise, and by summer I'll be ready to set out again with my children if they want to come, or with anyone else who wants to crew aboard the Paumanok II. I'll stop in Galveston to see Emily, then if I can shanghai her and Gary or any two or three people who are game enough, we'll do circumnavigation of the globe. Hey why not? You only live once.

I slipped out through the gates of Alhambra and began the walk up Grace Lane toward the gatehouse and Ethel's Sunday roast.

And maybe, I thought, when I come back to America, I'll put in at Hilton Head and see if forever is forever.