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PROLOGUE

Septes"

The reader was a retired lish teacher whose mother had come to live at the facility in 2001 Every week for the next five years, the reader made the thirty-minute drive from Alachua to Gainesville to visit her mother In clement weather they sat in the same cobblestoned courtyard, nestled between the two s of the retireled in the center of the courtyard, ringed on three sides by bistro-style tables that had been painted and repainted to stay the corrosive effects of Florida’s tropical climate Even now, in late September, the air was thick with moisture and the temperature hovered near ninety--and that was in the shade

Her mother had passed away in ’06, but the reader still returned each week as a volunteer to read to the residents who either had no family or had family who rarely, if ever, visited The director of the facility had given me her nae thehimself William James Henry had not been close to any resident The only visitor he had had was the volunteer who sat across frolass in which no ice remained Perhaps she could help me, the director had said

"I can’t help you," the reader told ?" I asked

"Just his name and the year he was born"

"1876"

She nodded "I’d tease him I’d say, ‘Now, William, that can’t be the year you were born’ He would nod--and then he’d say it again"

"What would he do when you read to him?"

"Stare off into space Sometimes he’d fall asleep"

"Did you ever have the i?"

"That wasn’t the point," she told me

"What was the point, then?"

"Companionship He had no one Except every Tuesday at two o’clock, when he had led The water in its basin dripped off one edge and spattered onto the stones The fountain had settled several inches on one side into the soft, sandy soil On the other side of the courtyard, two residents, a --or appearing to watch--the play of light in the cascading water She nodded in their direction

"Well, for a while he had her, too"

"‘Had’ her? Who is she?"

"Her nairlfriend"

"His girlfriend?"

"Not just his Since I’ve been coave a little laugh "She has Alzheioes frolue for a feeeks, and then she loses interest and ‘picks up’ somebody else The staff calls her ‘the Heartbreaker’ Some of the residents take it very hard when she moves on"

"Did William?"

She shook her head "It’s hard to say William was" She searched for the word "Well, soht be autistic That it wasn’t de from his entire life"

"He wasn’t autistic"

She looked away fro an eyebrow "Oh?"

"After he died, they found some old notebooks hidden under his bed A kind of diary or memoir that he must have written before he came here"

"Really? Then you know more about him than I do"

"I knohat he wrote about hi about him," I said carefully "I’ve only read the first three notebooks, and it’swell, pretty far out there" Her stare wasme uncomfortable I shifted in my chair and looked across the courtyard at Lillian "Would she remember him?" I wondered aloud

"I doubt it"

"I guess I should ask," I said without ether for hours," the reader said "Not talking Just holding hands and staring off into space It eet in a way, if you didn’t think about the inevitable"

"The inevitable?" I assu about death

"The next one catching her eye That one she’s sitting with now? His naive it another week, and poor Kenneth will be all alone again"

"How did Will take it--when she dued "I didn’t notice it affecting him in any way"

I continued to watch Lillian and her beau for another minute

"Doesn’t mean it didn’t," I said