“My spouse didn’t die,” said Dale. “Anne is alive and well. I just betrayed her and lost her. Her and the girls.”

“But the effect is the same. . .”

“Not really,” said Dale. “There’s no continuity here. My home here in Missoula is off-limits except for supervised visits and divorced-daddy Sunday pickups. I hate that. And you agree that spending another winter at the ranch is a bad idea. . .”

“Yes, of course,” said Dr. Hall.

“So I’m headed back to the Midwest to spend part of my sabbatical. Back to The Jolly Corner.”

“You never explained why your friend Duane called his home The Jolly Corner,” said Dr. Hall. “Did he see it as a happy place? You said that the boy lived with just his father and that his father was an alcoholic. Was he being ironic? Is it possible that an eleven-year-old would use such irony, or have you supplied that irony in the decades since then?”

Dale hesitated, not sure how to respond. He was embarrassed that Hall did not recognize the allusion to “The Jolly Corner.” If his psychiatrist didn’t know Henry James, how smart could he be? Should he tell Hall that Duane hadn’t told him about “The Jolly Corner” when he was eleven—Duane had died at age eleven—but had used that name for his farm when Dale had first moved to Elm Haven in 1956, when both boys were eight? An eight-year-old hick farm kid had known the Henry James story, and now Dale’s $125-an-hour shrink had never heard of it.

“I think Duane McBride is the only real genius I’ve ever met,” Dale said at last.

Dr. Hall sat back in his chair. Dale thought that for a psychiatrist, Hall did not have a very good poker face. He could see the skepticism in the doctor’s slight rise of eyebrows and forced neutral expression.

“I know,” continued Dale, “genius is a powerful word. I don’t use it often. . . hell, I never use it. And I’ve met a lot of powerfully intelligent people in my lifetime—writers, academics, researchers. Duane is the only genius I’ve known.”