“Niecie,” he said. “Niecie.”

“Come on in, Pitypapa. Come on in and sit with me.”

The crowded room smelled of food, cigarettes, and booze. Four children were playing on a green couch but Niecie shooed them away.

“Sit with me, Papa,” she said. “Tell me how you been doin’.”

Ptolemy sat looking around the room, remembering the house. He had come here for Niecie’s wedding and later, when her mother, June, had died. June was his oldest sister’s child, he remembered. She died of pneumonia, the doctor said, but anyone could have told you that she really died because she went wild with drink and dance after Charles had died.

“You remember my house?” Niecie asked.

“I only remembah it bein’ old,” he said. “I was already old when you got married. There ain’t nuthin’ here young or childish.”

Even Niecie’s smile was sad now.

A short girl came up to stand next to Niecie. She was dark-skinned; not as dark as Ptolemy but almost.

“You remember Robyn?” Niecie asked. “But maybe not. Maybe she came here to live wit’ me since the last time I seen you. Her mother died an’ me an’ Hilly took her in.”

Robyn was no more than eighteen and she was beautiful to Ptolemy. Her almond-shaped eyes looked right into his, not making him feel old or like he wasn’t there. And there was something else about her: she didn’t remind him of anyone he had ever met before. Usually, almost always, people looked to him like someone he’d already met along the way. That was why he found it so hard to remember who someone was. Faces usually made him want to remember something that was lost. He felt sometimes that he had met everyone, tasted every food, seen every sky there was to be seen.

“I seen it all,” old Coydog used to say, “but that don’t mean I seen everything.”