home, he placed the heart on one of the walnut boards, fed
Verdi, and went to bed.

He lay there remembering the bronze pouring into the heart. A bit of
him had poured with it, and an exchange had taken place: something
bronze had entered him at the same moment.

3.

"Mythic," Oliver said to Paul Peroni, the next afternoon. They were
sitting at the kitchen table with his mother. Paul was weighing the
heart in his palm as Oliver described the bronze casting. Oliver's
mother took another tea biscuit.

"Never too old for a valentine," she said, seeming to note the absence
of a female presence in the apartment.

"Yes . . . No . . ." Paul answered them both. He was medium sized,
sinewy, and graying--surprisingly light on his feet for someone who
installed slabs of ornamental marble.

"It's so nice to see Verdi again. Kitty, kitty," she called. Verdi
stretched and remained in the corner. "Oh well, be that way," she said,
straightening. Lip gloss, touches of eye shadow, and her full wavy
blonde hair broadcast femaleness like a lighthouse. The good body could
be taken for granted. You might as well assume it, the message flashed,
cuz you sure as hell weren't going to be lucky enough to find out. She
and Paul were well matched. "I knew I was onto something, our first
date," she'd told Oliver. "I was cooing about Michelangelo and Paul
said, 'yes, but he used shitty marble.' "

She looked pointedly at Paul. "Sun's over the yard arm," he said.

DiMillo's was uncrowded. They sat at a window table, ordered drinks,
and talked as boats rocked quietly in the marina and an oil tanker
worked outward around the Spring Point light. Oliver's mother bragged
about his niece, Heather, and her latest swimming triumphs. She
complained about the long winter and how crowded the Connecticut shore
had become. "It may be crowded," Oliver said, "but you get daffodils
three weeks before we do."

Oliver sipped his second Glenlivet and looked back from the darkening
harbor. "I wish I had known my grandfather," he said to his mother. "I
remember when he died. I was eight, I think."

"Yes, you were in third grade," she said. "It was sad. He was living in
Paris. When he wrote, I called him at the hospital--but he didn't want
me to come. He said that he wanted me to remember him as he was."

"When was the last time you saw him?" Oliver asked.

"Oh . . . I . . ." She looked at Paul. He raised his eyebrows
sympathetically. "I gue