“I heard you calling out to me, but I almost didn’t reply because you were using another guy’s name.”

“Because through the heavy water, I heard the sound of an angel calling my name, calling me to the only heaven I wanted.”

“I’ll call you Tuesday,” he whispered. I lifted my wineglass his way and invited, “You do that.” He didn’t move. I took another sip of wine. When I lowered my glass, reading me yet again, he noted, “You’re not gonna answer.” “Nope,” I replied, sounding shockingly cavalier considering my insides were bleeding.”

“True names,” said September wonderingly. “These are all true names. Like, when your parents call you to dinner and you don’t come and they call again but you still don’t come, and they call you by all your names together, and then, of course, you have to come, and right quick. Because true names have power, like Lye said. But I never told anyone my true name. The Green Wind told me not to. I didn’t understand what he meant, but I do now.”

“When I was twenty-five, I went on exactly four dates with a much older guy whom I’ll call Peter Parker. I’m calling him Peter Parker because the actual guy’s name was also alliterative, and because, well, it’s my book and I’ll name a guy I dated after Spider-Man’s alter ego if I want to.”

“I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you’d live to be a hundred years old. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that you were ashamed of me.”