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Charles and I sat close together, as well—the other couple’s playfulness seducing Charles into trying something of the same with me. And tonight, for a change, I allowed it; I allowed my husband to hold my hand in his, tucking it under his arm with proud ownership. I even sighed, playing my part, and inched closer to him.

To the casual observer, we were simply two old married couples, happy in one another’s presence, perhaps on holiday together. I enjoyed thinking that was how others might see us tonight, this restful, contented night.

“What do you mean, Julia?” Mr. Bleeker looked fondly down upon his wife, who blinked up at him with eyes that crinkled at the edges, like a fine piece of lace.

“I mean, I don’t want to spend all the rest of my life on the road. I love you all, but I want a little farm, up in Albany near my family. You may be an old trouper, Sylvester, but I’m not. I only married one.”

“You’ve been talking about that farm for years,” Mr. Bleeker scolded, but his eyes kept smiling.

“You’ve been promising me you’d give it to me for years,” his wife retorted.

“You know we could never go on without the two of you,” I interposed, but not anxiously; I could not take this talk seriously. Mrs. Bleeker often mentioned that farm but always stood ready, her worn portmanteau in hand, the next time we met at Grand Central Station. “Why, who would ever change my costume so quickly as you? Who would lace me into my corset? And who would keep track of us all?” I turned to Mr. Bleeker. “Remember how calm you were back in sixty-nine, when you outsmarted those bandits in Nevada?”

“Why, sure, don’t you remember?” Charles squeezed my hand excitedly. “How you told them we would be on the stage, and then you got us all out of there early?”

“Oh, that was a time!” Mr. Bleeker laughed. “I do wish I’d seen those varmints’ faces when they held up the coach and we weren’t there!”

“That was a lovely trip,” I said, remembering. “All the places we went!”

“It was a tiring trip,” Mrs. Bleeker insisted. “I just wanted to get back home safe and sound!”

“But the things we saw—the Pyramids! The temples in Japan!” I closed my eyes, as if I could conjure up those long-ago sights. They were fading from memory, little by little; I could no longer recall the entire settings—I didn’t remember how we got to the Pyramids, for example, but I did remember, vividly, how it felt to stand in their ancient shadow. Unreal, almost, as if we were standing in front of a flat backdrop painting of them, instead—until I noticed the clouds moving across the sky, throwing gently changing patterns of light across them, making the rough, uneven surfaces suddenly stand out, almost reaching toward us. Only then did I know they were real.

“Remember, Vinnie, how I said to you that I knew exactly how you must feel, for the first time in my life?” Mr. Bleeker chuckled. “Because I felt about two feet tall next to those things?”

I was about to reply, but to my surprise, Charles answered first. “I do,” he declared, decidedly. “I heard you say that to Vinnie, and I wanted to tell you, old fellow, that you couldn’t possibly know how we felt. Because none of those desert chaps, the ones working there digging in the sand at the bottom, were pointing to you and laughing.”

I was stunned. I remembered that—I remembered thinking exactly that. I was nodding to Mr. Bleeker but watching those brown men pointing at our party, holding their hands down to the ground to approximate our size, and doubling over with laughter.

What I didn’t remember was that Charles saw them, too—and that he felt the same way. I studied my husband now; he was older, his face so puffy, his beard still rather ridiculous. But there was something in his eyes that I’d never even bothered to look for before—and that I recognized, for I saw it in my own in those rare moments when I paused long enough to stare into a mirror. Hurt and determination, both: That’s what it was. Hurt at the cruelties the world sometimes