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“A martini would do the trick.” I rootled around the drinks cabinet and made myself a strong one. Diantha poured herself a glass of white wine. For a strange moment it seemed we were an old established couple going through the routine of homecoming.

“So tell me what happened,” I urged her as gently as I could.

She sat demurely on the couch, one shapely knee pertly crossed over the other, and took a sip of her wine. “I threw him out. I told him to get out before I called the police.”

She began to grow tense again. I went over and sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulders. “It will be all right,” I said.

She put her face into my chest and snuffled. “I came in from shopping around four and found him screwing that little slut Candy Dolores from next door. Right in my own bed. In our own bed.”

“Oh, dear.”

“They didn’t even stop when I came into the room and started screaming at them. And her little sister, Shirleen, the one with the braces, she was standing there watching them. She was probably in line.”

“I’m not surprised, frankly,” I said, saying, I’m sure, the wrong thing. “It’s happened before, hasn’t it?”

She snuggled closer, and I felt the fullness of her breast nudging into my ribs. Oh, to find out what a loathsome, crawling monster one is! To find out that pity can be as much allied with lust as with contempt! Or is it just natural? To want to transform those sobs and sighs of hurt into moans of pleasure? Or is it all a matter of self-sophistry? Because right then I wanted nothing more than to take her in my arms, kiss her tear-wetted lips, and roger her silly, as the English say. And, indeed, she did pull even closer, her hips against mine, and kiss me full on the lips. How in that moment I kept my hands to myself I simply cannot explain.

But resist I did. Diantha suffered another outbreak. “I mean, Dad, they were both buck naked and f*cking like fiends. And no apology. He just got off the bed, steaming from that little slut, and telling me to ‘chill out, baby, chill out. I was just helping the chick find her groove.’ ”

I stayed with her, sensing that her tears and the flood of angry words gave her some release, a kind of purgation. I don’t remember what I said, nothing, really, just comforting noises disguised as words.

Until finally she calmed, wiped her eyes, beamed at me with a most endearing smile, very much like her mother’s, and said, “Go wake up Mom. I’m going to make us all one fabulous dinner.”

So that, despite everything, a new spirit descended on the house. I certainly felt liberated. And Elsbeth, poor dear, waking from her drugged sleep, caught something of the mood. I helped her to the bathroom. I helped her wash. It is painful to see how Elsbeth is wasting away. But what spirit. What courage! I helped her into what she calls her “frolic” clothes, a smart turtleneck jersey and a wraparound skirt. We chatted. Yes, she had heard the commotion. “Frankly, I’m glad he’s gone. The poor boy had begun to believe in his own wigger fantasies, as Di says.”

“Wigger?” I asked.

“It’s a Di word. She said we wouldn’t understand.”

Elsbeth shrugged, took another of her pain pills, and I helped her into the dining room.

Diantha served up a delectable seafood dish and a salad of fresh greens that we had with a deal of wine, a robust California Zinfandel Izzy had recommended. When we had finished, she excused herself to go upstairs and “hit the RESTART button on a whole new life.”

Elsbeth and I, mostly I, finished off the second bottle. And as I rinsed the dishes for the dishwasher — I must say I am enjoying the new kitchen very much despite my hesitations — Elsbeth said plainly and simply, “I want you to take care of Diantha after I’m gone.”

When I started in about how she still had a fighting chance, she repeated what she had said.

“But, of course, darling, I’ll take care of Diantha. She’s my daughter, after all.”

“I didn’t mean as a daughter.”

I told her straight out that I would hear no more of that kind of talk. At the same time, I