“You talked to Dad about this?”

“Well, guess what,” Stem said, not appearing to hear him. “B. J. never did want me back, as it turned out. She looked straight across the table at me and she didn’t want me. She hardly ever saw me. She could have seen me any time, as often as she cared to, but she only came around now and then, two or three times a year.”

“So what? You didn’t even like her. You just said you hated her voice.”

“Still, she was my mother. One woman in the world who thinks you’re special — doesn’t every kid deserve that?”

“You had that. You had Abby.”

“Well, sorry, but that wasn’t enough. Abby was your mom. I needed my own.”

“You don’t think Abby thought you were special?” Denny asked.

Stem was silent. He stared down at the drawer in his hands.

“Come on,” Denny said. “She thought even the back of your neck was special. If she hadn’t, you’d have led a very different life, believe me. You’d have been shunted around who knows where, rootless, homeless, stuck in foster care someplace, and you’d probably have turned into one of those misfit guys who have trouble keeping a job, or staying married, or hanging on to their friends. You’d have felt out of place wherever you went; there’d be nowhere you belonged.”

He stopped. Something in his voice made Stem look up at him, but then Denny said, “Ha! You know what this proves.”

“What.”

“You’re just following the family tradition, is all, the wish-I-had-what-somebody-else-has tradition — till they do have it. Like old Junior with his dream house, or Merrick with her dream husband. Sure! This could be the family’s third story. ‘Once upon a time,’ ” Denny intoned theatrically, “ ‘one of us spent thirty years craving his real mother’s voice, but after he found it, he realized he didn’t like it half as much as his fake mother’s voice.’ ”

Stem gave a thin, unhappy smile.

“Damn. You’re more of a Whitshank than I am,” Denny said.

Then he said, “That glue’s bone-dry by now; didn’t I warn you? You’ll have to scrape it off and start over.”

And he straightened up from the door frame and went back downstairs.

The family’s real-estate friend dated from the days when Brenda had still been spry enough to be taken for a run now and then in Robert E. Lee Park. Helen Wylie used to walk her Irish setter there, and she and Abby had struck up a conversation. So when she arrived on Saturday morning — a breezy, sensible woman in corduroys and a barn jacket — no extensive instructions were needed. “I already know,” she told Red straight off. “What you want is something solidly built. Prewar, I’m thinking. You were crazy to even consider something in that new building! You want a place that you won’t be ashamed to show to your contractor buddies.”

“Well, you’re right,” Red said. Although he didn’t have any contractor buddies, at least none that would be paying social calls.

“Let’s go, then,” Helen told Amanda. Amanda was the one who had gotten in touch with her, and she would be coming along. Even Red had admitted that he could use some help on this.

The first apartment was near University Parkway — old but well kept, with gleaming hardwood floors. The landlord said the kitchen had been remodeled in 2010. “Who did your work?” Red asked. He screwed up his face when he heard the name.

The second place was a third-floor walk-up. Red was only slightly winded by the time he reached the top of the stairs, but he didn’t argue when Amanda pointed out that this wouldn’t be a good long-term proposition.

The third place did have an elevator, and it was of an acceptable age, but so many dribs and drabs of belongings were crammed inside that it was hard to get any real sense of it. “I’ll be honest,” the super said. “The previous tenant died. His kids will have his stuff moved out within the next two weeks, though, and I’m going to get it cleaned then and give it a fresh coat of paint.”

Amanda sent Helen a dispirited glance, and Helen turned the corners of her mouth down. A mole-colored cardigan sagged on the back of a rocker. A mug sat on the cluttered coffee table with a teabag tag trailing out of it. But Red seemed unfazed. He walked through the living room to the kitchen and said, “Look at this: he had everything arranged so he didn’t have to get up from the table once he’d sat down to breakfast.”

Sure enough, the rickety-looking card table held a toaster, an electric kettle, and a clock radio, all aligned against the wall, with a day-by-day pill organizer in the center where most people would have placed a vase of flowers. In the bedroom, Red said, “There’s a TV you can watch from the bed.” The TV was the heavy, old-fashioned kind, deeper than it was wide, and it stood on the low bureau across from the foot of the bed. “Watch the late news and then go straight to sleep,” Red noted approvingly, although no TV had ever been seen in his bedroom on Bouton Road. But maybe that had been Abby’s choosing. “This seems like a real convenient place for a guy making do on his own,” Red said.

Amanda said, “Yes, but …” and she and Helen exchanged another glance.

“But picture it minus the furnishings,” Helen suggested. “The TV and such will be gone, remember.”

“I could put my set there, though,” Red said.

“Of course you could. But let’s focus on the apartment itself. Do you like the layout? Is it spacious enough? The rooms seem a little small to me. And what about the kitchen?”

“Kitchen is good. Reach across the table, grab your toast straight out of the toaster. Take your heart pills. Turn on the weather report.”

“Yes … The floor is linoleum, did you notice?”

“Hmm? Floor looks fine. I think my folks had a kitchen floor like that in our first house.”

And that settled it. As Amanda told the others later, it appeared to be a question of imagination. Red’s imagination: he had none. He just seemed glad that someone else had arranged things so he wouldn’t need to.

Well, it did make things easier for his children. And they could always do some refurbishing after he’d moved in.

Helen was going to handle the house sale as well. She came in with them after the apartment tour to discuss the arrangements for that, with Stem and Denny joining in. “Such a comfortable old place this is,” she said, looking around the living room. “And of course the porch is a huge draw. It’s going to be a pleasure to show.”

Everyone except Red looked encouraged. Red was gazing toward a nearby newspaper as if he wished he could be reading it.

“But it is still a sluggish market,” Helen said. “And what I’ve learned is, buyers in these times expect perfection. We’ll want to spruce the place up some.”

“Spruce it up?” Red said. “What more could they possibly ask for? Every downstairs room but the kitchen’s got double pocket doors.”

“Oh, yes, I love the—”

“And it’s not often you see an entrance hall like ours, two-story. Or these open transoms with the handsawed fretwork.”

“But it isn’t air-conditioned,” Helen said.

Red said, “Oh, God,” and he slumped in his seat.

“These days—” Helen said.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“It won’t be so hard,” Denny told him. “They’ve got these mini-duct systems now where you won’t need to tear up the walls.”

Red said, “Who do you think you’re talking to? I know all about those systems.”

Denny shrugged.

“Also,” Helen said. She cleared her throat. She said, “This would be your choice entirely, but you might want to consider his-and-her master bathrooms.”

Red raised his head. He said, “Consider what?”

“I wouldn’t bring it up except you do own a contracting firm, so it wouldn’t be such an expense. That master bathroom you have now is gigantic. You could easily divide it in two, with a shower stall in between that’s accessible from both sides. I just saw the most dazzling shower stall, with river-pebble flooring and multiple rainmaker nozzles.”