We have talked about it exactly once, which was enough for both of us, and the conclusion was that neither of us needs anything from the state of Connecticut at the moment and that we would both rather be two people who keep choosing it.

He brings the dog.

He got the beagle fourteen months after that September, from a rescue in Bridgeport, and it is a genuinely difficult animal with a bark like a door slamming and a policy of eating anything on a low surface.

Leo named him.

Arthur said the boy could name him and did not qualify it, which was a mistake, and my son — who was eight by then and had spent a year and a half hearing adults on telephones — considered it for about four seconds and said:

“Officer.”