I kept it for two years.

I could not live in it — I was in Connecticut by then — and I could not bring myself to rent it, so it sat empty and I drove up about once a month and let the water run and cut the ivy back and sat on the balcony for an hour.

In February of 2008 Julian sat on the end of a bed and told me that he and Arthur had three months of runway and that a contract they had counted on had gone away and that he did not know what to do.

He did not ask me.