At the Oceana Apartments, when he cannot rest easy in his bed, and the silence is too loud, he sometimes walks to the window, and looks out at the sea, and remembers Southampton, 1947:
The dock emerging from the mist, and figures glimpsed in the half-light, so many that he believes he must be mistaken, that he has peopled this land with specters. Perhaps he has briefly transmuted to his younger self, reaching for a past when he was still vital. But he can feel the moisture on his skin, and the heat of Ida’s hand in his, and beside him Babe is waving, waving, and now he too is waving as the fog clears, and the faces become visible, and he thinks that he has never seen so many people gathered in one place, and a great wave of human warmth rolls toward him over the water, a tidal wash of emotion, and he is smiling, smiling, and he never wants to leave this ship or this moment, Babe on one side, Ida on the other, and he misses only his daughter, and wishes that she were here with him to see this, to be a part of it, so that everything he loves might be in one place, sealed in this single instant of perfection.
Then it comes to him, now as before, rising like the song of unseen birds, ascending from the dock and the city beyond, carried by the wind to where he stands.
The sound of whistling.