At eleven P.M. Dick Tupper was standing in his silk pajamas in the night of his fancy new kitchen, the sole dull light that of the interior of the freezer as he leaned against its opened door and ate spoonful after spoonful of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream straight out of the carton. When he’d disposed of all but an inch of the pint, he finally found the discipline to lid the carton, hide it behind the hamburger patties, and shut the freezer door. Wiping his mustache dry with his hand, he then ambled to his living room in the darkened house, singing aloud in a good voice an old country-western song by Hank Williams Sr.: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Wrestling was on the television. He finished the Falstaff that was next to his Eames lounge chair, fumbled through three remotes until he found the one for the television, and switched it off, still singing. Entering his bedroom, he flicked on the Corbu lamp. Arrayed on an Ikea dresser were half a dozen silver-framed pictures of friends, relatives, and holiday good times. In one of them a grinning, fifteen-year-old Iona was squeezed into a photo booth with him, her sunburnt cheek against his, and sticking out her tongue as he made a gruesome face for the camera. Dick got into his wide, hard-mattressed bed and told himself, You’re so lonesome you could cry.”