Now, when the rum had him and the sea was crashing across the reef, when he sat alone with the night, he couldn’t keep the images at bay very long: he and the boy playing touch-football in a wide, grassy park under fleecy clouds, Beth’s hand reaching for his under a long waxed table during a Thanksgiving dinner at the elder Moore’s estate, the flashing blare of a carnival merry-go-round, and their lips meeting as Brian, on a red-mouthed palamino, clapped his hands and grinned! Her hands were like ice!