When my father walked into his first class on Monday, they gave him a standing ovation. He told me later that the standing ovation really belonged to that remarkable professor who had gotten them interested in Dickens.

            While he was teaching, I went up to the nearly empty office that had been Jarod’s and waited. They were late. It turned out they had had a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, or they would have been here the night before. I took pleasure in telling Miss Parker that Jarod had left only last night.

            She was very beautiful, and I couldn’t help wondering if, maybe, in some strange way, she was the Little Dorrit to Jarod’s Arthur Clennam. The Centre was her Marshalsea Prison, she tied to it by her own father’s position in it, and Jarod the friend trying to help her see beyond it.

            Broots wasn’t what I expected, small, nervous, dressed like he was stuck in the ‘70s. He was a very strange counterpart for the tall, arrogant, elegant Miss Parker. I could see him as a kind of Mr. Pancks, quietly content to do the bad guy’s dirty work. But would he ever break out like the absurd Mr. Pancks did?

            And then there was Sydney, and he was different than the Sydney of the recordings. Thirty years older and gentler of face and voice. His eyes were deeper. They hid more. They looked around the empty office, and they looked at me with a sudden sharpness. I couldn’t hate him. Maybe I pitied him.

            Miss Parker was swearing at my news and their flat tire while Sydney and I examined each other. When she was done, I gave her the red notebook. She flipped it open.

            “Amy Doran. You’re the one whose father Jarod investigated?”

            “Yes. He got him freed from jail.”

            “Typical. The Count of Monte Cristo strikes again.”

            “Actually, Edmond Dantes was after revenge, not justice. There is a difference.”

            She glared at me. I knew too much about her to be intimidated.

            Sydney said, “What kind of literature professor was he?”

            “A brilliant one. He taught English literature, and he taught it as if it was his life. He particularly liked Dickens. He said Dickens’ themes of justice and society go far beyond their historical context. He was right.”

            “Yes, he was,” Sydney agreed.

            “Please Syd, take a literature class on your own time,” Miss Parker said. “Did he leave anything else, Miss Doran?”

            I smiled at her. “Yes, he did, Miss Parker. Like any good professor, he left you homework.” I thunked three fat books onto the desk. “Your assignment is to read the book he has chosen for you and apply it to your own social or personal context. Miss Parker.” I held out to her Bleak House. “He said you would identify with Esther Summerson. He said that like Esther you’re on a quest for your mother and your identity.” I didn’t expect the expression that crossed Miss Parker’s face, an expression of pain nearly as profound as Jarod’s. It softened her, made her human, if only for a moment. She snatched the book from me. I picked up Oliver Twist. “Broots, Jarod said you care about children. He said you might see yourself in Nancy, but he hopes it ends better for you than for her.” He blinked at me, uncertain but touched, and took the book. I picked up the last one and held it out to Sydney. “Sydney, he said he hopes you find yourself in this book, too.” He seemed surprised at the book I handed him, but he took it.

            Miss Parker said, “Do you know where he lived?”

            “Yes, but you’ll find nothing there. It’s a furnished house belonging to another professor on sabbatical. Everything in it is theirs.”

            “I want to see it anyway.”

            I shrugged and gave her the Skarsgards’ address. Sydney surprised me when he said, “You two go on ahead. I’ll meet you there.”

            Miss Parker took her book and her Broots and her large “sweeper” and swept out. Sydney looked at me.

            “Is it close enough to walk?”

            “Yes.”

            I locked the office door behind me. Sydney perused the cover of his book as we went down the stairs.

            “I had expected Little Dorrit.”

            “He figured you had probably already read it.”

            “I have. I just finished it.” He gave me a look. I gave him one back. We understood one another, Sydney and I. “But I have also read Nicholas Nickleby already, long ago.”

            “Sometimes you get more out of a rereading than you got the first time around. Do you think you might be Nicholas to his Smike?”

            “No,” he answered softly. “I never beat the school master. I never seized him and ran for it, as perhaps I should have. But perhaps…I am Newman Noggs.”

            Newman Noggs, the pathetic little man who worked for the piece’s real villain, Ralph Nickleby, and tried, in his own quiet, helpless way, to make things better for Nicholas and his sister Kate. Sydney as Newman Noggs. That put a different light on things.

            “Newman Noggs?” I said. “Not Mrs. Clennam?”

            “Yes, I am Mrs. Clennam, and I’m not proud of it. But if I may also be Newman Noggs…perhaps Jarod won’t hate me.”

            “He doesn’t hate you. Did Arthur hate Mrs. Clennam? He doesn’t hate you. Quite the opposite. He would be Smike to your Nicholas, if you would let him.”

            “I can’t be Nicholas. I don’t have it in me.”

            “But you taught him to be Nicholas. And Arthur.”

            “Maybe I did. That’s something, at least.”

            I quoted Little Dorrit’s description of Arthur to him. “Jarod Clennam is always to be relied upon for being kind and generous and good.”

            “He is. That is the amazing thing about Jarod. And you, Amy Doran, are you Little Dorrit?”

            “No,” I said. “I’m Kate Nickleby.”

            Sydney’s face flashed bright. “Are you?”

            “I had that privilege for a week. You raised an extraordinary man, Sydney. At least some part of that was your doing.”

            Sydney sighed and didn’t answer. We were approaching the Skarsgards’ house.

            “Jarod once told me what he likes best about Dickens, Sydney.”

            “What is that, Miss Doran?”

            “Hope. There is always hope for Dickens’ characters. There is always hope that evil will be defeated, that lost children will find families, and that the helpless little man caught in a web of deceit and fear will redeem himself and make a difference.”

            “Yes, there is that in Dickens,” he murmured. We stood on the steps of the Skarsgards’ house. “Did Jarod tell you all this, Miss Doran?”

            “No. I found it out. I’m going to be a criminal behaviorist, Sydney. I know how to find things out about unusual people. That’s how we caught the murderer last week. Jarod described him from inside his head, and I knew who he was. Now are you going to tell Miss Parker?”

            “No. I’m a psychiatrist. I believe in confidentiality.”

            The door opened, and Miss Parker, Broots, and their unpleasant-looking sweeper came out. “Thanks, Sydney,” Miss Parker said sarcastically. “You were a lot of help. Miss Doran, did Jarod happen to say where he was going next?”

            “No, but he did mention something about having a Circumlocution Office to deal with.”

            “Circumlocution?” Broots repeated. “What’s a Circumlocution Office?”

            Sydney answered him. “It’s a governmental office whose objective is to keep people going round in circles and not getting anywhere rather than actually accomplishing anything. One of Dickens’ brilliant caricatures.”

            “Jarod’s his own personal Circumlocution Office,” Miss Parker muttered. I hid my grin. Sydney seemed to be doing the same thing. “Come on, Syd.” As they went toward the black car at the curb, I heard her say, “What did you two have to talk about, Sydney?”

            “Dickens,” said Sydney.