"Do you still have your job?" I asked.

"No. No, they laid me off a few weeks ago, after I was in the hospital with pneumonia."

"And your friends?"

"A few of them have died in the last year. They just went like that that , three people in, like, six months. The guy I've always thought of as my best friend is sicker than I am, he's in the hospital. He doesn't recognize people unless he's having a very very good day." , three people in, like, six months. The guy I've always thought of as my best friend is sicker than I am, he's in the hospital. He doesn't recognize people unless he's having a very very good day."

"Are you scared?" I said.

"What do you think?"

"Yeah. Well, I would be, too."

He sighed. "And then sometimes I'm not," he said. "It sort of comes and goes. But every minute is different now. Even when I'm not afraid, things are different. I feel-oh, I can't explain it. Just different. I used to lose track of myself, you know. Like I didn't have a body, like I was just, I don't know, like I was was the street I was walking on. Now I never lose track of myself." the street I was walking on. Now I never lose track of myself."

"Uh-huh."

"And, you know," he said. "If I ever really thought about it, I pictured myself as being old and having no regrets. You know? I pictured something like a famous old man in bed with people around him, and him saying 'I have no regrets.' That's really pretty silly, isn't it? It's really very silly."

"What do you regret, exactly?" I asked.

"Oh, well. Nothing really, I guess. I mean, I did think I'd do more with my life than this. I just thought I had more time. And like I said, I thought I'd be famous and retire to a place like this."

"Uh-huh. Well, this wouldn't be for everybody," I said. "There's only one movie theater. And no place to hear good music."

He laughed, a low sound with a rasp to it, like sc.r.a.ping a potato. You could hear his illness in his laugh. "I never really did those things in New York," he said. "I just, well, I guess you'd have to say I've been gambling with my life. I guess you'd have to call it that. I was thinking things would somehow work out. I thought I just needed to work hard and have faith."

I walked over to the bed. I stood beside him, as the mouse went about its scratching inside the wall. "Um, hey, how about if I get in bed with you for a while?" I said.

"What?"

"It doesn't seem right for you to be alone here," I said. "How about if I just got in under the covers with you for a little while?"

"I don't have any clothes on," he said.

"That's okay."

"What's the matter with you?" he said. "You want to sleep with me because I'm sick?"

"No," I said.

"Would you have wanted to if I wasn't sick?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, for G.o.d's sake. Will you get out of here, please? Will you just get out of here?"

"Look, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, like, offend you."

"I know you didn't. But go. Please."

"Well. Okay," I said.

I left the room, and closed the door behind me. I felt a weight in my arms and legs, a stodgy sense of disappointment and nameless, floating embarra.s.sment. I hadn't wanted to intrude on his privacy. I'd only wanted to hold him for a while, to guide his head to my chest. I'd only wanted to hold on to him as his body went through the long work of giving itself up to the past.

JONATHAN.

E RICH RICH came back the next weekend. I'm not sure why the invitation was issued or why it was accepted-none of us, Erich included, had seemed to have an especially good time. All day Sunday he'd been sulky and withdrawn. Still, when we took him to the train station Bobby asked, "Do you want to come back next weekend?" Erich hesitated, and then said all right. He said it in a flat, determined voice, as if laying claim to that which was rightfully his. came back the next weekend. I'm not sure why the invitation was issued or why it was accepted-none of us, Erich included, had seemed to have an especially good time. All day Sunday he'd been sulky and withdrawn. Still, when we took him to the train station Bobby asked, "Do you want to come back next weekend?" Erich hesitated, and then said all right. He said it in a flat, determined voice, as if laying claim to that which was rightfully his.

As Bobby and I were driving home I asked, "Do you really want to have Erich back again so soon?"

"Jon," he said, "that guy needs some time in the country. Really, did you look look at him?" at him?"

For a moment it seemed Bobby did not yet understand the nature of Erich's illness; he seemed to believe Erich was only stressed and overtired, in need of a good long rest. "He needs more than that, Bobby," I said.

"Well, a little time in the country is about all we can give him. He's, like, a member of the family now. Whether we like it or not."

"The family," I said. "You know, you're going to drive me crazy with this s.h.i.t."

He shrugged, and smiled ruefully, as if I was being petulant about a condition that clearly lay beyond anyone's control. Erich was attached to us now, however tenuously, and in Bobby's private economy we were obliged to offer everything we had.

Erich returned the following Friday on the five o'clock train. By then he'd regained his polite, slightly squeaky enthusiasm, though now it was more p.r.o.ne to lapses. Bobby took the main responsibility for seeing to Erich's comfort, and by the end of the second visit the two of them had embarked on a kind of courtship. Bobby was doggedly affectionate, and Erich accepted his ministrations with a wan and slightly irritable greed, like an indignant ghost come back to exact reparations from the living.

Late Sunday afternoon I was in the kitchen with Clare and Rebecca. Clare sliced an avocado. Rebecca sat on the counter top, sorting through a set of plastic animal-shaped cookie cutters, and I stood alongside, to keep her from falling. Outside the window we could see Bobby and Erich sitting in the unruly gra.s.s, talking earnestly. Bobby made sweeping motions with his hands, indicating enormity, and Erich nodded without much conviction.

"So, Bobby has a new love," I said.

"Don't be nasty, dear," Clare said. "It isn't becoming in you." She laid avocado slices on a plate, began peeling a Bermuda onion.

"I just don't feel like Erich needs to suddenly become our favorite charity," I said. "He's practically a stranger."

"We have room here for a stranger, don't you think? It's not like we lack for anything ourselves."

"So now you're Mother Teresa?" I said. "This seems a little sudden."

She looked at me with an even-tempered calm that was more cogently accusing than any censure could have been. Something had happened to Clare. I couldn't read her anymore-she'd given up her cynicism and taken on an opaque motherliness. We were still friends and domestic partners but we were no longer intimate.

"I know," I said. "I'm just a rotten person."

She patted my shoulder. "Please don't pat pat me," I said. "You never used to pat me like this." me," I said. "You never used to pat me like this."

Rebecca, who had been droolingly contemplating a cookie cutter shaped like a moose, started to cry. Discord cut into her skin like a fine cord; she wept whenever anyone in her vicinity spoke in anger.

"Hey, kid," I said. "It's okay, never mind about us."

I tried to take her in my arms but she didn't want to be held by me. She insisted on being picked up by Clare, who walked with her into the living room while I finished slicing the onion.

Eventually, Erich took up residence. He had nowhere else to go except his spa.r.s.e, comfortless apartment in the East Twenties. He'd have endured his illness in the company of volunteers until he moved to whatever hospital beds were available to the unprosperous and the uninsured. Bobby insisted that he visit us often, and when the trip got to be too much for him he moved in for good. I offered my bedroom, claiming I'd learned to prefer sleeping downstairs. Taking Erich in was not a simple process. I resented him for being sick and at the same time felt compelled to treat him in ways I hoped to be treated if I fell ill myself. I practiced the tenderness I hoped I might inspire in others if my vigor leaked away and my body started to change. Sometimes I caught up with the feeling and experienced it, a flush and flutter of true concern. Sometimes I only manifested it. After a period of resistance Erich agreed to take over my bed, and in doing so almost palpably relinquished a degree of partic.i.p.ation in the ongoing, living world. This moment may come to us all, at some point in our eventual move from health into sickness. We abandon our old obligation to consider the needs of others, and give ourselves up to their care. There is a shift in status. We become citizens of a new realm, and although we retain the best and worst of our former selves we are no longer bodily in command of our fates. Erich needed my room for the complex business of his dying. He was a private person and would not suffer well in the midst of our domestic traffic. So with a courteous and slightly aggrieved smile he allowed me to put him into my bed. I turned thirty-two the day after he arrived for the final time.

We took him for walks in the woods, cooked meals that wouldn't tax his system. He was an elderly spirit in the house, alternately courtly and short-tempered. Our grandfather might have come to live with us.

Winter pa.s.sed, spring came. The restaurant prospered. Rebecca cut new teeth, and discovered the lush possibility of saying no to whatever was asked of her. Erich declined unpredictably. His energy dwindled and returned, sometimes from hour to hour. He had intestinal trouble, fevers, a cloudiness of vision. His mind drifted occasionally-he could grow vague and forgetful. He made weekly trips to the hospital in Albany. On his best days he could walk into the woods with a basket, hunting mushrooms. On his worst days he lay curled in bed, neither discernibly awake nor asleep.

I lived slightly apart, in the middle of everything. I would not have asked Erich to live with us but I couldn't bring myself to actively wish him gone-I was too nervous about my own status as the house crank. I learned to find a chilly comfort in being good to Erich. It offered some obscure hope of appeasing the fates.

One evening when I came home from the restaurant I found him sitting on the porch, wrapped in a blanket. The sun had fallen behind the mountain. Violet shadows were gathering though the sky was still bright-we would always suffer early dusks in this house. Erich sat on the ancient wicker chair with an old blue blanket of mine pulled up to his neck, looking like a tubercular teenager. As his flesh grew gaunter, his appearance became more and more adolescent. His ribs stuck out, and his ears, hands, and feet came to seem too large for his body.

"Hi," I said. "How are you?"

"Okay," he answered. "Not too bad."

A formality prevailed between us, just as it had when we were sleeping together. We were courteous and remote. We continued to act as if we had recently met.

"Bobby's staying late at work," I said. "Marlys had some kind of women's thing to go to, so Bobby's doing the pies for tomorrow. Are Clare and Rebecca around?"

"They're in the house," he said.

"I'm going to go get Rebecca. Maybe I'll bring her out here for a while, okay?"

"Okay. Jonathan?"

"Mm-hm?"

"This is going to be, you know, hard for me to say. But I've been thinking. Do you ever, well, wonder about us? I mean, about you and me."

"I think about us," I said. "Sure I do."

"I don't mean just think think . I don't just mean that. I mean, well, do you ever wonder why we always held back? It seems like we could have done so much more to make each other happy." . I don't just mean that. I mean, well, do you ever wonder why we always held back? It seems like we could have done so much more to make each other happy."

Even in an extreme condition, such direct talk was hard on him. His fingers kneaded the edge of the blanket, and his foot tapped dryly against the wicker chair leg.

"Well, we had a certain kind of relationship," I said. "It was pretty much what we both wanted, wasn't it?"

"I guess so. I guess it was. But lately I've been wondering, you know. I've been wondering, what were we waiting for?"

"I suppose we were waiting for our real lives to start. I think we probably made a mistake."

He drew a ragged breath. At the exact center of the web that stretched between the newel posts, a pretty yellow spider hung motionless.

"We did make a mistake," he said. "I mean, I think we probably did. I think I was in love with you, and I couldn't admit it. I was, I don't know. Too afraid to admit it. And now it just seems like such a waste."

I stood on the weathered boards atop my own purple shadow. I looked at him. He had an ancient, utterly dignified quality at that moment, an aspect neither old nor young, neither male nor female. His body was invisible under the thick folds of the blanket, and his eyes were brilliant in his colorless face. He could have been a sphinx posing a riddle.

I believed I knew the answer. Erich and I were never in love; we weren't meant to be lovers. We had missed no romantic opportunity. Instead we'd hidden out together, in our good s.e.x and undemanding companionship. We'd kept one another afloat while we waited. We might have been servants, two chaste balding men who'd given up their lives to vague ideals of obedience and order.

But I said, "I think I was probably in love with you, too."

I didn't want him to die untouched. If he died in that condition I might have to, too.

"You're lying," he said.

"I'm not."

I thought of my father in the desert, receiving nothing from me but empty rea.s.surances. He had died on his way back from the mailbox, with a handful of catalogues and flyers. I'd had a letter for him, in my pocket.

"Yes, you are," Erich said.

I hesitated. Then I told him, "No, really. I think I was probably in love with you."

He nodded, in a cold fury. He was not comforted. An early moth, so white it was nearly translucent, more an agitation of air than a physical presence, whirred past.

"We could have done better than this, you and I," he said. "What was the matter with us?"

"I don't know," I said.

We didn't move or speak for at least a minute. We stared at each other in furious disbelief. "We're cowards," I said at last. "This wasn't a dramatic mistake we made. It was just a stupid little one that got out of hand. What do they call them? Sins of omission."

"I think maybe that's what bothers me most."

"Me, too," I said. And then, because there was nothing more to say, I went into the house to find Rebecca.

CLARE.

E RICH RICH brought something new into the house. Or maybe he conjured up something old. Something that had been there all along. He rattled down the halls, skimmed failing breath from the dusty air. The plain facts of illness and death can seem remote as long as you don't smell the immaculate chalk of the medicines. As long as you don't see skin turning the color of clay. brought something new into the house. Or maybe he conjured up something old. Something that had been there all along. He rattled down the halls, skimmed failing breath from the dusty air. The plain facts of illness and death can seem remote as long as you don't smell the immaculate chalk of the medicines. As long as you don't see skin turning the color of clay.

Being a mother made certain things impossible, things I could have done almost without thinking in my other life. I couldn't deny Erich what he needed and at the same time I couldn't embrace him. I found that more or less against my will I'd become capable only, singularly, of protection. I suppose it was sentimental, though I didn't taste anything like sentiment in my mouth. I felt hard and clinical, glacial. For the first time I didn't think about myself. A district in my brain, that which I'd thought of as me me , seemed to have been sucked clean. In its place was this steady uninflected drive to do what was needed. I fed Erich while the boys were at work, saw that he took his medicine, helped him to the toilet on the days he needed help. I spoke kindly to him. Nothing could have stopped me from doing that. But I didn't , seemed to have been sucked clean. In its place was this steady uninflected drive to do what was needed. I fed Erich while the boys were at work, saw that he took his medicine, helped him to the toilet on the days he needed help. I spoke kindly to him. Nothing could have stopped me from doing that. But I didn't care care about him. In a sense our relations were strictly business. I cared only, truly, for Rebecca, who was alive and growing. Erich had already pa.s.sed partway out of the world. While his comfort and safety were vitally important to me his existence was not. Now I better understand why mothers appear so often in stories as saints or as monsters. We are not human in the ordinary sense, at least not when our children are very small. We become monsters of care, inexorable, and if we occasionally lose track of the finer, imperishable points of the soul while ministering to the fragile body, that can't be helped. about him. In a sense our relations were strictly business. I cared only, truly, for Rebecca, who was alive and growing. Erich had already pa.s.sed partway out of the world. While his comfort and safety were vitally important to me his existence was not. Now I better understand why mothers appear so often in stories as saints or as monsters. We are not human in the ordinary sense, at least not when our children are very small. We become monsters of care, inexorable, and if we occasionally lose track of the finer, imperishable points of the soul while ministering to the fragile body, that can't be helped.

I was alone most days with Rebecca and Erich. Now that the boys had Marlys and Gert they were able to get home more often. But, still, the bulk of my time was spent with a two-year-old and a dying man.

I rented movies and poured juice. I began toilet training Rebecca, and occasionally changed Erich's soiled sheets. He had pa.s.sable days and worse days. On the bad ones he could be cranky with me. He could suddenly say "I hate hate apple juice, I'm just so sick of it, don't they have any other kind at the market?" He could complain about the movies I brought home. "Mrs. apple juice, I'm just so sick of it, don't they have any other kind at the market?" He could complain about the movies I brought home. "Mrs. Miniver Miniver ? G.o.d, is this all they had left?" ? G.o.d, is this all they had left?"

But he never lost patience with Rebecca. Sometimes, on the days he stayed in bed, the two of them watched videos together. I brought home Dumbo, Snow White Dumbo, Snow White , and anything involving the Muppets. Erich liked those movies, too. He didn't charm Rebecca as thoroughly as Jonathan did, but he held her interest. He had a singular ability to focus, and I suspect she felt secure with him. He could so perfectly imitate a man who was good with children. He let her boss him around. He performed, on demand, a particular spastic dance with a stuffed monkey she had mysteriously named Shippo while she turned a doll named Baby Lou upside-down and waggled its stiff plastic legs in the air. He agreed to all the games she invented, many of which involved pa.s.sing a rubber dinosaur back and forth while reciting a long, ever-changing list of demands. He could do the voice of Kermit the Frog, which she seemed to find hilarious and slightly upsetting. , and anything involving the Muppets. Erich liked those movies, too. He didn't charm Rebecca as thoroughly as Jonathan did, but he held her interest. He had a singular ability to focus, and I suspect she felt secure with him. He could so perfectly imitate a man who was good with children. He let her boss him around. He performed, on demand, a particular spastic dance with a stuffed monkey she had mysteriously named Shippo while she turned a doll named Baby Lou upside-down and waggled its stiff plastic legs in the air. He agreed to all the games she invented, many of which involved pa.s.sing a rubber dinosaur back and forth while reciting a long, ever-changing list of demands. He could do the voice of Kermit the Frog, which she seemed to find hilarious and slightly upsetting.

Sometimes when I brought them a snack I found them sitting together on Erich's bed, watching television, with toys scattered everywhere. Sometimes I had to catch my breath at the sight of them like that, Rebecca chattering and walking one of her miniature farm animals over Erich's skinny knee or Erich absent-mindedly stroking her hair as they both watched cartoons. No matter how he felt on a given day, he was always attentive to my daughter. His powers of concentration were formidable. He seemed to have taken on a project: never to show this little girl any unpleasant or mean-spirited behavior, never to be anything but pliant and companionable in her presence. He was different from Jonathan. He didn't love her. He liked her well enough. Being good with her was one of the organizing principles around which he built his days. He made it his job.

At first I felt it as a vague unrest that fluttered around in my belly, halfway between nausea and pain. I believed at times that I was developing an ulcer, or worse, though the doctor told me it was just anxiety. Finally, after several months, I realized. I was coming to a decision. Or a decision was coming to me. It was growing inside me, almost against my conscious will.

It didn't reach its finished state until an afternoon in May, as I was taking a nap with Rebecca. She'd grown balky about naps, and would lie down in the afternoons only if I took her into Bobby's and my bed and read to her from one of her books. She was almost two and a half then. She'd developed obsessions with several books, including one about a rabbit saying good night to every article in his bedroom and another about a pig who finds a magic bone. We'd read both books twice, and drifted off to sleep together. I woke twenty minutes later to the sound of Rebecca's voice. She lay beside me, telling herself a story. This, too, was a recent habit. She could talk to herself for hours. I lay quietly, listening.

"I go to the store," she said. "I got a talking bone talking bone . The girl never saw it before. She picked up the bone and went to Bunny's house. And Bunny was there, and Jonathan was there. And they said, 'My, my, my, what a fine little kitty.' And Jonathan took the bone. He said, 'Now I'm going to make something good with this.' And he made... . The girl never saw it before. She picked up the bone and went to Bunny's house. And Bunny was there, and Jonathan was there. And they said, 'My, my, my, what a fine little kitty.' And Jonathan took the bone. He said, 'Now I'm going to make something good with this.' And he made...porridge . It was very very good. And Bunny said, um, and then Mommy and Bobby and Erich said. And I gave Erich some salad, because he was sick. And Jonathan had some, too. And then it was night, and Bunny had to go to bed. And then it was the next day, and the kitty is going to town. 'My my my,' the kitty said. Just imagine his surprise." . It was very very good. And Bunny said, um, and then Mommy and Bobby and Erich said. And I gave Erich some salad, because he was sick. And Jonathan had some, too. And then it was night, and Bunny had to go to bed. And then it was the next day, and the kitty is going to town. 'My my my,' the kitty said. Just imagine his surprise."

As I lay listening to her, my chest constricted in panic. I could feel the heat rising to my face. I couldn't tell at first why I was unnerved by what I heard. It was only Rebecca's usual stream of consciousness, the kind of babbling I'd been hearing from her for over a month. But slowly, while lying on the bed with her, I figured it out. She was coming into herself. She was emerging from her foggy self-involvement and beginning to comprehend the independent life of other people. Soon she'd leave her disembodied child-world. She'd remember things. She was a camera getting ready to shoot. Click Click a brown house with a blue door. a brown house with a blue door. Click Click her favorite toys. her favorite toys. Click Click Jonathan coming to get her in the mornings. She'd carry those images around for the rest of her life. Jonathan coming to get her in the mornings. She'd carry those images around for the rest of her life.

What if she came into her full consciousness as Erich died and Jonathan started to get sick? What would it do to her if her earliest memories revolved around the decline and eventual disappearance of the people she most adored?