As he finished, we heard the train coming up the Ashley River, going straight through the Citadel campus. Ike said, "I've grown up with the sound of that train."

"Trains have always given me hope," Sheba said. "That one especially."

"Why that one?" Betty asked.

"Because that's the train that's going to take me into a new life," Sheba said. "That's the train that's taking me west one of these days. To Hollywood."

"But that train is heading due north, sugar," my father said.

"No, no. You're wrong, Mr. King," Sheba said, closing her eyes. "It's heading for the Pacific. It's moving west."

"I'll never make you a scientist," Father said, smiling.

"You don't have to," Sheba said. "I'm already an actress."

CHAPTER 21.

Prayer Book for the Wilderness.

It was almost midnight when I walked down the institutional, crepuscular halls of the Medical University looking for room 1004, where the night attendant told me Harrington Canon had been assigned. My tennis shoes made rodentlike squeaks as I neared the nurses' station, announcing my presence as effectively as though I had an agitated magpie squawking on my shoulder. Feeling self-conscious enough, I felt yet more mortification as I observed the curiosity of every night nurse on duty at my noisy approach.

"Yes, young man?" one nurse asked, wearing a name tag that identified her as Verga.

"I'd like to look in on Mr. Canon," I said. "He doesn't have much family, and I wanted him to know he has some people looking out for him."

"Are you Leo King?" she said, going over a list.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're the only one he has on his visitors' list," she said.

"His family's all in nursing homes," I said. "They are too infirm to visit."

"I see. And your relationship to Mr. Canon?"

"I help out in his antique store on King Street," I said. "Ever been to it?"

"I'm a nurse, not a millionaire," she said. Some of the faceless nurses looming over their charts laughed in appreciation.

"Is Mr. Canon going to be all right?" I asked. "It's nothing serious, is it?"

"Dr. Ray will examine him tomorrow," the nurse replied. "We'll know a lot more after that."

"What is Dr. Ray's specialty?" I asked.

"Oncology," she answered.

I couldn't believe a four-syllable word had escaped inclusion in my mother's indefatigable five-word-a-day vocabulary list, and this one had a barbed, ominous sound. "I don't know what that means, ma'am."

"Cancer," she said, and I was faced with the horrifying word at last. "He's in that room over there. We've got him medicated, but he's been restless all night."

It took several moments for my eyes to adjust to the prisonlike darkness when I peeked into his room.

"Who're you staring at like I was some kind of polecat, boy?"

"I thought you'd be asleep, Mr. Canon. I thought they'd give you something to help you sleep."

"I'm too worried to sleep."

"What're you worried about?"

"Just the little things. Incontinence, dementia, paralysis, unbearable pain, and then death itself."

"Don't worry. They'll all come in good time."

"You're just the person I don't need to see," he said. "Why did it take you so long to get up here?"

"I went back over to your house to feed your cats."

"They'll be fat as hogs if you stuff their guts twice a day."

"I didn't know. I've never owned a pet," I said. "My mother's allergic to animal fur."

"Once a day is sufficient," he said.

"I'll take care of it," I promised.

"A housekeeper will need to be hired," Mr. Canon said. "I left that four-poster bed a mess, I'm afraid. I was filled with shame that those sweet boys in the ambulance had to encounter me in such a situation."

"Those guys've seen everything," I said. "That's what my father told me as we were cleaning up your place."

"You cleaned up?"

"It's good as new. We couldn't save the sheets, but we saved everything else. We dusted, we polished, we cleaned. We made a good team. We even brought flowers in from the gardens."

"Thank you, rapscallion," he said. "Please thank your daddy for me. Neither of you were required to do it."

"My father said we were the only two people in a position to do anything. You were unconscious and fighting to live."

"I don't remember a thing about it," he admitted.

Nurse Verga stuck her head into the room. "Is this boy bothering you, Mr. Canon? We can send him on his way."

"You and your incompetent cheerleading squad of nurses are what's really bothering me," Mr. Canon grumbled. "This boy just fed my cats and cleaned my house. Why am I not asleep? Are you feeding me placebos instead of using effective drugs of sufficient potency?"

"It's time for a shot that will put you out for the night," she said. "I can get rid of the boy."

"I need him for another couple of minutes," Mr. Canon said. "Leo, I'll need you to place a call to my lawyer, Cleveland Winters, tomorrow. I've got some important decisions to make, and I'll need to make them in a hurry."

"The doctor will see you in the morning," I said. "He'll fix you up fine. You'll be back home in no time."

"That's how it works in books and movies," Mr. Canon said. "But something broke in me this morning. Something broke deep inside me, and whatever it was is going to kill me. Get that pussyfooting look off your face. I'm going to make up a long list of things for you to do. Customers to call. Scoundrels with accounts receivable, and other dealers who have things I own on consignment. I'm going to donate all my books to the Charleston Library. I need to talk to a curator at the Gibbes Museum of Art. You'll need to call the rector of St. Michael's, so he can come give me the last rites. I'd like you to bring me the Book of Common Prayer that's in the first drawer of my bedside table. My great-grandfather Canon was carrying it when he went down at the Battle of the Wilderness."

"No," I said, devastated. "I won't do it. I refuse to accept this. Dr. Ray is going to take care of all this tomorrow. You'll see. We'll be laughing about this tomorrow night. I'll tease you about this conversation for the next thirty years."

"Leo, Leo, I've told no one this. I'm not close enough to anyone to tell them. I chose a reclusive life because it seemed to fit me best. I was a bitter disappointment to both my mother and father. An only child never outgrows that. That's a wound that suppurates through the years; there's no healing, and not even time can touch it. I've told no one in Charleston, not even my beloved rector or my lawyer: I was diagnosed with leukemia two years ago. I'll never leave this hospital."

"Don't say that," I said. "Giving up's the worst thing you can do!"

"What in the hell am I listening to you for, Mr. Nobody? You've never even had a head cold."

"But I know all about giving up."

"Yes, I sometimes forget about your bouts with insanity," he said. "It gave me great pause before I took a lunatic into my store. But my Charleston values overcame my fears of the asylum."

"That there are saints like you who walk among us."

"You should be getting on home now," he said. I could see he was tiring.

"I'm staying here with you tonight," I said. "I'm sleeping in this chair."

"Preposterous! I'll not have it."

"My mother and father don't think you should be alone. At least for the first night."

"I've been alone my whole life," he said. "I'll make a deal with you: go sleep in your own bed tonight. But bring me my newspaper on your way to school in the morning."

"You sure you don't want me to stay?"

Mr. Canon exploded, "What must I do? Send up a smoke signal? You need to be home with your family, and I need to be alone with my thoughts."

"Call me in the middle of the night if you need me," I said. "I'm just ten minutes away."

"I snore," he said.

"So what?"

"It's such a low-class thing to do, snoring. Pipe fitters snore, used-car salesmen snore, welders snore, union members snore. Charleston aristocrats shouldn't snore. It seems unforgivable for a man of my stature to snore."

"The nurses were talking about it when I asked to visit," I said.

"What did those fishwives and scoundrels say?" he demanded.

"Said you were noisier than a volcano. Noisier than rain on a tin roof."

"I'll have their jobs," he stated, offended that his private life had been the subject of vile gossip. "Those magpies'll be sorry they ever heard the name of Harrington Canon."

There was a rattling sound at the door, and Nurse Verga brought a tray in with a small paper bonnet filled with pills and a serious-looking syringe. I knew that Mr. Canon was not a big fan of shots, so I was not surprised when he wailed, "My God, that shot could put a blue whale to sleep!"

"Probably," she said. "And it'll certainly put you to sleep."

"Do you know who to call, boy?" he asked.

"Your lawyer, your rector, someone at the Charleston Library, a representative at the Gibbes Museum of Art. Feed your cats."

"Once a day. Not twice. Change their kitty litter."

"Bring you your Book of Common Prayer that your great-grandfather carried with him into the Battle of the Wilderness."

"That's all I can think of now. I'm exhausted to the bones."

The medicine acted fast, and Harrington Canon was asleep in a matter of seconds with his hand in mine. Despite his insistence, I slept in a chair beside his bed. Of course, he snored throughout the night, a soft funny growling noise. Once, he woke and asked for a glass of ice water, which I gave to him, holding his head in my hand. At four-thirty in the morning, Nurse Verga woke me for my paper route, as I'd asked. I kissed Mr. Canon on the forehead as I whispered to him good morning and good-bye. I was lucky to have met him, and I knew it. I had many duties to perform for him that morning.

The following Friday, at the end of my first-period French class, a language I spoke with no facility and wrote in just a notch above idiocy, a message came from the principal's office. I went to my mother's severe bailiwick in the front hall. I tried to think of what I might have done to raise her ire, but could come up with nothing.

My mother was writing, treating the document with the same significance as though she were penning the final words of the Magna Carta. It was a very nunlike gesture of intimidation. When she finally spoke, she still did not interrupt her writing.

"Harrington Canon died this morning, Leo, not long after you left him. They think he had a heart attack. So he went fast and died in peace. His lawyer, Cleveland Winters, called and said you're the head pallbearer. Mr. Canon put it in his will that he wanted you to choose the other five pallbearers."

I lay my head on my mother's desk and began weeping softly.

My mother sniffed with displeasure. "Don't take it so hard, Leo. You knew he had to die. Everybody does someday."

Ignoring her, I continued to cry.

Finally she said, "I found him to be a most pretentious, unpleasant man."

"He was nice to me, Mother," I said. "At a time when not many people were."

"You made your own bed there, mister."

"So you've reminded me a few million times."

"Try not to be disrespectful in your grief," she said. "Mr. Canon was famous for being penurious. You worked for years for him without wages. He enjoyed slave labor."

"Why is it so disappointing to you when someone seems to like me? Why does it make you so angry?"

"You're talking nonsense, son."

"I don't think so, Lindsay." I heard my father's voice as he entered the door behind me. "So there's nothing our sweet boy can do to please you?"

"My standards might be higher than yours are, Jasper," she said. "My expectations for Leo are exacting, and I'm not ashamed of that."