’ll talk about it a lot, think he took one of her suggestions seriously, and later he’ll tell her he’s going to take every bit of advice she gave him upstairs. He parks the car in a good spot, bends down, she gets on him piggyback, and he starts upstairs. The flights are long and steep and he’s exhausted by the time they reach the fourth floor. He puts her down, says “I don’t think I can make it. All that moving before did me in. Maybe another time when I’m not so wiped out.” “No, now. We won’t think of it another time. Either of us won’t be in the mood. Or you’ll feel silly doing it or you’ll know your neighbors by then so you won’t want to be seen with me on your back, and by that time you’ll have painted the rooms and settled on where all the furniture should go. If you feel too weak carrying me, sit me anywhere till you feel strong again.” He does it that way next flight: stops every five or six steps and sits her down. His shirt’s so soaked that her skirt and blouse get wet. She says “No problem. When we get home I’ll put them in the laundry bag and take a bath.” She does half the next flight by sitting on the bottom step and pushing herself up step at a time. Then she says she hasn’t the energy to do it that way anymore and he says he doesn’t see how he can carry her up any farther. A door opens one floor below, no head sticks out and she says “New neighbors, don’t worry; heavy luggage, just moving in.” “Hi,” he says, “how do you do; Howard Tetch. I’ll be in 6D.” Door closes and he gets her on his back and lugs her to the top, sets her down, gives her her crutches and they go into the apartment. She looks around, checks into everything including the shower stall and oven and broiling compartment and refrigerator’s vegetable bin and butter chamber and little freezer and every drawer in the dresser left behind, suggests paint colors and furniture arrangement and where all the pictures should go on the walls and that he should get shades and a new toilet seat, cleans the inside of his windows and the bathroom mirror, takes some hangers out of a box and hangs them in the bedroom closet, puts a cake of soap in the soap dish above the bathroom sink, gets out two mugs and a pot and a box of teabags his mother gave him before they left and makes them tea. “One real piece of advice, though it’ll cost you,” she says. “Get window grates in the living room or they’ll be climbing down the fire escape into your apartment every other week. When I was waiting for you downstairs some very suspicious-looking characters were looking at me on the street. If I hadn’t been sitting in the car I’m almost sure they would have stolen it or at least felt around inside for dope and change.” His mother asks him to come along with them to Washington. “We’ll train down, you’ll have your own hotel room, we’ll try to be in an adjoining double. She always wanted to see the Capital. You worked there, it’s nothing new for you, but if she gets sick or falls down and I have to pick her up on the street, I’m going to need someone and you can also show us things ordinary tourists never see. That little subway in the Congress building you spoke about. We’d both be interested, and maybe we’ll go visit our congressman and stand in that place under the dome there where you said someone can hear you whispering from the other end of the room. And her operation’s in less than a month, so I said I’d take her anywhere she wants that’s within a few hours by train from New York, and no expense spared for either of you. It could be her last trip anyplace, for who knows what condition she’ll be in when they discharge her or, God forbid, if she’ll even survive it sufficiently to ever get out of bed.” “The White House,” he says. “The Capitol, the Smithsonian, or the Phillips Gallery — you can’t believe the little masterpieces they have there,” and Vera says “Suddenly none of those places seems very interesting.” “The zoo. It’s outside, where we should be on such a beautiful day, and if it’s too tough walking around we’ll borrow a wheelchair if they have them. Smokey the Bear’s there, or one of his descendants with his name, and she says “That’s stupid, that dumb bear in trousers.” When they finally get her to leave the hotel she only wants to sit on the Mall writing picture postcards to relatives and friends and snacking on hot dogs and sodas from vendors. She also wants to be photographed with whatever famous building or monument that can be seen behind her while she sits on one of the benches or pool walls on the Mall, bangs combed down to her eyes, hands folded on her lap, serious face, shirt buttoned to the top and pulled up to cover half her neck, crutches always out of camera range. He goes into the National Gallery while they stay outside, hurries through a few of what were his favorite rooms, from a pay phone there calls some old girlfriends in Washington. One’s married with two kids, two aren’t listed anymore, one agrees to meet him at the hotel bar around nine the next night. At dinner in the hotel his mother says to her “If you’re not enjoying yourself here or are disappointed in anything, say so and we’ll do whatever you want,” and she says “There’s too much to see that needs walking or bumping along in some dumb tour bus. And I don’t want to be shoved around in a wheelchair and be stared at, and besides that I miss my own room,” and they go home right after breakfast the next day. On the train he says to them “Damn, should’ve mentioned the Washington Cathedral and the Arab mosque,” and she says “That would have been nice. I thought of it, saw them on the map, but didn’t think you’d want to go.” Large group photo he has of all twenty children or so and the owner and two counselors at the summer camp they went to for two months. Most of the campers standing or sitting on the dock, feet in the water or dangling above it. Few, like him — the older boys — standing in front of the dock in water up around their waists and chests. It’s obvious he’s freezing, teeth chattering, so probably the professional photographer had them stand in the water too long. Or maybe they’d been swimming awhile, photographer came down and told them to stay in the water longer till he took the photos. She’s standing on the dock, only in her underpants, hands, which she’s squeezing together, hiding most of her face. Little part of her face he sees is smiling sweetly. Her body looks healthy: legs straight, solid lean torso. She’s the prettiest girl there her age, even if her hair’s been clipped badly by the camp owner. He thinks she used a bowl to do it, or maybe that’s what his parents said when they saw the photo or when he and Vera got home, and he took them literally. His mother thought she should spend the summer in the country, being with other kids and him, good air, cool nights, eating food straight from the farms and lots of activities, before she was operated on for the first time that fall. Years later she told him the doctors had said there was a fifty-fifty chance Vera would survive the operation and that when she was wheeled into the intensive care unit they never thought she’d pull through. “My one regret is that I let them go ahead with it.” “What could you have done? Tiger in one door, lion in the other, both mean and hungry.” “There might have been other ways. Diet, for instance, but nothing I explored. The surgeon was very prominent and convincing and quite striking looking and also a former classmate of our pediatrician, so I needed more will power than I had and your father said to do what I thought best, he was staying out of it. But if she had died unscathed and with only a little pain in three years, which is all they gave her without the operation, wouldn’t it have been better than living horribly for twenty?” He’s in her hospital room and she’s pointing to her mouth with her arm that’s attached to the IV. She can’t speak because of the tube in her throat. “You’re thirsty?” She nods. “I can’t give you anything with that thing in you,” pointing to her throat. “I’ll have to ask the nurse.” He’s in her hospital room and she’s sleeping. Tubes in her, but she looks calm, sleeping without making a sound. He sits beside her, takes her hand in his and kisses it. She opens one eye and looks at him. He says “I’m sorry, did I disturb you? I’m sorry,” and kisses her hand and puts it back on the bed. Her eye closes and she seems to be sleeping again.