And in the column to the right of each of these the time frame was indicated: “Approximate time between onset and death.” The arrest was listed as “sudden.” The shock, the time during which he was semiconscious, his organs failing, struggling to breathe and alone in his efficiency apartment, was listed as “day(s).” He was presumed to have had sepsis for five days between onset and death. The sepsis was a result of an injury working on a building site for his idiot cousin, who brought him to a questionable doctor who, my mother said, probably gave him the infection while stitching him.

It was the five days that I couldn’t get over, what I couldn’t accept. For several days my father lay sick, and for the last of those days so sick he was dying. He always called us on a Saturday morning from a pay phone after he moved, but he hadn’t called then. “He was so proud,” Marie had said the first time we looked at the certificate. “Too proud to even ask anyone for a small bit of help.” She was furious with him. I blamed everyone else. His cousin, America, my mother, us, me—because he shouldn’t have died alone in a room on a treeless street in a city where he had no one.

15

For the rest of the week I was in charge of Ellen and Beatrice. I hadn’t told anyone that Barbie Man had been here, that Thomas had spoken to him. I wanted Ellen in my sight, and I didn’t want to have to tell her why. By Thursday afternoon I was half out of my mind with worry and I decided we would take the bus to the King of Prussia mall the next day: me, Ellen, and Beatrice. I needed sneakers, and I wanted us to get off the mountain. Beatrice had never been by bus, and she was bursting with excitement and questions. I gave her the coins for the fare the night before, to put in her pocketbook.

“What if I put them in the wrong slot?”

“I’ll put my money in first, and you do what I do.”

“Are you sure the bus is definitely coming at nine thirty?”

“Yes, it comes that time every day. And every two hours. There’s a seven thirty before it and an eleven thirty after.”

“What if I get lost, and I don’t know where to catch the bus home?”

“You won’t get lost.”