“Is everythang all right at the house?”

I nod.

“You want me to bring you anythang?”

I want to point to my mouth but I don’t. I shake my head no. My friend Loretta promised to bring me my teeth, which I know is somewhere on the dining-room floor, ’cause I heard ’em slide across the wood when the paramedics picked me up and slung me onto that stretcher. But her car’s been in the shop. Loretta is my next-door neighbor. She’s white and nice and a brand-new widow. She even trying to teach me how to play bridge. I just hope she watering my plants and got the rest of that stuff out the refrigerator, ’cause I was cleaning it when I first felt my chest go tight.

“You looking good,” he say. If I had the strength, I’d slap him. I look like hell froze over and he know it. My hair is still in these cellophaned burgundy cornrows, ’cause they won’t let me put my wig on. Cecil just sit there for a few minutes, looking like a complete fool, like he trying to remember something only he can’t. I guess the silence was starting to get to him, ’cause he take a deep breath and finally say, “So—when you get to come home?”

I hold up three, then four fingers.

He stand up. “You need a ride?”

I shake my head no.

“I can come back and see you tomorrow.”

I shake my head no. He shake his head yes. “After I get off work.”

My eyes say: “Work?”

“Just a little security job. Part-time. It’s something.”

I’m wondering if it’s at Harrah’s or Circus Circus or Mirage: his second homes. I write the word “shack” down.

“Shaquan got robbed again, so we boarded the place up. I can’t take the stress no more.”

No more barbecue.

“I’ll stop by the house to check on things,” he say and bend over and give me a kiss on my forehead. Either he still love me and don’t know it or he feel sorry for me. I don’t much care right now, but all I know is that his lips is the warmest thing I’ve felt touch my body since I was greasing Shanice’s scalp and she fell asleep in my lap. I hate to admit it, but Cecil’s lips sure felt good.

I turn my face toward the window and close my eyes. I’m hoping these tears can hold off a few more minutes. I hear the soles of his shoes squish against the tile floor. The door opens. A shot of cold air comes in, and then the click of that door. I look at the clock. Cecil was here for all of eight minutes. When that door pops back open, I turn, thinking he done come to his senses, done had a change of heart, wanna say something mushy to me like they do on All My Children: something that gon’ make me feel like I got wings and can fly outta this hospital bed straight into his arms, where I can sink against his soft chest and he’ll hold me, rock me like he used to, and I’ll be able to take one deep breath after another.