“He said houses have souls, just like people, and he was going to uncover this one’s. For such a practical man, that was a funny thing to say, but I could tell he believed it. He loved the city, loved the buildings, the streets. Anyway, he made this place into his home and after that, all he needed was someone to share it with him.”

“Nick,” I said. “Do you know how they met?”

She shook her head. “No. I started seeing Nick leaving Bill’s apartment in the morning. I was a little shocked because he was so young. Bill was young too, of course, but he was a man and Nick was still a boy. The first time I saw them together, Bill seemed a little embarrassed. Later he told me, Peg, I swear he’s legal. I laughed and said, well I didn’t think he wasn’t and Lord knows you’re not the first man who likes them young, Bill, as long as he makes you happy. I guess he did, because he moved in not too long after they met. Nick was a good boy,” she continued. “He reminded me of Waldo. Not that he was as light in his loafers as my Waldo, but he was just as sweet. That boy,” she continued, “had been well loved by someone. His family, I imagine. Raised a good Catholic, too. We got into the habit of going to the ten o’clock Mass down at Blessed Savior.”

“Just you and Nick? Bill didn’t go?”

She shook her head. “The church was part of the hatefulness he left behind when he came to California. He wanted nothing to do with it, but he would meet us after Mass and we would go to breakfast. It was a happy time until, you know, the AIDS started.”

“Yes,” I said. “AIDS has ended a lot of happy times.”

She sighed deeply. “This morning on my way to the bank I saw a boy, why he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one, shuffling across the street on two canes. So skinny you could almost see through him. The old convent at Blessed Savior, the one where the nuns lived who used to teach at the school? We want to make it into a hospice. For our boys.”

A familiar fear squeezed my heart like a cold hand, silencing me.

“My Waldo died,” she said. “Died hard.” She fumbled in the pocket of her housecoat for a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “It was like all the plagues of Egypt were visited on him before the Lord in His mercy took him. It was horrible, just horrible. Billy was there for the whole thing and I could see how hard it was for him.”

“Yes,” I said. “To lose a friend…”

“And wonder if you’re next,” she said, completing my thought.