“Oh, they’re at your house,” Sylvia said. She took my left hand in both of hers and squeezed. “We know you’ve been having a bit of a time lately, what with your godfather in the hospital and everything. So, we got you some sweets from Sister Pie and some good beer bread from Avalon Bakery. And Lucy made her delicious chili!”

Once again, I would have to talk to Jimmy about improving the door-lock security of my house. Maybe electrostatically triggered C-4 plastic explosive charges in the keyholes.

I gave Sylvia a hug, thanked her for her concern, then I left.

When I entered my house, Lucy was descending the staircase from the second floor. For a moment she looked at me like a deer caught in an eighteen-wheeler’s headlights. Then she said, “When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.”

“You know there’s the downstairs bathroom,” I said.

“Yeah, but I hate the wallpaper in there,” she said. “It’s like a psycho-crazy-drugged-out-hippie coloring book. Besides, who does wallpaper anymore?”

In all honesty, she was right. The wallpaper in the cramped downstairs bathroom was one of the few things I hadn’t changed. My mom had thought it was festive. My father had (confidentially) thought it was obnoxious and dizzying. I never much minded it, primarily because I never saw it; I usually hit that bathroom first when I got home from school and always spent my time on the can eyeballs deep in the latest primary-color Spider-Man, Batman or Thor comic book.

Carmela was seated on my forest-green leather sofa; she had just stuffed a greeting card into a large blue envelope.

“I wanted to finish this so it would be a surprise,” Carmela said, looking up at me. “But, well, arthritis being what it is. Here!”

She handed me the envelope, and I opened it. On the front of the card was a photo of three kittens hanging by their front claws from a tree limb. Inside, the card read: “Good friends always hang in there with you!” It was signed—“With Love!”—by Sylvia, Carmela and Lucy.

There was also a five-dollar Subway sandwich gift card.

“We love you, Mr. Snow,” Carmela said. “Don’t we, Lucy?”

“He’s awright, I guess.”

“And we want you to know,” Carmela continued, “anytime you need a friend or help with something—anything!—you can call on us. Even when Jeopardy! is on!”

I was genuinely moved even if I, by implication, took a back seat to Jeopardy!

I gave Carmela a kiss on her cheek.

We talked for a moment about her new hearing aids, and how Lucy had marshaled them from one appointment to the next with nary a cuss word, and Lucy’s new SUV, which Carmela said came with a special “double-premium” three-year parts and power train warranty plus free transmission fluid and oil changes courtesy of Sylvia’s son-in-law.

Then Carmela left.

It was nearly time for Jeopardy!