Other than the IV that was feeding good blood cells into her arm, my mother just seemed pale and tired. At first I couldn’t help wondering if the doctors were wrong and maybe she only had mono. Then she got a fever. The next time I visited, she told me they needed to put her on antibiotics. She hadn’t told my grandparents that she was sick, but now she thought it was time. As she said it, I saw the dullness of her hair and eyes and how the skin of her face looked waxy and weird. I saw the boniness of her finger as it slowly turned the phone dial. I realized everything I’d been telling myself—that she was slowly getting better; that the doctors might have made a mistake—was wrong. Mama, she said in a voice I’d never heard before, speaking a name into the phone that she’d never used. Mama, I have bad news.

Grandma offered to come for a few weeks, but trying to picture my grandmother in South Brooklyn—walking down streets lined with trash and broken glass; passing buildings with boarded-up windows and stoops where junkies hung out; or just staying in the apartment she would hate even if I tried to clean it up—was like trying to picture a unicorn in Prospect Park. Tell Grandma to stay in Cleveland, I told Lillian; things at the McAlisters’ were going fine. Next I rode the IRT back to Brooklyn. From the apartment, I called Mrs. McAlister and told her that I had just brought my mother home. Thanks so much for your hospitality, I said. Then I went into the bedroom and closed the door. The air was sour, and the sheets on both beds were stained. There were dishes with old uneaten food on both nightstands and on the floor. I leaned out the window as far as I could. The streetlights were broken, and it was a clear, cloudless night. I counted six stars.

LETTER TO DEBORAH BRODSKY, APRIL 1970: I’m glad to hear about all your changes. Leave it to Kyle to appear with such a perfect opportunity at such a perfect time. You’re a natural teacher, and this college sounds very exciting—though I hope you won’t think I’m a dummy if I’m still not sure what Transcendental Poetics is. I’m not at all surprised Yuma has settled in so easily. If his three-year-old self is anything like the baby I met, he’ll have half the students wrapped around his little finger before the end of the first semester. I only ever glimpsed Arizona in scraps through the window during my cross-country bus trip to see you, but even then I was stunned by its beauty.