I check the clock on the wall. Mimi hasn’t come down, so I suppose that she’s still in bed. I gather up the banana and the pastry and head to the room. Eugene stays behind.

Buzz, buzz, buzz, he shouts after me. Writing-on-Stone? Lois Paul? How about we talk about Lois Paul?

As I expected, Mimi is still in bed.

Kitty is sitting in the chair by the window, her face swollen from crying. She’s dying.

I put the banana and the pastry on the table by the bed.

Kitty stares at the food. Are you trying to kill her?

I lean over and pat the lump that I guess is Mimi’s butt. “You feeling any better?”

“Did you bring me anything to eat?”

“A banana.”

Mimi rolls over and pokes her head out of the covers. “No pastry?”

“Don’t know that you want to eat something like that.”

Mimi sits up. “That looks like a pastry.”

“You should probably start with the banana.”

“Then you’ll eat the pastry.”

“No, I won’t.”

Mimi uses the sheet to wipe her nose. “Do you love me?”

Kitty turns to the wall. He left you to die.

“Yes,” I say. “Very much.”

“Then give me the pastry.”

Mimi eats the pastry, and then she eats the banana. “Is that it?”

“I could get a pizza.”

“Smart ass,” says Mimi, and I can see that she is much better. “What’s that?”

“What?”

“Under your arm.”

I had forgotten about the newspaper.

“Is that a newspaper?”

“New York Times.”

“English?”

In addition to reading menus and historical markers, any kind of signage, Mimi loves reading newspapers. And not just the stories.

“Read it to me.”

“It’s a big paper.”

Mimi scoots back under the covers. “I’m sick.”

I catch Kitty’s eye and hold it. “But you’re not dying.”

“Of course I’m not dying,” says Mimi. “Start with the headlines.”

Mimi commandeers all the pillows and blankets and makes herself a nest. I sit on the edge of the bed and read the paper.

Presidential adviser convicted of lying to Congress. Bank profits at all-time highs. Multinationals, the new face of organized crime. The iPhone everyone has to have.

Another school shooting in Florida.

“You’re not skipping any stories, are you?”

“No.”

“What about the real-estate ads?”

“You want me to read real-estate ads?”

Mimi snuggles down into the pillows. I’m hoping that she might offer me one, but she doesn’t.

I read a story about the refugees from Syria, which shows the routes they take as they make their way to Germany, and another about a scientist in Japan who claims to have created an enzyme that will extend the shelf life of fish.

“I’ll skip the sports?”

“Why?”

“You don’t like sports.”

“That’s not true,” says Mimi. “The scandals are pretty interesting.”

The fashion section almost puts me to sleep.