Chip says nothing all the way home, until I pull into the driveway. Then he says, “Let’s eat out tonight. Agostino’s, okay?”

“All right. I’ll just put Frank inside.”

In the house, I dump some food in Frank’s dish, turn on the Discovery channel for him, say “Be good!” and slam the door behind me. Then I climb back in the car.

“Why don’t we walk?” Chip says. “It’s only a few blocks.”

“It’s further than that.” I start the engine. Chip is silent the whole way there. I can wait for a while. But then I’m going to ask him. There’s no way Frank made him fall.

• • •

We both order eggplant parmesan. After it arrives, I say, “So. What happened?”

“Frank just jerked the leash all of a sudden and I fell.”

I say nothing, take a bite of pasta. Then another.

“All right, I don’t know what happened. But it wasn’t a seizure, I do know that. I just fell, that’s all.” He stops eating, leans back in the booth. “Oh, all right, Myra.”

I stop chewing, look over at him.

“When I had to sign my name at the hospital, I could barely do it. Things are just going to keep …” He shakes his head. “You know, right after I was diagnosed, I read a lot about brain tumors like mine. And one of the things I read was about this guy—big fellow—whose family took him on a car trip to some relative’s house for Thanksgiving. When they arrived, they couldn’t get him out of the backseat. The guy just all of sudden couldn’t figure out how to do it. You know how long he sat there like that?”

“How long?”

“Five hours.” He stares at me, his face full of sadness, and then, suddenly, he starts laughing. “Jesus! Five hours!”

I can’t help it; I start laughing, too.

“Do you think they brought his dinner out to him?” Chip asks.

“I hope so. And a urinal, too.”

“Aw, he could have just used his empty wine glass.”

I laugh harder. “It isn’t funny.”

Chip, who has not stopped laughing either, says, “I know.”

• • •

Later that night, he is lying in his bed before sleep and I am sitting beside him. “You know what I learned today?” he says. “Before my field trip to the ER?”

“What?”

“Buttercups grow on the Arctic tundra.”

“Huh.”

“And: butterflies taste with their feet.”

“Do they?”

He yawns. “Yup.”

“Maybe people can, too.”

Chip frowns. “I know I’ve never tried.”

“Me neither.”

“Maybe we should put some peanut butter between our toes, right now. No time like the present. Well, in my case, there’s no time but the present.”