I stand, shoulder my bag. Chip looks up at me, one eye squinted against the sun. “But you’ll come back tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, same time. And we’ll really need to do some paperwork then, Chip. Or I’ll get fired.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

Oh, those words.

He stands, stretches, and we start walking. His gait is steady, if slow. He took one pain pill, with dessert. He had minor difficulty reading the numbers on the check, which he insisted on paying. Other than that, he was fine.

A block from his house, Chip says, “I used to believe that when we slept at night, we were dead. So death was just a longer version of that rather pleasant experience. I wish I still believed that.”

“Maybe it is that.”

“Yeah. Maybe so. It’s what can precede it that’s the problem.”

“I used to worry about going to heaven,” I say. “I thought it would be boring.”

He laughs. “You’re an interesting woman, Myra. I’m glad you’re my nurse.”

“I’m glad, too.” It is such a relief to hear him say this. I was afraid to ask if he minded an acquaintance serving in this most intimate of capacities.

Outside his house, we shake hands. And I can’t help it, it’s electric. “Do you … would you like to go to a movie or something, sometime, Myra? It’s boring, waiting around. Not working.”

I laugh, flustered.

“I mean it, would you like to?”

“Well … yes. Sure.”

“Maybe tomorrow?”

“Why not?”

He starts up the steps, turns back to wave at me. Then I head for my car, which is right where I parked it just before the world bloomed.

Chapter 4

Frank is wild to go out when I get home, spinning in circles so fast I can hardly get his leash on him. I take him for a long walk through the woods by my house, watch him zigzag in and out of the trees. I throw sticks for him, and it comes to me that it is a miracle I am able to do this: use my arm, full strength. Follow the course of the stick clearly. Walk without fatigue or pain. Assume, with blind confidence, that I will be able to do this tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. Spend an afternoon with someone who has been told their number is up, and you will will regard everything you do later that day with grateful wonder. I mean, even laundry.

Home again, I check my messages. One from Theresa, saying she was sorry, she’d had to bring Frank back earlier than usual, she had a dentist’s appointment she’d forgotten about, she hoped he wasn’t too wild from being cooped up.

“Are you too wild, Frank?” I ask. He barely looks up from getting a drink.