Farnam went on to heal two cataracts and a bum kidney, but no one was listening to the television anymore. Not even Ida. The two men were watching her, knowing precisely what her reaction would be. She let go of her heart and opened her downcast eyes, and the smile she wore was thin and defeated. She stroked the cover of her book with a trembling hand. Then she looked up, acknowledging their presence for the first time since Bailey came in. “Well, it’s getting awfully late,” she said softly.

Hubert yawned on cue. “Yes, I was just about to go to bed myself. Can I give you a hand, Ida?”

“So soon?” Bailey stammered. “I mean, we could sit up for a while . . . you know. Talk?”

Hubert was helping Ida to her walker. “George, we’re old men,” he said. “Time’s all we’ve got. Tomorrow, the next day, next week. But right now it’s late.” He left the room with Ida, returning only after the electric hum of the elevator seat marked her ascent of the staircase. Then he kneeled beside Uncle Jim’s chair and nudged his shoulder. “Jim? You need some help to bed?”

The barely tufted head raised and craned toward him, blinking with uncertainty. He cleared the thick sleep from his throat and muttered “You ain’t mah nephew.”

“Not hardly. C’mon, I’ll help you to bed.” But the senile old man’s perpetually glazed eyes were already closing, his tortoise-like head angling onto his shoulder. Hubert grabbed a pillow off the couch and wedged it in there before the two came together. Then he took a blanket from the cedar chest in the corner and draped it around Taggart’s boney shoulders. “Well,” Hubert said, stretching his lanky frame, “it’s been a long day.” He scooped up his notebook, saying, “I’ll leave the hall light on for you,” and trudged upstairs.

George Bailey sat there for several minutes, listening to the silence that settled around him despite Reverend Farnam’s incessant requests for “tax-deductible gifts for Jezuuz.” Then he turned off the TV and the lights, left Uncle Jim in the dark, and climbed the stairs himself. He went very quickly to his room and locked the door behind him.