Miss Lila didn’t say a word, but Miss Ethel Livingstone smacked in exasperation. “I don’t know why in the world they keep giving her that Alzheimer’s test,” she said. “They ask her all these questions, and she never knows anything. She never knows what day of the week it is. It’s Thursday, Lila!” she shouted, and then said aside to Bob Rigsby, “She doesn’t know who the president of the United States is either. She always answers Roosevelt when everyone knows the correct answer is George W. Bush.”

Miss Lila munched and munched and munched at a mouthful of sandwich, never taking her eyes off Bob Rigsby’s face. It was hard to believe anyone could chew white bread and mayonnaise and thinly sliced cucumbers that long. Finally she swallowed.

“Out by the washhouse,” she said.

“There’s no such thing as a washhouse anymore, Lila!” snapped Miss Ethel, then she said to Bob Rigsby, “She just wants to think it’s still 1933, because she was the queen of the Rose Show in ’33.”

Miss Lila wore thick glasses slid way down her nose, and her face had shrunk away from her eyes in her old age. It could be disconcerting to be fixed by that magnified gaze, but Bob Rigsby did not waver.

“My mother grew those roses,” said Miss Lila.

“What roses?” he asked, leaning closer.

Uh-oh, thought Della. He’s apt to get himself into trouble. I’ll have to look after him.

Bob Rigsby was a distinguished artist. He was a Dolphin Fellow in the American Watercolor Society, he had been a consultant on the design of the recently issued longleaf-pine postage stamp, and one of his rose paintings, a Mister Lincoln, hung in the White House. Plus, he was just such a nice man.

“What is it that makes people want to feed you?” asked Della.

“All that butter and mayonnaise,” said Bob Rigsby. “And look at me! I’m already fat!”

It was the evening after that first session, and partly out of gratitude and partly out of curiosity Della had brought Bob Rigsby supper—the leftover sandwiches, a little salad, and a bottle of wine—and they sat in the front windows of his apartment and looked down on Main Street.

Bob Rigsby lived in an interesting place, the upstairs room over what used to be the old Farmers and Merchants Bank Building downtown. A hundred years ago it had been the office of the bank president, but it had stood empty since the 1930s, and it retained that pleasing stillness of places that have long been abandoned. Through the old, ripply glass of the tall, arched windows and then the lacy leaves of the elm trees shading the sidewalk, they could see the row of handsome brick and granite and cast-iron storefronts across the street with their dates arching in gables and pediments—1882, 1885, 1890.