Since the fire it has taken a lot to rouse me, to make me feel anything, but I was shocked, both at his arrival and at his appearance, and I was also shocked at how, in a moment, all of my previous suspicion and paranoia ran away from me. I felt so tenderly toward him that I could have cried if my tear ducts still worked normally. Instead I grunted and snorted a little and stood up out of my wheelchair, wobbling on my bum leg that’s going to heal any day now, and I held out my arms, and we hugged.

He was surprised. Neither of us had ever been too affectionate. I was a little embarrassed. Either medication or time’s attrition had worn down my hard defenses. But he was clearly moved, too, and he sat down on the nearest chair as I practically fell back into my wheelchair, both of us thrown off-balance by emotion. Our knees were almost touching.

An hour earlier the medication had been passed out and already it had started clouding my brain, so the finer details of our conversation now elude me. I do remember him telling me he had lung cancer, had been fighting it for a year now, longer than most, but he was worried the end was coming. He was afraid of death. I could see it in his eyes when he spoke. Part of me felt so sorry for him, such empathy, that I wished I could euthanize him right then and there. His head and face were veiny and hairless, victims of a cure that wasn’t curing him, and his arms were covered in blood bruises. As for me, I was dressed in my daily pajamas and socks and orthopedic braces, and most of my hair, where it had been able to grow back, was wild, untamable. To any onlooker we would have made an ugly, sorry pair.

But he looked me in the eyes, and he seemed so warm that my heart loved him for the hour he sat with me, someone who had known me in my glory years.

“I have something for you,” he said, and picked up his shopping bag. He looked around and dipped his head closer. “I thought I’d slip you some contraband.”

Inside the bag was a large stuffed bear. Ray pointed out a near-invisible seam in its torso, and once he made sure no one in the hallway was watching, he unzipped the seam and slipped out a tiny screen and headphones. “I’ve loaded it with all the seasons. I know they said no 3C stuff, but what do I care, I’m a dying man.”

I stared at it. Surreptitiously he showed me how to use it, how to put the earbuds into my scarred-over ears, how to adjust the volume, how to charge it.

We quietly giggled together, partners in crime. As he placed everything back inside the bear and zipped it up, I noticed he was wearing one of the same flannel shirts he’d worn years ago. Under it he wore a faded T-shirt that said The Outer Banks. Below the words was a man walking along a beach near a lighthouse, and behind him trailed a white dog.