Even Robert, after I’d forgiven him his recklessness with Bama. Even poor Robert had to beckon me closer to his hospital bed. I hesitate, even now, to “tell on him.” But then, part of remembering a person whole is just such a jagged, various completion. Besides, by now, you’re probably so sick of hearing the exact color of his pale eyelashes, or of his pistol whipping’s bow-shaped scar. Ill as he was, might not even my true love be entitled to a little cruelty, if he made it brief?

The crown prince waved me nearer. Compared to his Federal fourposter, this hospital bed looked so low to the ground, it seemed beneath him—so gleaming, hi-tech, and essentially demeaning. Robbie beckoned me over with the spindle finger, a single Hollywood Halloween crook of it. He, however in and out of his head lately, had something to say, something he’d meant, he insisted now, to tell me for the longest darn time.

“It’s about … your writing, Hartley. Lately, for a lot of us, it has gotten very hard to foll … ow, duck. Not always, but people, when you’re not around, do say so. It’s jumpy, undercuts itself. Needs more time to bake. Oh, you’ll get better. Think of the years you have ahead. But maybe try and put more straight lines into it maybe? Good, though. Comic, they like. Still, nobody wants to read much more of the Southern stuff—choir practice and magnolias. No question that you have the ‘chops.’ And yet, you are way funnier in person. You talk better than you often get it down, but maybe that’s true of … our lives. We’ve each always offered each other the most charm, hunh, Hart? We mostly got our very best, hunh, Hart? Ahead, there’ll come a subject big and dark enough for you to chew on, hon. An all-week sucker. People are not very good. People never stay real happy very long. I don’t know how you missed out on that. It’s a first rule, really. Your weakness is this hero worship. Gets in the way of your characters’ seeming real. You’ve still got your thank-you-note expectations, lad. Some people want to be famous, some just wanna get fucked regular; your fault is, if you have one, you deepdown hope to be—don’t get mad—thanked. You wanna get thanked. I wanna get fucked. She wants to get famous. Literature? It never says thank you, Hartley. Good books they just eat and go home. But … main thing is, babe—you keep at it, hear?”

“?-ha,” I said. “Yeah, I thought maybe I would. Gracias, I guess.” My hands felt suddenly unbusy. “Guess I’ll have to work on all that. Suuure will. —But listen, after the talking just now … you thirsty, darl?”

He nodded. You cannot make a scene. You cannot have that be the last thing Robert remembers saying, regrets saying.

Most Classical and Romantic Composers lived long enough to complete their Ninth Symphonies, even their Tenths. He got half of one.