Followed by my lost ones’ spritely, terrified parents, I felt like one more West Village Virgil. I was starting to sound bored as that old gal who’s done the Circle Line boat tour of New York for fifty years. “On your left, that green roof? The building where they filmed The Apartment …” My references had grown dated as hers. I’d nearly forgot an upstate paradise called “Before.”

At times, truth is, I felt some fugitive urge to shock these remote-control parents who’d let their boys suffer alone. By telephone, they told us, “We would come to New York, but given our schedules till Christmas, we just can’t. Besides, hospital rooms are small, we’d only be in your way.” My way?

They were probably decent folks, perfectly willing to dare their son’s city friends to abandon him. Within the safety of their walled suburbs, they absolved themselves: “Wouldn’t other lepers know leprosy just a li’l better?”

They arrived for final tearful scenes. Then, in the hall, after the first sight of the blinky, grateful skeleton who’d replaced their plump Princeton son, they would ask us caretakers—in lowered tones, “I think his accounts are with Citibank, right, Ed? Perhaps the time has come to inquire as to the disposition of Hiram’s things … ?” So the genteel ones phrased it.

And we, the nurses, waited, knowing that Hiram’s will, leaving us his complete Fiesta ware, a signed (Gustav) Stickley chair and one half-mature retirement IRA, would soon be revoked by the finer law firms of our American Middlewest.

Before, I was considered very funny. Do I now sound tired? There are so many reasons. Today I muted a few. Robert’s parents had acted kinder than most; their church held bake sales to offset Robert’s bills. Like many of us struggling artists, he’d had no health insurance. His mom once mailed me a small costly mall-bought German teddy bear holding a note: “I am a Care Bear for You, the one who’s bearing care for our boy, Robbie. We sure look forward to meeting you! Rebecca Gustafson, and Reverend Bob.” Robert’s parents knew just the things to say by phone, if only thanks to pastoral practice and the peace afforded by fifteen hundred miles. These folks would definitely need me by 1:25 this afternoon. Pineapples are the symbol of something … hospitality.

I patted one pocket of my rain-drenched jacket, touched the six keys required to open Robert’s doors. My key ring, thanks to a wasting sickness, now weighed three butch pounds. Pills rattled. I kept, upon my person, medications for Robert and my others, all in separate little timered pillboxes that—day and night—went off like pocket aneurisms. Around me, other passengers, sogged by a downpour unpredicted, smelled of wool, rubber raincoat, contradictory beauty products, overwork.