When I bleed my blood sticks pretty well to whatever it gets on, but this cat’s blood dried up then started to peel off the metal, like paint does off wood that hasn’t been primed.

Maybe the cat was anemic or something. Janet was and she had to have shots of iron. I would see when I got home if I could find where she kept the bottle of iron medicine in her room which the visiting nurse injected her with when she came by on Wednesdays and gave her her weekly shot. I could treat the cat for anemia and then do a test to see if its blood got stronger and would stick to things the way it should. I knew where Mom kept the glass syringe needles in the kitchen because I would see her take them down and boil them for thirty minutes so that they would be ready for the nurse when she came by to give Janet shots. I always asked Janet if I could watch her get the shot; she said no because we were older now so it wasn’t proper for me to see her bottom anymore. So I hadn’t seen it yet, the shot I mean. I had seen Janet’s bottom fairly recently. When we had been on a hike Janet had told Mom she needed to go to the bathroom; Mom told us all to “go on a little and turn around.” We did but I had looked back just in time to see Janet squat down and pull up her skirt. So I had seen her bottom very well, and it didn’t look much different from how I remembered it from when I was allowed to see it when I was younger.

I said to Mom, “I’m going for a walk in the train, can I?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I mean, may I go for a walk?”

Dad said, “That’s better, young man.”

Mom said, “Yes, you may, dear, but not for long.”

“You better be back here before the train gets to Stresa because a lot of people get on there and these are not reserved seats,” Dad said.