She turned her face to me. “Yes, Bobo. Almost as often as you did over the past few years. Maybe more often. After my mother moved here, I came to visit two or three times a year. I read about him living at the Home the year he turned a hundred and I went to visit him. The last time I was with him, he asked me to read the poem to him, and then he told me to take the book. He said you had given it to him.”

“No, I didn’t.”

She smiled. “I didn’t think you had. It was his way of reminding me of you, and he was always finding ways to do that. Anyway, when I saw the interview with you, and you were talking about the service for him, I knew the poem had to be part of what you did—because of what he told me about it.”

We passed Dan Wilder’s Coffee and Pastry Shop. I could see Dan through the window. He was stacking boxes on his counter.

“Why didn’t you call me? You must have known I was at the Inn,” I said.

“Yes, I knew. I knew you were here last year, also. I saw Avrum the day before you arrived.”

“I really wish you had called,” I told her.

“I didn’t think I could see you,” she said simply. “Last year, when Avrum told me you were coming, I left that afternoon and drove back to the city. I don’t know why, really, but I did. I thought I might accidentally see you, I suppose. Even driving back, I kept looking into every car that I met, wondering if the driver would be you. And this morning, I didn’t think I could go to the service, but I changed my mind. I knew I had to see you this time, or risk never seeing you at all.”

We approached the abandoned fire station. The girl stood watching us, holding the ball she had been bouncing against the wall. She was wearing a woman’s dress hat, a style from the twenties that had a wide ribbon band and a bow over her left ear. The hat was cupped humorously on her head. Amy waved to her, but the girl did not return her greeting. She turned back to the fire station and bounced the ball. It skipped once, struck the wall, and careened back to her. She caught it easily, lazily.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Amy said.

“Yes, she is,” I replied.

“Let’s go back to Avrum’s bench,” Amy said.

“All right.”

We crossed the street and walked back toward the Inn. At Arch’s, Amy stopped and looked at the window that still carried the sign with his name bordered in chipped gold paint: ARCH’S. She said, “A lot of memories are in there, Bobo.”

“Sammy still has the jukebox,” I told her.