“He owed me eight dollars,” she said, and watched him as he took out his wallet and counted out the bills. A hand snatched the money when he held it out. “He was a drunken old bum,” she hurled like a receipt through the closing crack in the door.

When he got back to the hospital he saw that his father was conscious. “Hello,” he said.

“Adam?”

“Yes. How are you?”

The bloodshot blue eyes attempted to focus, the mouth smiled. Myron Silberstein cleared his throat. “How should I be?”

“Be well.”

“Are you here for long?”

“No. I’ll come again soon, but I have to go right back. Tonight’s my last shift as Chief Resident.”

“You a big man yet?”

Adam smiled ruefully. “Not yet.”

“Going to make lots of money?”

“I doubt it, Pop.”

“That’s all right,” Myron said awkwardly. “I got everything I need.”

His father thought he was minimizing his financial prospects to protect himself from parental claim, he realized in disgust. “I went to try to get your things from your room,” he said, not sure what was missing or how much to tell him.

“You didn’t get them?” his father said.

“What did you have?”

“Some old things.”

“She burned it. The landlady.”

Myron nodded.

“What kind of things?” Adam asked curiously.

“A fiddle. A siddur.”

“A what?”

“Siddur. Hebrew prayers.”

“You pray?” Somehow he found the idea incredible.

“I found it in a second-hand bookstore.” Myron shrugged. “You go to church?”

“No.”

“I cheated you.”

It was not an apology, Adam knew; simply the flat statement of a man who had nothing more to gain by untruth. Yes, you did, in so many ways, he thought. He wanted to say that he would replace the lost things but he saw that the delirium tremens were beginning again. His father was shaken as by a wind, the thin frame arched under the precordial pain and began to thrash, the mouth opened in silent scream.

“Nurse,” he said, thankful that Gaby was not there to observe. He helped to administer the hypodermic, a lighter sedative this time, but in a few moments the storm was over and his father slept again.

For a while he simply sat looking at the figure in the bed, an old man who had roared for a violin and a used prayerbook. Eventually he noticed that his father’s hands had not been properly cleaned. Grease or something similar had become engrained long ago and the admitting team had not attempted to remove it. He helped himself to a bowl of warm water and Phisohex and gauze, letting the hands soak one at a time and washing them gently until they were clean.