Ronny opened the door a little, as quiet as could be, and saw her there, still in the bed, drool coming out the corner of her mouth onto the pillow, lying on her back, her eyes closed. Still there, safe for the moment. He closed the door quietly. One of the guys upstairs brushed past, said hello. Ben nodded. Ronny followed him into the parlor. “I was scared she wasn’t really in there.”

“Yeah,” Ben said.

“Sheila’s coming over to check on her. I think you met her once. I don’t remember.”

“Maybe.” Ben was looking out the window, sprawled on the old-fashioned sofa, the weight of him straining the springs. He watched Miss Dee’s doorway, something blank and hard in his features. “What are you going to do?”

“When Sheila gets here?”

“Yeah, sure.” He took a deep breath, a moment of agitation passing through him, followed by that calm again. “I mean, you can’t stay here to take care of her all the time. You’ve got to figure something out.”

“I know.”

The sound of a television pooled in the room, echoing from upstairs, a Sunday morning talk show, something about football, the Washington Redskins, pregame, too early for the play to have started. Outside were birds calling, cars passing on the street, a Chevrolet Nova, sky blue, headed for one of the fraternities along the row. Autumn, an exhale of leaves downward, wind rustling, a possibility of rain, gray clouds. Ben had slumped, closed his eyes. “It hurts to watch somebody helpless like this.”

He laid his hand on Ben’s shoulder, firm and sturdy, and Ben responded by moving toward the touch, and they sat like that; when someone’s footsteps sounded on the stairs and approached at the same moment Ronny tried to lift his hand and Ben said, “Leave it there. It’s all right.” Said it right away, and the flood of feeling back and forth between them, a wall of protection, so that when Jamal stood there looking at them, they barely acknowledged him, flowing together on the couch without moving, the thing that was joining them, the carelessness of a hand on the shoulder, and after a while Jamal said, “So, Sheila’s coming?”

“Yes. I asked her to. How do you know?”

“She called me.” Jamal shuffled his feet on the old carpet, sat in a chair nearby. He was watching them with only a little curiosity. “What’s up that you want her here?”

“Somebody has to go in there and see if Miss Dee will wake up. I think if a guy does that it would scare her to death. And she knows Sheila. Maybe.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry if it’s awkward.”

He buried his face in his hands. “This just freaks me out.”

Still Ronny’s hand was on Ben’s shoulder, the hard round shape, softness of cotton tee shirt, Ben looking down, then across at Jamal—but anyway it was only a hand on a shoulder, buddies did that, friends. The feeling though, flowing in and out, was calmly inside them, as if they had never been separated. A couple of the other guys stopped to talk. They had heard there was a problem with Miss Dee. Really concerned for a moment or two, before heading out of the house.