Ben looked at him when the room was empty again, but for Jamal, and said, “I have to get back to Ehringhaus.”

“Okay.”

“Just for a while.” They were watching each other. The moment felt so naked, as if anyone could read them. But Jamal was staring at his nails, looking out the front door.

“You’re coming back?”

“Yeah. If that’s okay.”

Ronny slid his hand along the shoulder, broke the connection, and they sat quiet until Ben stood and stretched.

“I hear Sheila,” said Jamal.

“I won’t be long,” said Ben, pitched for Ronny, as though there were no one else around. Like that moment, like whenever they watched each other, some stillness traveled along the contact, and they lingered in it. Ben was solemn when he spoke to Sheila on the porch. Midmorning light in the windows, dust motes blown about in the breezes. When he jogged away from her, lightly, on the balls of his feet, his grace struck Ronny to the core, the perfection of the moment. It made him ashamed, thinking of his happiness just then, while Sheila opened the door to Miss Dee’s bedroom and slowly, slowly, edged her way inside.

Mrs. Delacy

SHE LAY HER HEAD ON THE pillow in the lightest way, mouth open, partly turned onto her side, and as he sometimes did, he tried to see what she had been when she was younger, as though her youth were buried inside her somewhere. What was fine and clear about her face had dimmed with sleep; her pale, lined skin had lost its elasticity and pooled and flattened against the pillow, her hair in wispy curls. Her pale, rheumy eyes moved under the veiny lids as she murmured and shook her head a little. She had been awake for few moments and spoken a name, then settled back against the pillow. Sheila leaned toward her, touching the edge of the bed. “I’m glad she went back to sleep.”

“Me, too.”

“Who do you think she thought I was? I didn’t hear the name.”

“It sounded like Mona or something. I don’t know who that is.”

“I was just thinking that maybe it was someone we could call,” she said.

“Minette is her niece.”

Sheila had sat lightly on the edge of the bed. “She must have written people’s names and numbers somewhere but I don’t want to start looking in her drawers.”

“I wish I knew what to do.”

“We could take her to the hospital.”

“But what would we tell them?”

Sheila lowered her voice a tone, hand resting on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know.”

“Isn’t this just what happens to old people?” As soon as Ronny asked the question, it sounded stonelike in the room, hard and cold. “I just mean, what can a hospital do for her?”

They were both sad as they watched her sleep, on a Sunday morning, with a church bell ringing the hour of worship somewhere nearby, a mournful pealing, Mrs. Delacy stirring on the bed as if she could hear, as if the bell were calling her. A rush of wind outside threw shadows of tree branches shivering over the carpet and bed, flurries of red and gold leaves rushing down beyond the panes, and the bright sunlight shaded over with cloud. She lay in the bed as though the weather were welcoming her or performing for her, head centered in the changing light, her breathing audible, a light snore.