Ronny shook his head, went on scrubbing the countertop, where what looked like egg had dried. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“It’s not your house, Ronny.”

“Just let me help, all right?” Ronny’s tone was firm and he felt his expression harden, to mask the other feeling beneath, the tenderness. “I mean it. I want to.”

Ben looked mournful for a moment, more vulnerable than Ronny had seen him, and he slumped a little, bewildered, unprotected. A throaty sound, then shaking his head, unafraid that Ronny was watching. “I was going to do this stuff myself yesterday. Clean up. But I just sat here.”

“You were worried about your mom.”

After a moment Ben nodded. He leaned against the door. “She’s asking where you are.”

“Does she want me to come in there?”

“It might not hurt. She looks like she wants to close her eyes.”

Ronny set the broom aside. Ben stopped him in the middle of the room and Ronny, for once, was the one who could not meet his eyes. The feeling between them, the pull between their bodies, the need to close the space. A stinging in Ronny’s eyes. “Don’t say anything bullshit, Ben, okay? You know how I feel.”

“Yeah.” Such emotion in the one word, in the tone of his voice.

“We came to do this, right?”

“Right.”

He walked into the den and directly up to the hospital bed. Mr. Nickelsen was standing next to it, watching his wife. “What do these boys want for dinner?” Mrs. Nickelsen asked.

“I was going to grill some more steaks.”

“I know you love doing all this grilling,” she said, touching his hand fondly.

Mr. Nickelsen grinned, rubbed his hand where she had touched him. He turned toward the wall for a moment. She gazed at him with such intensity. She reached for his hand again. His eyes were glistening.

Ben asked, “What about you, Mom?”

“I can’t keep much down. I have these milkylike drinks with all the vitamins and all that other stuff, in them. The nutrition.”

What followed was new information, this gentle person tending his mother, opening the doors for fresh air, carrying her into the sun, worrying over what she might eat. Sitting quiet with her, his body stilled, smiling like a boy; this was inside Ben, this remnant of a sprite.

As for Ronny, it eased him to work, so he ran the vacuum and emptied trash, carrying silverware and cups to the sink, tidying. Mr. Nickelsen puttered about, too, gathering dirty dishes from the den, gradually making his own stack next to the sink. He decided he would make a run to the grocery store. He said, “I’m glad you boys are helping out like this. It was too much for me. I ain’t cut out for taking care of sick people.”

Ronny rearranged her bed and organized some of the stuff she needed, like tissues, her pills, wipe cloths, and water, on a higher table that she could reach more easily. He found an arrangement of dried flowers on one of the displaced pieces of furniture and put it on the lower table, adjusting it to sit where she could see. When Ben brought her inside again, the room was tidy. “Well, I declare, I can see my house,” she said.