“I don’t know, One-Two.” She turns her head to face him. “I just don’t know,” she repeats, her voice sinking to a whisper.

One-Two sits down on the edge of the bed. “You gotta get up, Betty.”

“I don’t got no reason.” One-Two says nothing. “There ain’t no fixin this,” she repeats.

“No. Maybe not,” he says. “But this ain’t all there is. There’s more. Lots more.”

He looks at her quickly, ready for the solar flare of her anger. Instead, her eyes are getting wet, and for the first time since he’s known her, she begins to cry.

“What else? What else is there? What else?”

One-Two starts, then stops, clasping and unclasping his hands.

“Irma.”

“She’s gone.”

“Her baby.”

“Never met the baby.”

“They’re around, Betty. They’re around somewhere. There’s Simon.”

“He’s gone, too.”

She shakes her head and leaves it turned away from him. She tries to sigh, but it comes out jagged, cut into steps by her silent sobs.

“It ain’t enough, One-Two. I tried so hard, with all of them, but it wasn’t ever enough.”

“You enough.”

“That ain’t true.”

“You’re enough.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do,” he says softly. “I do know.”

She looks at him. She reaches from under the covers and puts her hand on his.

“You’re a good man, One-Two.”

He nods, to let her know he hears what she is saying, but he is looking down at their hands. She doesn’t take hers away.

“How long we know each other?” she asks.

“Twenty-three years.”

She looks at their hands, too. Marble from adjacent quarries, the veins running from one to another. They sit this way for minutes. They hear cars passing on the highway. It is warm, and the ground thaw sends the smell of mud through the open windows. She reaches with her other hand for the box of Kleenex and blows her nose. They hear Boo start his car and turn on the radio.

“I can fix it.”

“Can you?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” He is uncertain. He looks up from their hands and out the window. He does not miss the city. “I ain’t ever been much help to you.”

“You’re wrong, One-Two.”

“Naw. I never kept none of this from happening. Simon. Irma. I can clean a gutter, but I ain’t much use beyond that.”

“It’d be nice to have some music,” she says.

“Music’s nice.”

“One-Two? You did the best you could. You did your best by me.”

“You think?”

She holds his hand tighter. “I know.” She pulls her head back and takes in his face from a new angle. The afternoon light streams in the window and lights the dust, the wind-borne pollen.

“One-Two? I don’t know your real name. Never learned your real name.”

“Never? In all these years?”