“You just got here,” she says with a mixture of relief and anger. Silently furious because he doesn’t ask for her help.

“I jut got out and I gotta find myself some digs.”

“Got any ideas?”

“Some. I got some. Curtis Hotel, maybe. The parole officer gave me some names.”

“You gonna come by again?”

“Yeah, Ma. I’ll be by.” Simon leans back and stretches his arms above his head.

“You got money? Least I could give you that.”

“No no no,” says Simon quickly. “No. Ain’t nothin I need.”

“Sure?” asks Betty, reaching toward the sugar jar.

“Really, Ma. It’s okay,” he says, almost pleading, as if accepting anything from her would break something inside him.

“Well,” her motion across the kitchen arrested, “if you say so.”

She crosses her arms and leans against the kitchen counter, her hands folded in her armpits for warmth.

“You still workin at the hospital?”

“If you call what I do work,” she says.

“We both been doin the same thing for the last long while, huh?” he says with a rough chuckle.

“Seems so,” she says, a chill clicking along her neck.

Simon notices and quickly adds, “But for different reasons.”

“That’s true, too.” She glances at the grease-spattered stove clock. “But I got to get to work.”

Simon starts to rise.

“You can set as long as you want,” says Betty.

“Naw. I gotta get on.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

They make their way to the front door with Simon shambling in the lead. They don’t know if they should embrace or not so Betty takes a step back, crossing her arms again. Simon grabs the door handle and opens the door. He half-turns and reaches out and touches Betty’s elbow. “I’ll be seein you,” he says.

“You’d better,” she replies, and they both laugh nervously. Simon steps out and closes the door behind him.

Simon is too chilled by the cold and by his memories to take the scattered blocks through Whittier to Uptown where he has a room at the Twenty-eighth Street YMCA. He stomps his feet on the rotten porch boards, turns left, and walks up Third Avenue toward the Curtis, the first place on a list of seven given to him by the parole officer.

A few people are on the sidewalks, stepping carefully, as if testing uncertain ice over a deep lake. They cluster at the bus stop or run with gloved hands held over their mouths from the grim doors of apartment buildings to salt-splattered cars idling at the curb.