“I loved young Matthew—that darling boy!” my mother cried, hugging the doorman. He ushered us into the lobby of the building, where I doubted the residents ever hugged him. The name tag on the breast pocket of his uniform jacket identified him as MILOS. The epaulets on the shoulders of his jacket were a little silly; they made him look like the leader of a lost marching band, but he was an otherwise dignified-looking doorman with what I thought was an Eastern European accent. He was wearing one of those Russian winter hats with earflaps—nothing of a marching band about it. I was trying to remember a Milos or two I’d met in Vienna. One was Czech; Milos was a Slavic name, the diminutive of Miloslav, I think he told me. Maybe the other Milos in Vienna was Serbian, but I can’t remember. I was distracted by my mother; she was showing off for Milos, doing her single-leg lunges in the lobby. Little Ray didn’t look sixty-seven; Milos probably thought she was younger than he was.

“Do you ski, Milos?” my mom asked him. She let him know she knew how to say MEE-losh. Given all the time she’d spent in Austria since she met the snowshoer, Little Ray had met a Milos or two.

“No, I do not ski,” Milos told her regretfully.

“Well, I could teach you,” my mother said flirtatiously. I’d not anticipated that my mom and a Park Avenue doorman would charm each other. They read my dedication to Zim; they agreed my author photo could be better. I knew it was only a matter of time before they would be talking again about Lieutenant Matthew—they’d both loved him.

“I could have shot him—I should have!” my mother cried out, seizing Milos by his wrists in her strong hands.

“She means Matthew’s knee—she would have shot him in the knee,” I told Milos. Nobody knew diddly-squat about what Milos was thinking, or what his politics were.

“If I’d shot him in the knee, no Vietnam—that darling boy would still be with us!” my mom cried, bursting into tears.

“You would have gone to jail,” I reminded her.

“I should have, sweetie—that darling boy was worth going to jail for,” my mother told me. I could feel the weight of the passage of time. Enough time had passed for me to agree with her.

“Yes, you should have,” I said to her softly; she’d made me cry, or just remembering Zim had done it.

“Yes, you should have shot him—I would have visited you in jail, just to thank you!” Milos told her; he was sobbing. This would be my last day as a New Yorker.