Colette put the baby on her lap and thought about Bucky Tyler for a while, and then she remembered the sight of Paul in the hospital. Downriver a big tugboat whistled for a starboard crossing, and the baby raised his face to the sound. Colette watched Matthew and thought, her knee bouncing under him.

The next day was Sunday and she and the old man and Matthew went to seven o’clock Mass. Her father was clear and said the responses in the proper places. Sometimes he was mostly there, and she would let him walk the few blocks to church to say his rosary in the mornings. Other times Aunt Nellie would walk with him, let him go inside while she sat on the church steps and smoked, her dress pulled over her knees, the rolled-down tops of her stockings visible from the street. This Sunday morning he even sang the right melodies, and Colette basked in what was left of him.

Monday she wanted to visit a girlfriend in Beewick to show off Matthew, and she called Paul to come sit with her father. He came over, still bruised in the face, and he knocked on the screen.

“Hello, Annie Oakley,” he said, not smiling.

She gave him a close look, as though he were a machine she was considering buying. “How do you feel?”

“Not bad, considering all the footprints on my ass.” He needed a haircut and a shave, but she saw that his color was good.

“I’m going across the river for a couple hours.”

“I’ll visit with him.” Leaving her, he went inside and found the old man trying to make coffee with a drip pot. “Mr. Jeansomme.”

“Hey, boy. You come to cut the grass?”

“Something like that.” He found the kettle, filled it, and put it on a back burner. Then he loaded dark-roast coffee in the dripolator’s basket.

“You doing all right in school?”

“Yes, sir.” He got out the cream and sugar, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited for the water to boil. “You enjoy having Matthew in the house?”

“Who? Who do you mean? That little boy?” He sat down and his eyes moved as if they were watching mice run across the table. “He’s good-looking and noisy.”

“He’s got strong lungs like his mamma.” The kettle whistled and he made them coffee, hot and sweet, strong and full of cream. After a while, the old man stood up, ran a fist over his silver wad of hair, and walked down the back steps into the yard. “Oh Lordy,” Paul said to himself, getting up and following.