She drew up before the familiar square porch. As she strode across the old boards, the bare limbs of a lilac bush next to the steps rattled noisily. The door was unlocked. She walked into the entrance hall, then stood in the dank silence for a moment. But there was no need for caution; she remembered where everything was, and moved with sure steps toward the stairs, past the tables, the chairs, the coat rack, her hand brushing the back of the bronze lion as she began to climb upwards, feeling the thick dust on her fingers. A curious and irritating sound suddenly struck her ears, a series of steady pings. Then a heavier plunking, then a hollow thunk.

In the upstairs hall, she saw, straight ahead, the room from where the flickering light had emanated which she had glimpsed from the car. She walked quickly to it. Covering most of the floor was an assortment of receptacles, pots, pails, bowls, vases, pans of all shapes, and into them, with merciless regularity, dripped water from the ceiling. She stepped into the room. The flame of a candle swerved at the draft she caused, she swung to her left and collided against the mahogany sides of the sleigh bed. In it, asleep or unconscious, lay Uncle Greg, a faded green quilt drawn up over his chest. One hand gripped a corner of the quilt; there were spots of wax on the wrinkled fingers. She tried a light switch. The electricity was off.

She touched his face where the white stubble of beard grew up into his cheek. His eyelids fluttered, closed.

“Uncle Greg?”

Water dripped on her hair. She looked up at the ceiling where dark circles marked the holes in the plaster. The roof had triumphed over him at last.

In his face were the dark circles of his closed eyes. Only the wax-marked fingers of his hand seemed alive, although the hand too was unmoving, yet it had gathered the quilt and was holding it still, an echo of force in the knuckled fist. It was as though all the life in him had been carried away except there. But his eyes opened again—she had started away, to the phone. Someone had to be called, the hospital, the police. She paused, wished his eyes were still shut, not staring up at the ceiling with such puzzlement.

“Uncle Greg?” she whispered.

The head barely turned. The mouth, as though dried shut, opened unevenly, the flesh of his lips sticking here and there. For a moment, he looked at her with the same uncomprehendingness that he had looked at the leaking ceiling. Then his mouth stretched slightly; it was a try at a smile.

“You’re sick. I’m going to phone the hospital.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I’m sick now.”

“There’s no heat.”