“We’re taken care of here. So we can just live.”

For a while I paint in quiet.

“It felt so comfortable when I first arrived,” I say. “But something is worrying me.”

“About here?”

“Yes. Has she ever talked to Jack like that before?”

“Shelley?”

“Yes. She humiliated him in front of us. It was strange.”

“I’m… sorry,” he says, looking perplexed. “I don’t remember if she has done that kind of thing before.”

“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“My mind certainly isn’t as sharp as it used to be. My memory seems to come and go.”

“Yes,” I say. “Mine, too. Certain things just fade.”

“I suppose living as we do, it makes the current moment the most important. Each one, until the next.”

“Does it scare you?” I ask.

“What?”

“Living moment to moment. Not being able to remember.”

“Yes,” he says. “It does.”

“Me, too,” I say.

I pause my work as Hilbert coughs into his hand and then clears a dry spot from his throat.

“But maybe that’s not a bad thing,” he says. “Being scared.”

“I really appreciate this,” I say. “Having you in here.”

“I was happy you asked me to sit for you. I’m nervous to go through with it but tickled you asked.”

“I’ve never talked about my memory with anyone else.”

“At least not that you can remember,” he says, smiling.

I’ve never been able to examine him so closely, so intently. His face, hands. His eyes. The dimple on his chin.

“We should keep helping each other when we can,” I say.

“Look out for each other,” he says.

“The more we talk together,” I say.

“The more we understand,” he adds, finishing my sentence.

A door closes down the hall. I pause, waiting to hear footsteps, but there aren’t any. Just quiet.

“Us talking together, even if we’re not going anywhere, is our own little uprising,” I say.

“Our private revolt,” he says, and we both laugh.

After some time, I stop, set my brush down.

“I was thinking maybe…”

“What?”

“No, it’s silly.”

He gives me an encouraging look.

“Maybe,” I say, “you could take off your shirt?”

I hadn’t planned to ask this. The idea hadn’t come into my mind until right now. This moment. He doesn’t say anything. His expression is ambiguous. I shouldn’t have suggested it.

“No,” he says, after a long pause. “I don’t think you want to see an old man with his shirt off.”

“I do. A body is more fascinating with age. It’s more honest.”

To my surprise, he nods.

I stand up, walk over to him until I’m about a foot away. I start to untie his tie, but I fumble with the knot before I’m able to slide it off. I remove his jacket. I start at the top, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, my hands becoming steady again. I feel my cheeks growing warm as I get to the last button. I see the same reddening of Hilbert’s cheeks.