As long as I wouldn’t let go, Selma did not trust she would remember to avoid the weak spots in the kitchen and living room floors and started reminding herself out loud. “Don’t step there,” she murmured when she came close to one of the sections marked with red tape, because falling through the floor alone was entirely different from falling through with someone in your arms.

Selma carried me in front of her chest, on her back, over her shoulder. When she had to go to the bathroom, she pulled her stockings and underwear down with one hand and balanced me on her lap. When she was hungry, she tore open a packet of dried soup with her teeth. She soon learned how to unwrap a Mon Chéri candy with one hand. When she went to bed, I lay against her chest or her back, my arms around her neck. For three days, Selma not only kept me on her, she also kept on her funeral-wreath-bow-black shirt; undressing and washing were impossible as long as I wouldn’t let go.

On the second day, Selma walked through the village to the shop with me on her back. The shopkeeper was also still wearing black. He was sitting in front of his store, which was closed. due to a bereavement, read the sign on the door, as if everyone didn’t know.

“Could you please open for a minute?” Selma asked. The shopkeeper stood up and didn’t seem at all surprised to see me draped over Selma’s shoulder, asleep.

“Do you have dry dog food?”

“Unfortunately not, only canned,” the shopkeeper said.

Selma considered. “How much bologna do you have in stock?”

The shopkeeper went to check. “Nine packs,” he answered.

“I’ll take them all,” Selma said, “and it would be a help if you could open all the packages right now. And then put them in here.” She turned around and the shopkeeper took the bag that hung from Selma’s fingers interlaced under my bottom. He opened the nine packages in silence and laid the stack of bologna slices in the bag.

“Could you take out my wallet?” Selma asked, gesturing with her chin at the pocket in her black skirt.

“It’s on the house,” the shopkeeper said.

Selma passed the optician’s shop and was mirrored in his display window. I clung to Selma’s back like an imp and the bag dangled below me. The optician didn’t see Selma, or he would have come out right away and tried to carry everything for her. But Selma did see the optician, also in black, in his best suit, which got bigger with each passing year. He was sitting on his stool, his head hidden in the hemisphere of the arc perimeter he had purchased from an eye doctor in the county seat.