Selma always found letting others help her to be too much trouble. The worst part, she thought, was thanking them afterward. She would rather fall from an unstable ladder, get an electric shock from a lamp cable or an unelectrified shock from an engine cover, suffer lower back pain from carrying a heavy bag, or break through the floor in her apartment than accept assistance and have to express gratitude afterward.

Bending forward, Selma stretched out her arms and poured the contents of her bag onto the ground. Then she crouched down, trying to keep me from slipping off her back. Selma’s disks also tried to keep from slipping, and even then, her face bright red and her disks indignant with the strain, she still found it all less trouble than saying thank you. She threw the slices of bologna over Palm’s fence and the dogs went crazy.

Selma held me tight and stood up. She sighed, and her disks sighed with her in chorus. She went to the back of the house. The basement door was unlocked.

She climbed up the basement stairs and crossed the kitchen, trying not to see the half-eaten toast with Nutella that still lay on a plate. She went through the living room, trying to overlook the Obelix pajamas still draped over the back of the sofa, and went into the bedroom.

Palm’s bedroom had probably not been aired for years. There was an enormous dark wardrobe next to a dark double bed with two mattresses, one yellow and bare, the other covered with rumpled sheets and pillows on the foot of the bed. The room was dim. Selma turned on the light.

Palm lay on the floor, on his side. He was asleep, his head resting on Martin’s schoolbag.

The schoolbag had been found a hundred meters down the tracks. The bag was almost intact, only the right shoulder strap torn.

Selma sat on the bed on the rumpled side. She shifted me from her back, over her shoulder, and onto her lap. My head was cradled in her elbow. Selma could feel her heart beating irregularly. These days, she often felt her heart take a step out of line, like the optician when his inner voices accosted him.

She looked at Palm asleep; she looked at me asleep. Two broken hearts and one faulty one, Selma thought. Then she thought of Iron Henry in the fairy tale and of his heart, and let herself fall backward onto Palm’s blankets, which smelled acrid—of schnapps and rage.

The ceiling lamp hung right above Selma’s head. In its bowl lay a dead moth with its dead moth heart. Selma closed her eyes.