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Show 13 old she cannot walk, and can no longer come to see me. I sit beside their beds, and with each I begin a tale of some mythical, faraway, romantic place. I let my hand slip over the rail of the bed, onto their foreheads, down across the brow. Their eyelids flutter closed, open, closed. My hand moves further down, along the flat shoulders, across the emaciated arms, not with the professional insistence of a nurse giving massage to prevent bedsores, but with the gentle intent of a caress. The ancient puckered mouths form into a smile, the eyelids open, stare, and close again. "Paolo," one whispers my name in a hoarse, throaty voice. "How good of you to come." * * * When I get home I find Luel sitting at my door. "I don't know why I took this," she says, extending the ring. "After all. it's yours." She is wearing something different from the clothes she had on earlier: it is a black dress, low-cut, and as she sits on the steps I can see into the space between her breasts. "Thanks," I say, and put my hand out for the ring. She puts it carefully into my hand. I thank her again, in a tone that is meant to put an end to the exchange. But she is clearly not ready to leave. "Do you have any pictures of my grandmother?" she asks. I sense the danger again, the placing of a trap. She is clever, this |
