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“I understand you slapped the girl from the apartment upstairs.”
    She laughed, a sharp barking sound. “She had it coming. She’s a slut. You should see her. If one of your daughters dressed like that you’d lock her up.”
    â€œYou can’t slap people. It’s called assault. They could have you arrested.
You
could be locked up.”
    She kept chewing and didn’t answer. I don’t think she’s ever enjoyed food. She always acted as if eating was a contest of wills between herself and whatever was on her plate. When the aluminum compartments were empty, she jerked open the garbage can and dumped the tray and then threw the fork into the sink. “Go to jail. That’s what you’d love. To see me in jail. Then I’d be taken care of—out of your hair.”
    â€œYou’re going to have to move, Mother. I’m going to find you a place close to me. In the meantime, you have to take your pills.”
    â€œThe hell with the pills.”
    The bottle sat on the table by the salt and pepper. I shook a pill into the palm of my hand, filled a glass with water, and offered them both to her.
    â€œThe hell with you,” she said, but she took them.
    I made us each a cup of tea and sat with her through“Nova,” watching naked people in a rain forest hunt parrots and devour large white grubs found inside of dead trees. “Delicious,” my mother said, which I took as a good sign. “Time for the news,” she said when “Nova” was over.
    â€œAre you still praying the rosary after the news?” I asked as I got up to leave.
    â€œFor me to know and you to find out,” she said.
    That night I dreamed that my mother was having a garage sale and that Roxie came and bought all of my mother’s sheets and blankets. I woke up in a sweat.
    For the first time since I’d learned of Roxie’s illness, I forced myself to explore the territory of my breasts. I placed my right arm behind my head and checked first the right breast, my fingers flat like a spatula, pressing gently. Then with the left arm behind my head, I checked the left breast. My left breast was larger than the right, although both were smallish. Throughout high school, my inability to achieve cleavage had seemed like a curse, but lately I’d been happy with my breasts. Smallish, they resisted sagging. I placed the pads of my fingers on the density of the fibrous tissue under the skin and moved it gently. I squeezed my nipple and thought of my mother. If my mother felt she betrayed herself by accepting tranquility, did I feel that to refrain from affairs would be a betrayal of some desperate concept I had of myself? And what would Roxie want with my mother’s bedding?
    I now spent my breaks on an apartment search. On the third day, I saw a place on the ground floor in an older but well-maintained building. It had a small patio and long windows facing south. The rent was quite a bit less thanmy mother was paying in Oakland. I wrote a check for a deposit and told the manager I’d be back with my mother on the first of the month. The building was on my way to work and I could stop by every morning to check on her. Each apartment had a separate entrance off a brick walkway. There was no hall for her to stand in to yell at the other tenants. Perhaps a change in architecture would encourage a change in behavior.
    I missed Bill. Not horribly, but mildly. I tried not to think of Jack, but that was difficult. If I thought of him, I’d remember the way Roxie had passed by. I’d remember the maze of the flowers on her scarf reflected in the window, her voice, her box carried by Jack. Two days before Bill was to get back, I decided to call Jonah.
    Jonah was a CPA in an office where he was constantly scrutinized by his boss. In the past, however, he’d managed to find time for me during the day. Jonah wasn’t Jack. He wasn’t really an adulterer. He was