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his younger self with the death ray, how did he live long enough to take the time machine back and shoot himself with the death ray? You see what I’m saying.”
    “Mostly,” Bea said.
    “I recognize there’s a big problem,” she added, struggling to squelch any amusement in her voice. What struck Bea as funny was the notion that for Uncle Dennis something so preposterous as an older man shooting his younger self with a death ray could represent a big problem .
    At the lake—Lady Lake—it was always Papa’s job to arrange for the boat and equipment for the men’s fishing. While a process seemingly closed to negotiation (the rental prices were posted), Papa invariably turned it into an intricate and protracted business. He was tight with a dollar—even if, or perhaps especially if, Uncle Dennis might ultimately foot the bill. (Papa was forever protecting others from getting swindled.) While this transaction unfolded, Uncle Dennis stood outside the rental shed in a posture of hapless idleness—as if he couldn’t begin to assist in any such complex undertaking.
    This was another aspect of family life that Bea had only recently come to analyze and appreciate: just how complicated and complementary the dealings of these two men were. Uncle Dennis was a soft, unathletic doctor who spent his off-hours reading about a dizzy, rocketing future. Papa—who read haltingly, not only in English but in his native Italian—was a lean, athletic builder who in his spare time constructed wooden toys and made wine in the cellar and grew roses in the backyard while the rest of the family tended the victory garden. And yet, he and Dennis were not only brothers-in-law but best friends.
    Uncle Dennis’s show of incompetence was repeated whenever he asked Papa how to fix a leaking faucet, how to pack the crowded trunk of a car, how to trim a shrub. In such moments, if you didn’t know better, you might conclude that this man who served the Paradisos so ably as general doctor, financial advisor, political and military analyst, education specialist, legal-affairs consultant, guide to American history, and interpreter of foreign cultures was a bit of a nincompoop.
    But roles were completely reversed once the rental had been arranged. “Vico, I need a look at that hand,” Uncle Dennis declared, and Papa, meek as any altar boy, sat himself down at a picnic table and unwrapped his bandage. Everybody crowded around. Papa no longer had the authority to shoo them away. He had no authority at all.
    “This one’s nasty,” Uncle Dennis said. Papa had gashed the inside of his palm. “You shoulda come to me yesterday and let me drop a few stitches.” Papa mustered an apologetic grin. “Nasty, nasty, nasty,” Uncle Dennis chanted as he slathered salve on the wound and redressed the bandage.
    “Listen to me, Vico,” he began, “you’ve got a team of men working for you now. You hear me? Let them do the heavy work. Tell them what to do. Right?”
    Papa nodded eagerly, grateful for such good counsel. It was the same nod he always gave when Uncle Dennis offered this advice.
    “Grazie, dottore, sto bene, sono guarito,” Papa said when Uncle Dennis had finished rebandaging the wound. He sometimes employed Italian like this—partly as ceremony, partly as solemn joke. Bea only sometimes understood what he said; her Italian was spotty. “I have the best doctor in the world,” Papa went on, proudly. “The only one who doesn’t like hospitals.”
    “Now Vico, that isn’t quite so,” Uncle Dennis corrected, patiently. But it was a matter of steady, unalterable satisfaction for Papa and no clarifications could modify this point: Dennis disliked hospitals. Uncle Dennis went on: “I just don’t believe in going unnecessarily—they breed infection. And I certainly don’t believe in staying bedridden any longer than you have to.”
    Uncle Dennis advocated early ambulation . It was something of a crusade. To everyone in the Paradiso home,