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took in his sunken eyes, slightly parted lips, open palm. She didn’t know what to feel.
    “Yia sou, palikari [bless you, brave one],” she’d said, and leaned over him, resting her cheek on his shoulder near his face. “Eonia I mnimi,” she said, the haunting chant of eternal memory. I’ll remember your name forever. “Eonia I mnimi,” she whispered. “Yia sas, filos mou [good-bye, my friend].” Her eyes burned.
    The nurse walked in to confirm the time.
    “Take as long as you need,” Heavenly said.
    Soft conversations bustled on behind Paula about the business of death. Theo was gone. She looked around the darkened room. There was his dog, her promise.
    Looking at her watch, she stood and lifted her purse. It was just after two. She walked toward the door and peeked out for signs of Celeste. She glanced back at the empty body, the chant of “Eonia I mnimi” still with her. Every hair on her body prickled. Paula wobbled out into the hall, bracing her hand against the wall.
    “You okay?” Celeste asked, steadying her with both arms.
    “I’m not sure.”
    “You look like you’re gonna faint.”
    Paula stood, purse dangling on her forearm, her thoughts whirling.
    “I gotta go.” Celeste turned to the attending physician. They stepped back into the room to begin making arrangements for the body.
    “Hey, Heav.” Paula turned and quickly followed back in, tapping Celeste’s arm. “Heav, where’s the dog?”
    Celeste held up a finger as she scribbled down what the physician was saying.
    “Heav,” Paula interrupted. “Where’s the dog? Where’d they take it?”
    Heavenly turned and mouthed, Wait.
    The doctor gave Paula a stern look.
    “I need to know.”
    “Excuse me,” Celeste said in her velvety voice. “I do apologize.”
    She turned to Paula. “Jesus Christ,” she growled, rifling through the intake report. “Animal Control on Queens Boulevard.”
    “What’s the address?”
    “Uhh—Ninety-Two Twenty-Nine.”
    Paula turned and rushed, tracing her way back through the halls. She spotted the red “Down” on the elevator arrows and ran.
    In the lobby she flew past Obama’s buddy, the string from the hospital ID swinging from side to side as Paula dashed out the revolving doors and into the traffic circle, before making eye contact with a cabbie.
    “Ninety-Two Twenty-Nine Queens Boulevard.” She pulled the door shut.
    “Jesus, you gotta slam the fucking door?”
    She looked at the back of the driver’s head. In the rearview mirror she saw the Mets insignia. She had one foot in another world.
    “Sorry,” she mumbled.
    “I’m heading back to the City,” he said.
    “So am I.”
    “That ain’t the City.”
    She looked at her watch. “I have one stop.”
    “Everyone says that.”
    Leaning up to the grate, she said, “If you’d stop complaining we can be there in ten minutes.”
    He sighed loudly in disgust. The meter beeped as he set it. “Fine, but it’s gonna cost you,” he warned. “It’ll be running the whole time,” he said in a singsong voice.
    “Fine.”
    “How long you gonna take?” he asked.
    “You said it’ll be running, so what do you care? If it’s running in Queens or Midtown you get paid, right?”
    “Save it for your boyfriend, lady.” He pulled out abruptly; the cab jerked and the tires squealed. She braced herself. Rolling down the window, she lit up and exhaled toward the street.
    “No smoking in my cab.”
    Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
    “Oh really?” She glared at him. “Then how come it smells like an ashtray?”
    He chuckled and looked at the road, pulling a cigarette from his shirt pocket.
    “Asshole,” she muttered. She caught a smirk in the mirror. Thank God he’d put a cork in it.
    How long it had been since she’d thought of Theo. It had never occurred to her back then that the street might be his home. Besides, Greeks never talked about such things. There’s a different score sheet for Greeks than for the