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Paris. I
    hope we can come back next year.’
    ‘Next year,’ I said.
    I undressed and sat on the edge of the bed. From the far side my wife said,
    ‘Did you remember the pizza?’
    ‘The pizza?’ I said.
    ‘How could you have forgotten the pizza?’ she said.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
    I felt a peculiar quiet itch in the middle of my forehead and put my hand up
    to touch the place where that strange young man who had followed me by leading had kissed me
    good night.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘how I could have forgotten. Damned if I know.’

Ma Perkins Comes to Stay
    Joe Tiller entered the apartment and was removing his hat when he saw the
    middle-aged, plump woman facing him, shelling peas.
    ‘Come in,’ she said to his startled face. ‘Annie’s out fetchin’ supper. Set
    down.’
    ‘But who—’ He looked at her.
    ‘I’m Ma Perkins.’ She laughed, rocking. It was not a rocking chair, but
    somehow she imparted the sense of rocking to it. Tiller felt giddy. ‘Just call me Ma,’ she said
    airily.
    ‘The name is familiar, but—’
    ‘Never you mind, son. You’ll get to know me. I’m staying on a year or so,
    just visitin’. And here she laughed comfortably and shelled a green pea.
    Tiller rushed out to the kitchen and confronted his wife.
    ‘Who in the hell
is
she, that nasty nice old woman?!’ he cried.
    ‘On the radio.’ His wife smiled. ‘You
know
. Ma
Perkins
.’
    ‘Well, what’s she doing here?’ he shouted.
    ‘Shh. She’s come to help.’
    ‘Help what?’ He glared toward the other room.
    ‘Things,’ said his wife indefinitely.
    ‘Where’ll we put her, damn it? She has to sleep, doesn’t she?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Anna, his wife, sweetly. ‘But the radio’s right there. At
    night she just sort of–well–“goes back.”’
    ‘Why did she come? Did you write to her? You never told me you knew her,’
    exclaimed the husband wildly.
    ‘Oh, I’ve
listened
to her for years,’ said
    Anna.
    ‘That’s different.’
    ‘No. I’ve always felt I knew Ma better almost than I know–you,’ said his
    wife.
    He stood confounded. Ten years, he thought. Ten years alone in this chintz
    cell with her warm radio humming, the pink silver tubes burning, voices murmuring. Ten secret
    years of monastic conspiracy, radio and women, while he was holding his exploding business
    together. He decided to be very jovial and reasonable.
    ‘What I want to know is’–he took her hand–‘did you write “Ma” or call her up?
    How did she
get
here?’
    ‘She’s been here ten years.’
    ‘Like hell she has!’
    ‘Well today is
special
,’ admitted his wife. ‘Today’s the first time she’s ever “
stayed
.”’
    He took his wife to the parlor to confront the old woman. ‘Get out,’ he
    said.
    Ma looked up from dicing some pink carrots and showed her teeth. ‘Land, I
    can’t. It’s up to Annie, there. You’ll have to ask
her
.’
    He whirled. ‘Well?’ he said to his wife.
    His wife’s face was cold and remote. ‘Let’s all sit down to supper.’ She
    turned and left the room.
    Joe stood defeated.
    Ma said, ‘Now there’s a girl with spunk.’
    He arose at midnight and searched the parlor.
    The room was empty.
    The radio was still on, warm. Faintly, inside it, like a tiny mosquito’s
    voice, he heard someone, far away saying, ‘Land sakes, land sakes, land sakes, land o’
    Goshen!’
    The room was cold. He shivered. The radio was warm with his ear against
    it.
    ‘Land sakes, land o’ Goshen, land sakes—’
    He cut it off.
    His wife heard him sink into bed.
    ‘She’s gone,’ he said.
    ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Until tomorrow at ten.’
    He did not question this.
    ‘Good night, baby,’ he said.
    The living room was filled only with sunlight atbreakfast. He laughed out loud to see the emptiness. He felt relief, like a good
    drink of wine, in himself. He whistled on his way to the office.
    Ten o’clock was coffee time. Marching along the avenue,