It wasn't all that cold, even though it had been dark for several hours. Dartmouth's trademark Green was coated with a new layer of snow, which shimmered under the glow of dozens of traditionally designed streetlamps. These, along with the formal brick buildings looming darkly beyond them, and the enormous library's beautifully lighted clock tower at the far end, lent the entire scene a timelessness, as if she might have been waiting for her son to hook up a horse and sleigh instead of a Subaru.

"All set," he said, stepping behind her once more and easing her chair off the sidewalk to where it nestled beside the car's open door.

She reached out and took hold of the two handles Leo had attached just inside the opening, one high and one low, and nimbly used them to assist herself inside. Her legs were too weak to support her, but they did move, which was a godsend in situations like this. She was already attaching her seat belt by the time Leo opened the car's rear door to slip in the folded wheelchair.

He joined her moments later, making the car rock as he virtually fell into his seat. An enthusiast by nature, he never did anything by half measures, including the most mundane of actions.

"You want to stop somewhere for ice cream or cocoa or something?" he asked.

Now she was looking at the facade of The Hop, from which they'd just come on their weekly Friday night outing. Designed by the same architect who later did Lincoln Center in New York, it looked like the kind of place that would offer a broad sampling of the arts-modern by one light, slightly worn by another. She and Leo came here frequently, local beneficiaries of the college's mission to be a generous cultural neighbor.

"No," she answered him. "Not tonight. Drive me around the Green, though, will you? I love the buildings."

Leo backed out of their parking space and slipped into the thin traffic, taking his first left to engage the long eastern reach of the Green.