"No! These are hands that do things, and they've been shaped by the thingsthey've done. The way stones in a stream are shaped by the water that passesover them. The way tools are shaped by their work. A hammer is beautiful, ifit's a good hammer, and your hands are, too."

He could have been scamming her. But something in his voice, his manner, saidno, he really meant it. She squeezed his hands and saw that they were beautiful,too. Suddenly she was glad she hadn't gone off the pill when she broke up withDaniel. She started to cry. Her date looked alarmed and baffled. But shecouldn't stop. All the tears she hadn't cried in the past two years came pouringout of her, unstoppable.

Charlie-boy, she thought, you just got lucky.

All this in an instant. I snatched my hands away, breaking contact. "Don't dothat!" I cried. "Don't you ever touch me again!"

With flat disdain, the Widow said, "It wasn't pleasant for me either. But I hadto see how much of your life you remember."

It was naive of me, but I was shocked to realize that the passage of memorieshad gone both ways. But before I could voice my outrage, she said, "There's notmuch left of you. You're only a fragment of a man, shreds and tatters, hardlyanything. No wonder you're so frightened. You've got what Charlie calls a lowsignal-to-noise ratio. What happened in New York City almost destroyed you."

"That doesn't give you the right to--"

"Oh be still. You need to know this. Living is simple, you just keep going. Butdeath is complex. It's so hard to hang on and so easy to let go. The temptationis always there. Believe me, I know. There used to be five of us in Roxborough,and where are the others now? Two came through Manayunk last spring and campedout under the El for a season and they're gone, too. Holding it together is hardwork. One day the stars start singing to you, and the next you begin to listento them. A week later they start to make sense. You're just reacting to