Two blocks away they came to a small house that was once painted bright blue and yellow, Ptolemy remembered, but now the colors were dim and dingy. There were cars parked in the driveway and at the curb at the house across the street. Men and women in their Sunday best were standing on the brown grass and up beyond the cars.

“What’s today?” Ptolemy asked Hilly.

“The fifteenth,” the young man replied.

Four rose bushes had died under the front window. A fifth rose was still alive. It had nine or eleven bright green thorny leaves and a bud that might one day blossom. Ptolemy noticed a spigot behind the struggling plant and realized that it was a leak that made it possible for that rose to survive.

Hilly held Ptolemy’s elbow as they went up the wooden stairs that had worn down into grooves from the heavy foot traffic over the years. As they approached the screen door, Ptolemy could see that there was a party going on. Dozens of people were crowded into the living room, talking and smoking, drinking and posing in their nice clothes.

Hilly reached for the screen door but it flew inward before he touched it.

“Pitypapa!” a woman yelled. “Pitypapa, I ain’t seen you in six and a half years.”

Big, copper-brown, and buxom Hilda “Niecie” Brown folded the frail old man in a powerful yet cushioned embrace. For a brief span that extended into itself Ptolemy was lifted out of his pained elderly confusion. He floated off into the sensation of a woman holding him and humming with satisfaction.

She kissed his forehead and then his lips. When she let him go he held on to her arm.

“Oh, ain’t that sweet?” Niecie said. “You miss me, Pitypapa?”

Ptolemy looked up at her face. Her skin was smooth and tight from fat. Her mouth was smiling, showing two golden teeth, but in spite of the brave front Niecie’s eyes were so sad that he felt her agony. He raised his hands through the pain of his shoulders and placed them on the sides of Niecie’s arms.