Hilly went silent for two seconds and the old man said, “Is anybody there?”

“I’m here, Papa Grey,” the voice assured. “I’m here.”

He was certainly there, on the other end of the line, but who was it? the old man wondered. He looked around the room for a clue to his caller’s identity but all he saw were piles of newspapers, boxes of every size and shape, and furniture. There were at least a dozen chairs and a big bureau that was tilted over on a broken leg; two dining tables were flush up against the south and east walls. His tattered mattress under its thin army blanket lay beneath the southern table.

“That was Etude no. 2 in A-flat Major by Chopin,” the radio announcer was saying. “Now we’re going to hear from . . .”

“Papa Grey?” a voice said.

“. . . half a dozen bombs went off in and around Baghdad today. Sixty-four people were killed ...”

Was the voice coming from the radio or the TV? No. It was in his ear. The telephone—

“Who is this?” Ptolemy Grey asked, remembering that he was having a phone conversation.

“It’s Hilly, Papa. Your great-nephew. June’s daughter’s son.”

“Who?”

“Hilly,” the young man said, raising his voice slightly. “Your nephew.”

“Where’s Reggie?” Ptolemy asked. “Where’s my son?”

“He can’t come today, Uncle,” Hilly said. “Mama asked me to call you to see if you needed anything.”

“Heck yeah,” Ptolemy said, wondering what anything the call and the caller meant.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Do you need anything?”

“Sure I do. I need all kinds of things. Reggie haven’t called me in, in a week, maybe, maybe it’s only three days. I still got four cans of sardines and he always buy me a box of fourteen. I eat one every day for lunch. But he haven’t called and I don’t know what I’m gonna eat when the fish an’, an’, an’ cornflakes run out.”

A piano sonata began.

“What do you want me to get you?” Hilly asked.