He was looking past me at the kitchen door and I jumped when I saw someone standing on the porch. She was a heavyset woman in a mink coat, holding up a brown grocery bag. She motioned at the knob. I crossed and opened the back door for her.

“Thank you, dear. I have my hands full this morning and didn’t want to have to set this on the porch. How are you?”

“Fine.” I told her who I was and she did the same, introducing herself as Mrs. Dell, the Meals on Wheels volunteer.

“How are you doing, Mr. Vronsky?” She set her package on the kitchen table, talking to Gus as she unloaded the bag. “It’s awfully cold outside. Nice that you have neighbors concerned about you. Have you been doing well?”

Gus didn’t bother to reply and she didn’t seem to expect an answer. He made an irritated gesture, waving her away, and moved his walker toward a chair.

Mrs. Dell tucked boxes in the refrigerator. She moved to the microwave oven and put three cartons inside, then punched in some numbers. “This is chicken casserole, a single serving. You can have this with the vegetables packed in the two smaller containers. All you do is push the Start button. I’ve already set the time. But you be careful when you take it out. I don’t want you burning yourself like you did before.” She was speaking louder than normal, but I wasn’t convinced he’d heard her.

He stared at the floor. “I don’t want beets.” He said it as though she’d accused him of something and he was setting the record straight.

“No beets. I told Mrs. Carrigan you didn’t care for them so she sent you green beans instead. Is that all right? You said green beans were your favorite.”

“I like green beans, but not hard. Crisp is no good. I don’t like it when they taste raw.”

“These should be fine. And there’s a half a sweet potato. I put your brown-bag supper in the fridge. Mrs. Rojas said she’d remind you when it’s time to eat.”

“I can remember to eat! How idiotic do you think I am? What’s in the bag?”

“A tuna salad sandwich, coleslaw, an apple, and some cookies. Oatmeal-raisin. Did you remember to take your pills?”

He looked at her blankly. “What say?”

“Did you take your pills this morning?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Well, good. Then I’ll be on my way. Enjoy your meal. Nice meeting you, dear.” She folded the brown paper bag and tucked it under one arm before she let herself out.

“Meddlesome,” he remarked, but I didn’t think he meant it. He just liked to complain. For once, I was reassured by the crabbiness of his response.

16

My visit with Gus lasted fifteen minutes more, at which point his energies seemed to flag and mine did as well. That much high-decibel small talk with a cranky old man was about my max. I said, “I have to go now, but I don’t want to leave you in here. Would you like to go into the living room?”

“Might as well, but you bring that bag lunch in and set it on the couch. I get hungry, I can’t be running back and forth.”

“I thought you were having the chicken casserole.”

“I can’t reach that contraption. How am I supposed to manage when it’s up on the counter in the back? I’d have to have arms another three feet long.”

“You want me to move the microwave closer?”

“I never said that. I like to eat my lunch at lunchtime and my dinner when it’s dark.”

I helped him get up out of his kitchen chair and steadied him on his feet. He reached for his walker and shifted his weight from my supporting hands to the aluminum frame. I kept pace beside him as he crept into the living room. I couldn’t help but marvel at the inconsistencies of the aging process. The difference between Gus and Henry and his siblings was marked, even though they were all roughly the same age. The journey from the kitchen to the living room had left Gus exhausted. Henry wasn’t running marathons, but he was a strong and active man. Gus had lost muscle mass. Holding his arm lightly, I felt bony structure with scarcely any meat. Even his skin seemed fragile.

When he was settled on the couch, I returned to the kitchen and retrieved his lunch from the refrigerator. “You want this on the table?”

He looked at me peevishly. “I don’t care what you do. Put it anywhere you like.”

I placed the bag on the couch in easy reach. I was hoping he wouldn’t topple sideways and crush the damn thing.

He asked me to find his favorite television show, episodes of I Love Lucy on an off-channel that probably ran them twenty-four hours a day. The set itself was old and the channel in question had a certain snowy cast to it that I found bothersome. When I mentioned it to Gus, he said that’s what his eyesight was like before cataract surgery six years earlier. I fixed him a cup of tea and then made a quick check of the bathroom, where his container of pills was sitting on the rim of the sink. The plastic storage case was the size of a pencil box and had a series of compartments, each marked with a capital letter for each day of the week. Wednesday was empty so it looked like he’d been right about taking his pills. Home again, I left the key to Gus’s house under Henry’s doormat and headed off to work.