A Window Across the River Read Online Free Page B

he had been a spry thing, but scaling the easy chair was now an undertaking that called upon all his years of hard-won craft.
    “Louie still loves you,” Billie said. “It’s like you haven’t missed a day.”
    Nora ran her hand over his back.
    “My community isn’t in very good shape,” Billie said. “Dolly had a stroke last month.” She knelt next to Dolly, who was lying in the corner. “She only eats if you feed her with a spoon. She only eats if you help her.” She dipped a spoon into a bowl of water that was sitting on a plastic mat on the floor, and held the spoon near Dolly’s mouth. Dolly shifted her head slightly. She hesitantly put out her tongue and touched the water, barely disturbing its surface.
    “She’s a good girl,” Billie murmured. “Good lady.”
    Maybe, Nora thought, I can call MacDowell and ask if I can get there a few days late.
    Except she’d already done this, and they’d told her that if she couldn’t come for the full month, she’d have to forfeit her place. They had a long waiting list of people who could put the month to good use.
    When Billie sat back down, she looked at the letters Nora had brought up.
    She opened one of the envelopes. “Shoot.”
    “What’s the matter?”
    “This is from the cable company. They’re going to turn off my cable tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow? They should give you more notice than that.”
    “They gave me notice. They called. I just forgot.”
    “Do you need some money? I can write them a check if you want.”
    “Thank you. But that’s not the problem. I can pay them after I cash my Social Security, but it means I’m not going to be able to tape the Daytime Emmys Thursday night.” Again she laughed her embarrassed laugh. “I love the Daytime Emmys. I was planning to tape it and watch when I get back from the hospital. There’s this twelve-year-old boy down the hall who comes over and sets the VCR for me.”
    “I can call them up and pay for it with my credit card.”
    “Thank you, but they only let me pay them with a certified check. They know me down there by now.”
    “I can tape it for you.”
    “Really?” Billie said. She looked astonished, as if Nora had mentioned that she was going to be assisting the surgeon during Billie’s operation. “You know how to work those things?”
    “Sure,” she said. She actually didn’t, but Benjamin did. Nora made a mental note to leave him a message.
    Billie looked like she couldn’t believe her good fortune. It was sad to think that a kindness this small made her aunt this happy.
    The Daytime Emmys. The Romance Channel. Nora felt
an obscure shifting, as if every particle of tenderness within her was rising up and streaming toward her aunt.
    Don’t do it, Nora thought. You can take care of her before you go and after you get back. You don’t have to give up MacDowell.
    “I hope they don’t have to take my breast off,” Billie said. “I’m already a fat old bag. That’s all I need—to be a fat old Amazon.”
    “Oh, come on. You’re beautiful, Billie.” This wasn’t true, but she
had
been so beautiful when she was younger, and Nora remembered it so vividly, that it seemed true.
    “I don’t understand how everything happened,” Billie said. “I still feel like the girl who won the jump-rope contest in fifth grade.”
    Nora took her aunt’s hand. At the moment when they touched, Nora knew that she wouldn’t be going to MacDowell. Not now, at least. She could reapply later.
    “Everything’s going to be fine,” Nora said. She had to force these words out of her mouth—they sounded completely false to her. But they seemed to comfort her aunt.
    I’m too young,
Nora thought.
I’m too young for this kind of responsibility.
But as soon as she thought it, she realized that it wasn’t true: she wasn’t too young at all.

8
    A FTER SHE LEFT B ILLIE’S , Nora daydreamed about going out to New Jersey, ringing Isaac’s doorbell, and, then, without a word, giving him a long