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When Grandpa Teddy came downstairs, we three ate at the dinette table, and then he sat with me to show me some of his grab-knob-extension technique.

He was still on leave from his department-store gig that Friday, and I suspect he would have sat with me all morning if he hadn’t needed to collect Mrs. Lorenzo and her belongings. She had agreed to accept a position as my caregiver, manipulating my legs through the exercises that the therapist prescribed and otherwise looking after me. The position came with my former bedroom upstairs, a salary that might not have been much to start, and board.

After Grandpa left, I continued to practice with considerable frustration until by chance I looked up and, through a front window, saw Malcolm crossing the street. I swung off the piano bench, into the wheelchair, and opened the door when he rang the bell.

“Where’s your axe?” I asked.

Shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, looking down at me, he said, “I’d rather call it my saxophone.”

“Like hell you would.”

“Well, I would.”

Maybe he was aware of what Grandpa had done to the Steinway, but if he didn’t know, I wanted to prevent him from seeing the changes for a while. “Let’s sit on the porch.”

That July day was so hot and humid that birds wouldn’t fly and bees wouldn’t buzz. You could almost hear the street sizzling.

“How’re you doing?” I asked.

“I’ve been better.”

“What about your folks?”

“My folks? Makes me sound like Beaver Cleaver.”

“I’m just asking.”

“The old man is talking all the time about getting a promotion. Where do you go from lathe-shop foreman? Is there a lathe-shop king?”

“What about her?”

“She’s taken to smoking in bed. I expect to be immolated in my sleep. Which wouldn’t bother me.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Well, it wouldn’t.”

“If you’re gonna talk like that, I don’t want you here.”

“Throw me off the property, why don’t you?”

“Maybe I will.”

After a silence, he said, “You see that van parked down there by the Jaruzelski place? You know what it is?”

“A Ford.”

“Didn’t your mom and grandpa tell you what it is?”

“I don’t need them to tell me it’s a Ford.”

“It’s a police stakeout.”

“What’re they staking out?”

“Your place. In case your old man shows up or any of those crazy people he threw in with.”

“Where’d you get this?”