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By Root 1406 0

from the tomboyish woman he’d met nine months ago. But she still had that knack for appearing natural, as if she were wearing no makeup and hadn’t had her hair styled and wasn’t wearing five-thousand-dollar trousers, all the while, he knew, putting a great deal of time and effort into her appearance. It was no wonder everyone wanted her at their events and the magazines always featured her photographs. But he found himself feeling surprisingly hesitant about her budding success. This caution was new for him, and he wondered if it was due to recent events or to the realization that his own years of striving had added up to nearly nothing. “A photograph is only an image. Here today, gone tomorrow,” he wanted to say. “It won’t satisfy your soul in the long run.” But he didn’t. Why shouldn’t she have her fun now, while she could? There would be plenty of time for regrets later.

The car took them to the Hammer Galleries on Fifth Avenue, where Billy sat on a bench and took in the recent paintings. In the clean white rarefied air of the gallery, he began to feel better. This was why he did what he did, he thought. Although he couldn’t afford art himself, he could surround himself with it through those who could. Annalisa sat next to him, staring at Andrew Wyeth’s famous painting of a woman in a blue room at the beach. “I’ll never understand how a painting can cost forty million dollars,” she said.

“Oh my dear,” he said. “A painting like this is priceless. It’s absolutely unique. The work and vision of one man, and yet in it, one sees the universal creative hand of God.”

“But the money could be spent to really help people,” Annalisa said.

Her argument made Billy feel weary. He’d heard it so many times before. “That’s true, on the surface of things,” he said. “But without art, man is an animal, and a not very attractive animal at that. Greedy, striving, selfish, and murderous. Here is joy and awe and regard.” He indicated the painting. “It’s nourishment for the soul.”

“How are you, Billy?” Annalisa asked. “Really?”

“Just peachy,” Billy replied.

“If there’s anything I can do to help your mother—” She hesitated, knowing how Billy hated talking about his financial situation. But charity got the better of her. “If you need money…and Paul is making so much…He says he’s on the verge of making billions”—she smiled as if it were an uncomfortable joke—“and I would never spend ten million dollars on a painting. But if a person needs help…”

Billy kept his eyes on the Wyeth. “You don’t have to worry about me, my dear. I’ve survived in New York this long, and I reckon I’ll survive a little longer.”

When he got back to his apartment, the phone was ringing. It was his mother. “I asked the girl to bring me cod from the supermarket, and it had turned. You’d think a person would know if fish were bad or not.”

“Oh, Ma,” he said, feeling defeated and frustrated.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

“Can’t you call Laura?” he said, referring to his sister.

“We’re not speaking again. We were only speaking because you were here.”

“I wish you would sell the house and move to a condo in Palm Beach. Your life would be so much easier.”

“I can’t afford it, Billy,” she said. “And I won’t live with strangers.”

“But you’d have your own apartment.”

“I can’t live in an apartment. I’d go crazy.”

Billy hung up the phone and sighed. His mother had become impossible, as, he supposed, all elderly people were when they refused to accept that their lives had to change. He had hired a private nurse to visit his mother twice a week, as well as a girl who would clean her house and run errands. But it was only a temporary solution. And his mother was right—she couldn’t afford to sell her house and buy a condo in Florida. During his month in the Berkshires, he’d consulted a real estate agent who’d informed him that the housing market had plummeted and his mother’s house was worth maybe three hundred thousand dollars. If she’d wanted to sell two years ago, it would have been a different story—the house might have sold for four-fifty.

But he hadn’t been concerned