What I Loved

now."
    Through the window of the taxi, I saw the familiar streets and signs and crowds on Canal Street, and while I saw everything with uncommon clarity, I felt that these sights didn't belong to me anymore, that they weren't tangible and that if the cab stopped and I stepped out, I wouldn't be able to grasp any of it. I knew the feeling. I had had it before, and I continued to feel it as I walked into the building and heard Mr. Bob praying behind the door of the old locksmith shop. His voice didn't boom with the same Shakespearean resonance I had grown used to. He droned indistinctly in a chant that rose and fell and grew fainter as I neared the top floor and began to hear another voice—Violet's half whisper coming from inside the room a few steps above me. The door to the studio was standing ajar, but not fully open. Violet's low voice continued speaking, but I couldn't make out her words. I stopped behind the door, and for an instant I hesitated, because I knew that I would see Bill in the room. It wasn't fear I felt as much as an unwillingness to cross over into the inviolate strangeness of the dead, but the sensation was brief, and I pulled the door wide open. The lights were off and the late-afternoon sun filled the windows and cast a hazy light on Violet's hair. She was sitting cross- legged on the floor at the far end of the room, near the desk She had Bill's head in her lap and was bent over him, talking in the same barely audible voice she had first used with me on the telephone. Even from that distance, I could see that Bill was dead. The stillness of his body couldn't be mistaken for repose or sleep. I had seen that inexorable quiet in my parents and in my son, and when I looked across the room at Bill, I knew right away that Violet was holding a corpse.
    She didn't hear me enter, and for a few seconds I didn't move. I stood in the doorway of the large familiar room and looked at the many rows of canvases against the wall, the boxes stored on shelves above it, the portfolios filled with thousands of drawings that were piled high below the windows, the familiar sagging bookshelves, the wooden crates of tools. I took it all in, and I noticed the specks of dust hovering in the dimming sunlight that fell in three long rectangular blocks to the floor. I began walking toward Violet, and at the sound of my footsteps, she lifted her chin and her eyes met mine. For a fraction of a second, her face contorted, but she covered her hand with her mouth and when she removed it, her features were once again calm.
    I stopped beside Violet and looked down at Bill. His eyes were open and empty. There was nothing behind them, and their vacancy hurt me. She should close them, I thought to myself. She should close his eyes. I lifted my hands in a meaningless gesture.
    "You see," she said, "I don't want them to take him away, but I know they have to. I've been here for a while." She narrowed her eyes. "What time is it?"
    I looked at my watch. "It's five-ten."
    Bill's expression was serene. It showed no sign of struggle or pain, and his skin looked younger and smoother than I remembered, as though death had stolen years from his face. He was wearing a blue work shirt stained with spots of what may have been grease, and seeing those dark flecks on his breast pocket made me shake. I felt my mouth move suddenly, and a small involuntary noise came from me—a grunt that I quickly suppressed.
    "I came at about four," Violet was saying. "Mark got out of school early today." She nodded. "Yes, I was here at four." Then she looked up at me and said fiercely, "Do it! Go call!"
    I walked to the telephone, looked down at it, and dialed 911. I didn't know any other number. I gave them the address. I think he had a heart attack, I said, but I don't know. The woman said they would send police officers. When I protested, she said that it was procedure. They would stay until the medical examiner arrived and determined the cause of death. When I hung up the phone, Violet looked at me harshly and said, "Now I want you to go, so I can be with him. Wait downstairs for the people to come."
    I didn't wait downstairs. I seated myself on the step just outside the room, and I left the door ajar. As I sat there, I noticed a large crack in the wall I had never seen before. I put my fingers to it and let them run down the fissure as I waited and listened to the sound of Violet whispering to Bill, telling him things I didn't try to understand. I also heard