“Then I’ll lean on them.” He sat back.

“Anything else you want to ask while I’ve got it up?”

That morning Elsie had asked whether the hospital had the same juice boxes we did at home, and I’d promised to bring her the mismatched socks from the top drawer, one blue, one yellow, since she refused on principle to wear a matching pair.

“No,” I said.

“That’s plenty for one day.”

I got back to my building at two and parked on the fourth level of the garage, the concrete still damp from the morning.