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setting. George Hessian’s mother had taken up residence in a condo at first, but had since been moved to a building where she had a room, nurses in attendance, but could still be relatively independent.
    â€œI hate it here.”
    â€œI know, but it is best that you be looked after.”
    She looked at him as at a traitor. There were those, George’s friend Rawley among them, who embarrassed George by congratulating him on his filial piety, but in truth he shared his mother’s estimate. How could he not feel like Judas when he kissed her good-bye and left her with the television she loathed and the four walls whose blankness seemed reflections of her mind? It was better when he visited during mealtimes and could sit at the corner of the table where two other elderly women who had been pushed up in their wheelchairs watched resentfully as he told his mother of his day. Leaving her in company cushioned the blow because his mother knew how envious her table
companions were of her dutiful son. When he visited between meals he would push her about in her wheelchair for whatever diversion that might afford.
    â€œIf only there were something to do.”
    â€œYou have spent a lifetime doing things.”
    There was a covered walkway connecting the building with the common room where those who lived in condos went, and sometimes he took her there. This was a failure. She was dressed in tennis shoes and a running outfit, an ironic commentary on her immobility, and her presence made the more mobile residents uneasy. She represented what awaited them, they could only hope, in some misty future. But it was there that he heard that the great Jack Gallagher had moved into one of the condos.
    â€œWho is Jack Gallagher?” he asked his mother.
    â€œâ€˜Who is Jack Gallagher?’ He was on the radio. Where is he?”
    He was holding court on a couch surrounded by adoring fans. His mother insisted that he push her over. Jack Gallagher fell silent when they arrived before him and George felt compelled to say that his mother had been a great fan of his.
    â€œMy dear lady, how wonderful.” Jack Gallagher rose and took her hand. “Where on earth did you get that chair? I want one.”
    Laughter all around. George was filled with gratitude at this gracious gesture and his mother was delighted. For days afterward, she cherished the memory but seemed to have no desire to repeat the experience, thank God.
    â€œSo Jack Gallagher is living here now,” George said to Rawley now.
    â€œThe man himself.”
    â€œMy mother was a fan of his.”
    â€œEveryone was, if you can believe them.”
    Sitting in the guard shack, talking to Rawley as their shifts changed, George thought how their status had changed since Rawley
was in the financial office of the university and George was a representative of the bank. Their contacts were regular enough to transcend mere business, and soon they were friends. Rawley was a widower.
    â€œI never married. Responsibility for my mother devolved on me.”
    They attended the Chicago Symphony together, Rawley finding that he liked Mahler despite himself.
    â€œBut I prefer the baroque.”
    â€œIs that what brought you to Western Sun?”
    â€œI get paid for reading. I sit here and cars go in and cars go out but they require only minimum attention. I give ’em a wave.”
    â€œI am writing now in my off-hours.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œThe history of St. Hilary’s parish.”
    Rawley was an agnostic, so religion was a subject they avoided. If Rawley had not liked music they would have avoided speaking of that. Music, like religion, cannot be explained to the disinterested.
    â€œYou really believe all that stuff?”
    â€œCatholicism? Of course.”
    â€œI never even had a faith to lose.”
    But they went to the exhibit of Vatican art and Rawley managed to avoid negative comments.
    When Jack Gallagher showed up at the St.