Patty has the TV on when I enter the apartment for what I hope to be the last time. She’s been cooking with garlic and there’s a sense of potato in the air. Water’s boiling in a pot—there might be pasta.

“You’re always looking at other women,” says a voice from the TV. “Look at me! Me!”

I prop up my walking stick, set my guitar case along the wall, and take off my shoes. “Patty!” I yell.

“Hm,” she grunts. She’s on the couch a few arms’ reaches away.

Somebody gets slapped. The swelling of music.

I make my way to the kitchen and ask, “Was that the fat one?” Distressed women on TV are usually fat. Patty’s fat too, I think. I can’t say for sure. It’s been ten years since we’ve had to hug each other.

She only says, “The stove’s hot.”

My hand falls on a plate of semi-cooked potato chunks by the stove. The water bubbles in the pot with a thin smell. I stir it and taste salt, but there’s nothing inside. I drop the potatoes in.

“What time is it?” I call over the counter.

“Six forty-something shut up.” The woman’s crying now. I’m sure Patty’s hands are squeezed tight; she’s one of those that hopes anxiously for the best when there’s nothing she can do.

I reach for my stash of bread and come upon a handle lying on the counter top. Wood: metal: serrated edge: it’s the bread knife.

“Patty! I told you don’t leave knives out!”

“Shut up! June is having a breakdown. Get out of my kitchen.” She speaks in flat sheets, strained, and not in my direction.

“Is this the show about all the affairs?” I ask, buttering the first slice of sourdough. “June’s the pretty one, right?”

“No.”

But she is. TV’s easy to figure out once you separate the ugly characters from the pretty ones. It’s a wonder the stories go on for so long without people predicting the endings.

I sniff at the potatoes in the water and ask Patty what time it is now. The smell has gotten fishy.

“It’s been like two minutes, why? What are you cooking?” She jumps from her seat and runs over. “No! No-no-no!”

“What-what, what?”

A click. The water calms. “You put yams in my broth!”

“Yams? What yams? You mean the potatoes?”

“Potatoes? Doofus! You’ve ruined my yam bake and my broth! These are yams. Do they feel like potatoes to you?”

“Ow!” I pull my hand away. “That’s a hot one! Jackass.”

“Assface. Go sit down, Andy. The show’s not over yet.”

“I’m pretty sure they’re potatoes,” I say before she silences me again. She has never appreciated my sense of smell. When we were young she lied about names and smells to shake things up for me. Her greatest fear was ending up blind like me. Well, I used to turn off the lights to shake things up too.

I wonder if her kids have the same relationship with each other, if she even knows at all. I’ve been coming back here for three weeks and we haven’t talked about it once. I keep wondering what color they are now, what they’re becoming. My greatest fear is ending up blind like her.

I ask, “When did you start eating yams?”

“Saw it on a cooking show.”

We sit down on the couch. The end of the episode is all dramatic music. Nothing important could be happening but Patty sits perfectly still, her breath wheezing unevenly through one nostril. Someone stomps around in the apartment above.

When the drama ends, Patty lets out one of her emotional sighs, something between a hum and a whine winding down. Then she turns to me and sighs again, this time through her nose, a “what are you still doing here” sound. She gets up to check on the kitchen mess she’s about to blame on me. She empties the pot into the sink and opens another can of something to boil. I can’t decide what it smells like, and I won’t have her laughing at me for asking.

“Sorry,” I say over the smooth skin commercials.

“Whatever.”

“Can I finish making my grilled cheese?”

Patty grunts yes. She’ll never admit it but I make the godliest grilled cheese sandwiches. The trick is slow-cooking it under a cover, letting it soak in its own heat, and searing the goop of cheese on the edges so everything is just the perfect texture of crisp. I’ll make one for Patty as a peace offering.

“How much cash did you make today?” asks Patty. She chops something firm.

“Haven’t counted it up yet. There were a lot of bills this time, though. You’ll get your rent.”

“Damn right I will. Played the same songs?”

“No. Well, yes.”

“You should learn to play pop.”

“I’d rather die by small needles.”

“Andy, your blues and gospel shit will get you nowhere. Nobody listens to either.”

“Anyone with ears will listen to both.” I use a spatula to find the center without burning myself, and drop the sandwich in.

Patty sighs. “Let’s talk about it after we count your money. Success is measurable. That’s important, Andy.”

“Fine.” First comes the soft smell of butter heating up, then the punchy smell of cheddar. I cover the pan. “Elvis Presley played both.”

“Elvis played rock ‘n roll. And he had flash. Elvis was a hottie.” It was Arnold who listened to rock. Patty told me once about the way they’d dance to it, right here, scalding the air. He would’ve taken his CDs with him when he left.

She scrapes the glass casserole dish on the counter. She shoves me a few feet sideways, opens the oven as it rolls out a breath of heat, puts in the dish, then closes it. The warmth remains between us.

“Rock ‘n roll then, fine. To hell with your pop.”

“Fine!”

“Fine.” The sourdough on the bottom starts to crackle; I flip it with my fingers; the bread is just too soft, almost ready. “Rock comes from the blues anyway. The same pentatonic scales.”

“Only better.” Now she’s mushing something, and tottering from foot to foot. The commercials must be coming to an end.

“No, not better! Rock is just ego. It has no message.”

“Message. Yeah, right.”

“No, listen. The gospel tells the good news, and it celebrates it. The blues comes from the same kinda music, but it tells the bad news and still celebrates it. That’s important. That’s substance. Besides, some people tip really good for church music.”

“Yeah. Gotcha.” Her voice is toward the TV.

The bottom of my grilled cheese burns. “Damn!” It happens right at the moment of the slightest burning smell, and by then it’s exactly too late, too far gone to be unblemished. I pass the stiff sandwich back and forth between my hands while it cools, not sure what to do with it. Patty laughs. My toes scrunch up.

Finally I say, “Okay. I’ll just eat this one. The next one’s yours.”
 Patty’s voice goes up an octave: “What?” Meanwhile, the opening song of the next show starts playing. Ba da dup, wa hoo-ah da da da! “I don’t want none of that!”

“Are you kidding me? You should be so lucky. Every one of my grilled cheese sandwiches is a piece of art.”

“It’s cheese and bread, you doof. And your hands are filthy.”

“Really? They feel clean to me.”

“Wash under your fingernails. And don’t touch anything else!” She plods back to the couch, which takes her with a big release of air. Patty goes silent and I turn off the stove while I eat. My fingers feel unnaturally greasy. I hold the sandwich between my teeth, tilt my head up in case the cheese is dripping, and get soap for my hands. I turn up the hot water until my knuckles burn; it’s the only way to ensure cleanliness. People feel better around a clean man.

“Hey,” I call out after finishing the sandwich. No answer. “You know I had to play half my songs today using a penny instead of a pick? I left it right on the table where I always leave it, but it wasn’t there. What could’ve happened to it?”
 Nothing. I’m like a ghost once a show is on, or a drunk at one of those parties where everyone is screaming but no one’s listening. All of us desperate to hear our own voices for the first or last time.

“Patty.”

“What?”

“You stole my pick.”

“Okay.” Her seat shifts.

The second grilled cheese comes out much better. The trick is not to be fooled by time or smell, but to listen to the crackling of the butter and bread. Everything has its own distinct sound of just rightness. Performing on the curbside, the lesson is the same. If all I hear is people walking past and talking, then all I’ve done is make noise, just a clown begging with a guitar. But if the footsteps slow down and people stand in front, shifting from foot to foot, wanting to leave but staying anyway, then that is music. It happened once while I was playing “Little Wing.” It’s a worthwhile art.

“Hey, what time is it?” I wipe the pan grease with a paper towel and set it in the sink. “Patty? Patty! Patty, Patty, Patty.”

Something soft hits the wall by me.

“You fart!” I yell. “You’re gonna hurt me and set the kitchen on fire!”

I feel around until I find the pillow and set it somewhere safe. I’d much rather take the cold streets than this. Three weeks of coming back here to Patty’s quicksand silence.

With nothing else to do, nowhere to go, and no one to talk to, I make my way to the couch and sit with her. I sit breathing, sinking deeper into the couch. Patty fidgets her fingers when the show crescendos. I wonder if this is what our parents would have wanted for us, if this is what family was supposed to feel like all along.

Commercial break. Patty jolts in her seat and goes over to the window. She puts her weight on the sill.

“Whoa,” she says, “it’s like a napalm of a sunset over the city.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It’s orange,” she sneers.

“Oh.” I stay and try to imagine it.

As if the sunset outside were real to me too, my skin tingles with a last flush of warmth before the night cold settles. Patty and I stay seven paces apart, a slow passage of time between us.

“You want to hear my theory, Patty?”

“No.”

“I think I’m an 80-year-old grandmother asleep in a coma somewhere, dreaming, and you’re a figment of my imagination.”

“Figures.”

“Really?”

“Figures you’d have low aspirations even in your dreams.”

“I keep telling you, music is a worthwhile art!”

“Small coins and street filth. Teaching was worthwhile work.”

“But I didn’t like it.”

Her voice lowers: “But the students liked you.”

I feel her looking at me. Patty used to take care of me when we were young. But our dad died, our mom drowned, and by then we were adults. We haven’t known each other since I let myself off her shoulders.

I reach for the remote control and turn off the TV. Patty doesn’t move from the window. “Patty,” I say. “Does Arnold let you talk to your kids?”

A bubble of silence expands. The refrigerator hums.

Then Patty walks over, sits next to me, and turns the TV back on. I tilt my head up and rub my eyes. I choose to believe she shook her head then, or whispered an answer so quietly I couldn’t hear it.

Sleep comes slowly. When I wake again I don’t know how much time has passed. The TV still hollers; I hear Patty breathing beside me. The room has chilled and the food smell is gone. I get up slowly and feel my way to the bathroom. When I finish, I don’t flush, but sneak into her bedroom and close the door without a sound. From the bedside telephone, I dial an old girlfriend.

“Hello?” She sounds sleepy.

“Yo!” I whisper.

“Who? Ha! Andrew? Where are you?”

“This is your cell phone, right? Just keep walking and follow the sound of my voice.”

She laughs. “Gotcha. What’s up?”

“What time is it?”

“Um. Eleven, almost.”

“At night?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Nothing,” I say. “I mean, just wondering.” While I wait for the right words I grip the cord between my fingers.

“Everything alright?” she says. I can’t ask her to house me. It’s been too long. She’s married. “You still at what’s-her-name’s place?”

“No,” I cough. “It didn’t work out. You know how it goes.”

“I suppose so. Where are you now?”

“At my sister’s.”

“Oh, good! You two worked out your problems.”

“Yeah,” I say, and wait.

Nothing.

“Well,” I say, “it’s good to hear your voice. Just wanted to check in on you.”

“Hey, next time you’re in town give me a call. We’ll grab a meal, my treat, okay?”

I say goodbye, and hang up. I go flush the toilet, walk back to the couch, and wait. I turn off the TV, but things don’t stop moving: even as I lie quietly on the couch the refrigerator still persists and cars pass. On the stairs, our neighbors’ footsteps reverberate so closely they might as well be my own. Patty hasn’t moved. She goes on breathing, a desperate heaving sound that never ends.

I reach a hand out and find her arm. She’s gained a lot of weight. She snorts as something gets lodged in her nose. Slowly, I lean over and rest my head on the meat of her shoulder, and I wonder if my hair is clean enough for her.

Through the open window I hear something like a coin hit the pavement, or a distant bell. I don’t know if it’s wet outside or not. Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between rain falling and wind in the leaves, and this bothers me.

Sleep comes again.

When I wake everything is still. No cars, no birds, no footsteps: sometime between twilight and early morning. Patty is gone.

I jump up when I realize why I am awake, that a song is clawing its way from me. I grab my guitar before the moment’s gone, grab for my pick but can’t find it, and start to play. The strings are out of tune and I let them be.

It’s neither gospel nor blues, nor pop nor rock, but it’s something to dance to. My fingers have never known such rhythm. I play afraid, quietly, but as the first gateway of sound is broken through I let loose and ignore the people waking next door and flipping switches on, windows opening or closing. My fingers tremble to keep the rhythm steady. I clutch the bassline. Every mistaken note brings me back to the beginning. I want to sing but have no words for this.

Then the music starts to make sense; my fingers slip into the familiar, and I bend a blue note. I hear Patty’s footsteps coming out of her bedroom. She drags her feet, drowsy. She almost yells at me but stops, and stands there listening. We’re a dozen paces apart with nothing between us but song. I want her to sing it with me, to tell me tears are burning her eyes. I want her body to speak, to shake off her troubles like a skin.

But she makes no movement and I can’t know what she’s feeling. All I can do is keep the space filled up with music and listen, and leave it up to Patty to see if anything can change.