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little vibe when he walked into the waiting room at Saint Pat’s just as Edgar was coming out with his new cast. He should maybe have gotten there earlier.
    But since RL’s mother died, he hated hospitals, the stink of them, the machine quiet and hiss. Behind the politeness and soft voices lurked suffering and death. Her last ten days, when he slept in the waiting room, or in a chair in her room while she struggled for breath, RL sometimes took the elevator up to Labor and Delivery just to watch happiness, just to believe in it. Strolling the corridor, feeling like a spy—he didn’t belong there, he had no business—RL strained to see the new mother through the half-open door, the little blanket-wrapped bundle, the older brother or sister with balloons or flowers, the sad exhausted husbands who were happy but something else at the same time, something nobody cared to name …. Even in the happy place, the other crept in. A kind of machinelike compassion, real, inadequate. As sorry as they all fucking were, his mother wasn’t coming back.
    Layla was drinking diet soda and looking beautiful and disapproving with her long beautiful neck until Edgar said something funny and then she liked him. His cast already looked dirty in the dim bar light. The waitress disappeared into the next room, tall and blond, a basketball player maybe. She had a high-set ass like a black woman and long muscular legs.
    RL said, You can take the store, can’t you?
    * * *
    Edgar said, Me?
    It’s wages work, RL said. Probably enough to keep you going for a while. You won’t make what you make guiding.
    No, I appreciate it. I’m not going to know what the hell I’m doing, though.
    There’s no great trick to it, RL said. The little ray of sunshine here can show you how to run the cash register et cetera.
    There’s not much to it, Layla said.
    No, I do appreciate it. I was kind of counting on some of that money.
    RL looked at him, his grateful kindly face, and suddenly he was done—done with the evening, done with the scene. Five in the morning loomed in front of him and the raft still half deflated by the side of the stream and clients to please, never his favorite part of the operation. The blond waitress with the beautiful ass was not going to sleep with him and this last glass of whiskey was not going to make anything better. He drained it, ice rattling his teeth, and threw sixty dollars at his daughter.
    Settle up, he said, would you? I’m going to take a leak.
    She was surprised by this turn of mood, he could see it in her face, her and Edgar. I am your father, RL thought, I disappoint you. That’s what I do. That’s my job. In the green toilet light his eyes like a wino, his fat gut bulging, his fishing shirt with the silly flaps and buttons. What was he trying to prove? The boy in him. Tying fliesand rowing boats—a boy’s idea of a man’s life—and here he was with a daughter and all, circles under his eyes like fucking Rembrandt. Piss came slower and weaker always. He had managed to make a little money—fisherman and landlord—and keep his daughter alive. That was all. There were times when that seemed like enough, but here, alone in green light with his dick in his hand, it did not.
    When he came back to the bar they were head down, talking. This wasn’t exactly wrong, but it wasn’t right. Change and check were already on the table, good to go.
    I’ll run the casualty home, RL said. Meet you back at the house.
    I might go out for a while, Layla said.
    Out where?
    You know,
out
, Layla said. The other side of the door.
    I don’t like you out in the bars.
    Which is exactly where we are right now, she said.
    OK, OK, OK, he said. Just don’t make a racket when you come in. I’ve got to be up early.
    I’ll bring the brass band, she said.
    In the car, Edgar said, That girl’s a ball of fire.
    * * *
    Sometimes, RL said. She feels comfortable with you, you see that side of her. She’s a complicated girl, though, sometimes