utside the second-story window of the row house apartment, a fog sits heavily on 6th Avenue, and through it a mizzling rain taps the pane like a small child's fingernails. The bells of Our Lady of Perpetual Help peal gently in the distance -- then a siren, a car engine revving, a horn blast. At dusk she used to wait for Thomas at the station above 59th, on the sidewalk in front of Tynan's Floral. Then, the tumult of the city would seem lambent, rushing toward its conclusion, carrying her love, her grá, to her on the crest of its wave: the men in their fedoras, their raincoats unbuttoned, briefcases swinging; the children with mothers -- the girls in knee-length skirts, wool socks, boys in dark, pleated pants, tight jackets, tiny white collars folded under. She took James with her in his stroller before the dark times. Once Collin had arrived and the men were rioting, she could not risk the children's safety, so Thomas would walk alone from the station to the house to find James waiting for him on the shady stoop. She would open the kitchen window on the alley and listen for Thomas's whistling. Thomas was such a whistler, even in the darkest times. He whistled their wedding song. If only she could recall the tune. If only she could remember when.

She is tired. She is in the sitting room but doesn't want to sit. She will stare at the curved glass of the bookshelf, the heavily knotted pine, and she will fall into sleep.

The light rain has begun to mist the window. Just as well. She won't go outside. Brooklyn has gone to rot. The Italians first with their yelling, then the Orientals and their strange quietness, followed by the Spanish and their radios, and finally the blacks. God knows she holds nothing against them, really. They've never hurt her. (Though she has heard stories from the ladies at church.) She can only go to church now when Maria or Helen comes and takes her there. A humiliating business, that -- her hobbling along clinging to the younger woman's arm. And that Maria! Careful there, dear! There's a curb! And the way people stare! Shame on them! Shame on Maria, who makes them stare! There's a curb! Mind yourself now! Here we come! Everyone mind, now! She should go take communion by herself. But how can she? -- the neighborhood has changed so! She doesn't want to call that Maria. And Helen, bless her heart, has that family to take care of. Those four darling children. Three. One is too loud. Who would she ask if she lost her way? Why can't it be like it was -- just the Catholics and the Jews? She had no parley with the Jews, of course, but she had no reason to fear them. Máthair would tell her to go on her own to take communion. Don't wait for Maria, for Helen, for anyone!

Where is the medicine the doctor gave her? Has she taken it? There's really no need. She can remember. As long as she concentrates. She should sleep. But she will wake with a headache. An aspirin, a glass of milk. The aspirin bitter, the milk sour.

In Uppers she had been chosen by Mistress Kelly to place the narrow bottles of milk into the grooves of the radiator to thaw. Each bottle clinked its own note; the radiator hissed an octave lower. Mistress Kelly said that she had a musical ear. Around that time, she had dreamed she would go to Broadway and audition for a show like that wonderful Ninette girl. Or that Anna Pavlova her mother loved so much. She had dreamed of being in On with the Dance, of wearing her hair in a permanent wave and singing "Poor Little Rich Girl." How she had dreamed of becoming one of C. B. Cochran's young ladies! Once she sang "Danny Boy" at a picnic. It must have been in Brooklyn a long time ago. Thomas was so long and handsome. He was her Danny Boy, her prince, her rí hairt. Yes, her king of hearts. That day in the park when she sang, he stared at her the same way he had stared one morning when she helped Mistress Kelly with the bottles. He had asked, "Cad é an t-ainm atá ort?" And she, playfully, answered, "My name is Mary. Mary Rose." She knew the day he asked her name that she would marry him. The same face had turned to her at the gunwale of the Queen Elizabeth, the sea spray glittering his eyelids. They floated together there in the middle of the ocean, the middle of the world. "Would you go for a walk?" he had asked in English the day she helped with the bottles. And she, playfully, had answered, "Ba mhaith." And they had.

Where is the album? Has someone moved it? There is a picture of Thomas in his suit in the park. There is a picture of the three boys on the stoop.

She turns from the window and goes into the living room. Hasn't she looked here? She goes to the dining room, where there is a plate with unfinished ham and potato on the lace tablecloth on the oval table. Has Collin left it? Is that the good china? But the hutch is locked and she can't find the key. She enters a narrow corridor where it is dark and turns right. The floor squeaks and she is in the presence of her old stove that no longer works. She turns the dials anyway, one at a time, to see if the blue flames have returned. No. They have taken them. What do they think she will do? -- burn herself with so small a flame? She turns and there is the box they installed under her counter after they took the flames. She is hungry. She goes back to the dining room and gets the plate of ham and potato, opens the door on the black box and puts it in. She presses the buttons they told her to press. First the one that says TIME. They've written it so large! As for a schoolgirl! Then: THIRTY SECONDS FOR MOST THINGS. FOR MOST THINGS is crossed out with blue ink. They had said to her, "Thirty seconds for everything, Mom. Just thirty seconds for everything and let's leave it at that, shall we?" Shame on them! Defiantly, she presses 1-0-0. Then she presses START.

Placing the steaming plate on the lace tablecloth, she sits at the dining room table in the same spot where she found the plate. The ham and potato are too hot. There was potato salad with pickles and deviled eggs and ham sandwiches. A wedding anniversary. Fort Hamilton, near the bridge. Thomas had worn a pale blue suit and whistled their song. The meat is tough. The potato is too hot. The stenciled fringe on the wedding china is the color of Thomas's suit. Has she burnt her tongue? It feels like salt, like sand. The china is cracked! She runs her finger along the hot edge of the plate where there is a jagged fracture in the stencil. Her wedding china! Who has broken it? She starts to cry.

She remembers all the crying back then. Her sons were born in that ugly time. A time when even the Pope had gone mad -- the one called Pious the something. Nine or ten. He said that Mussolini had God's full protection. Madness, that. The world had gone mad. She and Thomas had come to America already. Before that monster was strung by his ankles from a swing-set, his eyes pecked out. James was born two years later, in -- And then Collin in 19--. And then little Patrick two years later. They say the Catholics let Hitler kill the Jews! How could that be? Madness. Her sleeves are wet. She would never let anyone kill anyone. Hadn't little Sharon married one? They will raise the children both. What does this mean? You can't raise children both. They have been baptized haven't they? They are Catholic. Everyone knows they are. He danced with her at the wedding; came over to her with that long look on his face. Called her Nana! Imagine that -- a Jew calling her Nana.

The meat is tough. The potato is still too hot. Sand. Sand on the tip of her tongue.

They never come anymore. James came last week or last month. They were all here when Thomas went with the cars down to the cemetery. That was so long ago. Collin is here somewhere. Isn't he? He'll know why the china is cracked. But he never sits to talk. Out walking, or out with a girl. Out with a girl at Coney Island. He'll come home tired and cranky, complaining that he needs to do his homework and the apartment is too loud. He'll get sick in the cold wind on the Boardwalk.

No, he's married now. Of course, married. They all are. All three of them. Not Patrick. She's still here in New York. Lovely girl though she wore her skirts too high. He would pick the neighbor's roses for her late at night. Doesn't he live in Florida with that other girl? Nor do the grandchildren come. She has grandchildren. Oh yes, so many of them. Yes. But she can't recall their names. They don't come anymore. Even her own sons, though Collin is around here somewhere, if he's not at Coney Island with some girl. One has a Jewish name. His name is Jacob or Seth or Isaiah. A darling little blue-eyed Irish child. What possessed them to call him Seth or Jacob? How would she know? She will call him Jack.

The meat is gone. The potato is cold. Now she is not so tired. Now her head is clear. She wants tea. Jack is Matthew's child. He likes to dance. She saw him dance.

She and Thomas went dancing on Saturday nights at the restaurant on the top of the building. Before the boys came. With friends. There was a huge black piano, just like the one Paul Robeson stood beside at Carnegie. They had friends back then. They danced in a line -- the Charleston, the Kickaboo. The friends are gone. Life was so crazy then. So light. Like they had been floating. People were doing crazy things! Flying across the Atlantic. Women were flying across the Atlantic! That poor girl, Ruth something, who didn't make it. How she had felt for that poor girl! Then the Earhart girl made it, from Boston to London, and the city celebrated. She had wished for a girl that day. That was when she and Thomas were trying. Crazy light times when Jews were flying through the air. Men were hanging from buildings and making dogs jump twelve feet and goats walk tight ropes. A crazy time. That Lillian Boyer woman hung from the bottom of her plane. Ben Darwin pulled a car with his hair. Crazy times. She can remember it all. In 1929 she heard the Pope's voice on the radio and decided they would have a boy.

The bank kept Thomas, even when there were riots in the streets. Right out there on 59th the men marched. The year James was born. And she worried for him, that he would have no job, that he would have to join those angry, ill-dressed men. By the time James was two, the men were standing in rags on the street corners, waiting.

Her sons did fine. James went up to Columbia, where he met that darling Theresa and then started to become a doctor of ears and ended up being one anyway even though he never graduated as a doctor of ears. And Collin, the cleverest of them -- the one who nearly burned the house down with the chemistry in the stairwell! -- went to Harvard. Oh, how he would argue with Thomas! Pop, as he called him. Too much population! Too many republicans! Too many corporations! It was disrespectful, that. Collin was the fiery one, with a head he couldn't control. The white smoke. The one who went off on that scholarship that Fullbright Senator gave him. A generous man, that one. She wrote him a letter. Collin went to work for the Kennedy brothers and helped those wonderful boys save us from the Cubans. Martyrs, those two. And Patrick, her baby, went too far away, to a college of all Irish Catholics. If only Máthair had been alive to see that! You would think the Kennedy brothers would have gone there. Bobby had Collin's room at Harvard the year before Collin did. She told her friends about Bobby and his room that Collin lived in. She called him Bobby as if he were one of her sons. Patrick went by train. In the chilly fall evenings she kissed him goodbye then waited until the train cleared the station before crying into Thomas's handkerchief. Those poor boys. Where was Collin when they were shot? How she worried! And Patrick! -- in that train all alone, rumbling through cornfields in the middle of the night. The phone rang. Thomas was at work. Collin is somewhere where men are shooting guns and his voice is so small and far away!

The door downstairs has opened and closed. Her heart leaps. She thinks to rush to the kitchen and throw open the window. If only she could have known -- The footsteps on the stairs are light as they were when he would bound up them, the boys at his heels. No, not quite so light. The inner door opens. She tries to climb from the chair --

Not Thomas. Her son. Collin. He is old. How can this be? What has he asked? What was that? Is she all right? Why wouldn't she be? Where is his girl? Why would he not invite her in?

-- Where is she?

-- Who, Mom?

-- Who? Who do you think? Oh Collin! You can be so thick sometimes! Who do you think I mean?

-- Maria? Are you wondering about Maria again?

-- No! Your girl! Where is she? Did you leave her out on the stoop?

-- My girl Yes, I left her Mom. We left each other.

-- Yes! You left her out on the stoop! Now invite her in! The poor dear is freezing, Collin. You can't just leave her out on the stoop.

-- She's not out on the stoop. She's not freezing. I'm going to unload the groceries.

Where is he going? -- Stay out of the kitchen! She grips the table and climbs from the chair. He is quick down the corridor, which is now lighted. -- Stay out of the kitchen, you!

He is kneeling in the open door of the refrigerator, a brown bag on the floor beside him.

-- Where is Maria?

-- Maria is gone, Mom. Would you like me to ask Helen to take you to communion?

-- Helen? She's busy with her children, Collin. She's too busy to bother with us.

-- No, I'm sure she'd be happy to. Her children have all grown and moved out.

-- No! They have not! Just the other day... The back of the kitchen chair is cold in her grip. She pivots herself onto the seat. -- Tea, Collin. Will you make me tea?"

-- Yes. Give me

Did he say yes?

-- Did you break the china, Collin?

-- No, Mom. Is it broken?

-- Yes. Of course it is! Where's the album? Have you seen it?

-- It's on your bed. I'll get it in a

When? When will he? His large hands are careful with the eggs. She caught the three of them opening it quickly to see if the light goes out when the door is closed. Maybe after tea she will ask Collin to take her to communion. His arm she will cling to and feel helpless. She will love to. She smiles. She will cling to him and feel her own weight drawing her down and his arm buoying her up as they float over the curbs and dodge the strangers.