Shes had better ones, John, but your being here will perk her up, the woman answered.

Right, Fiske muttered as he walked to the visitors room. His mother awaited him there, dressed, as always, in her housecoat and slippers. Her eyes wandered aimlessly, her mouth moving, but no words coming out. When Fiske appeared at the doorway, she looked at him, a smile breaking across her face. He walked over and sat down across from her.

Hows my Mikey? Gladys Fiske asked, tenderly rubbing his face. Hows Mommas baby?

Fiske took a deep breath. It was the same damn thing, for the last two years. In Gladys Fiskes devastated mind he was Mike, he would always be his brother until the very end of his mothers life. John Fiske had somehow completely vanished from her memory, as if he had never been born. He gently touched her hands, doing his best to quiet the absolute frustration inside him. Im fine. Doing good. Pops good too. He then added quietly, Johnnys doing good too, he asked about you. Always does.

Her stare was blank. Johnny?

Fiske attempted this every time, and every time the response was the same. Why did she forget him and not his brother? There had to have been some deep-rooted facet in her that had allowed the Alzheimers to erase his identity from her life. Was his existence never that strong, never that important to her? And yet he had been the son who had always been there for his parents. He had helped them as a boy, and continued to be there for them as a man. Everything from giving them a large part of his income to getting up on the roof on a suffocating August day, in the middle of a hellish trial, to help his old man shingle their house, because he didnt have the cash to pay someone to do it. And Mike, always the favorite, always the one to go his own way, his own selfish way, Fiske thought . . . Mike was always hailed as the great one, the one who would do the family proud. In reality, his parents had never been that extreme in their views of their sons; Fiske knew that. But his anger had skewed that truth, empowering the bad and subverting the good.

Mikey? she said anxiously. How are the children?

Theyre fine, theyre good, growing like weeds. They look just like you. Having to pretend that he was his brother and had fathered children made Fiske want to collapse to the floor bawling. She smiled and touched her hair. He picked up on that. Looks good. Pop says youre prettier than ever. Gladys Fiske had been an attractive woman for most of her life, and her appearance had been very important to her. The effects of the Alzheimers had, in her case, accelerated the aging process. She would have been terribly upset with how she looked now, Fiske knew. He hoped his mother still saw herself as twenty years old and the prettiest she would ever be. He held out a package he had brought. She seized it with the glee of a child and tore off the wrapping. She touched the brush delicately and then ran it through her hair very carefully.

Its the most beautiful thing Ive ever seen.

She said that about everything he brought her. Tissues, lipstick, a picture book. The most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Mike. Every time he came here, his brother scored brownie points. Fiske forced these thoughts away and spent a very pleasant hour with his mother. He loved her so much. He would rip from her the disease that had destroyed her brain if he could. Since he couldnt, he would do anything to spend time with her. Even under anothers name. *����*����* Fiske left the rest home and drove to his fathers house. As he turned onto the familiar street, he looked around the disintegrating boundaries of his first eighteen years of life: dilapidated homes with peeling paint and crumbling porches, sagging wire fences, and dirt front yards running down to narrow, cracked streets where twin streams of ancient, battered Fords and Chevys docked. Fifty years ago, the neighborhood had been a typical starter community for the postWorld War II masses filled with the unshakable confidence that life would only get better. For those who hadnt crossed that bridge of prosperity, the most visible change in their worn-out lives was a wooden wheelchair ramp grafted over the front stoop. As he looked at one of the ramps, Fiske knew he would choose a wheelchair over the rot of his mothers brain. He pulled into the driveway of his fathers well-kept home. The more the neighborhood fell apart around him, the harder his old man worked to keep it at bay. Perhaps to keep the past alive a little longer. Maybe hoping his wife would come home twenty years old again with a fresh, healthy mind. The old Buick was in the driveway, its body rusted a little, but the engine in mint condition thanks to its owners skills as a master mechanic. Fiske saw his father in the garage, dressed in his usual outfit of white T-shirt and blue work pants, hunkered over some piece of equipment. Retired now, Ed Fiske was at his happiest with his fingers full of grease, the guts of some complex machinery strewn out helter-skelter in front of him.

Cold beers in the fridge, Ed said without looking up. Fiske opened the old refrigerator his father kept in the garage and pulled out a Miller. He sat down on a rickety old kitchen chair and watched his father work, just as he had done as a young boy. He had always been fascinated with the skill of his fathers hands, the way the man confidently knew where every piece went.

Saw Mom today.

With a practiced roll of his tongue, Ed pushed the cigarette he was puffing on to the right side of his mouth. His muscular forearms flexed and then relaxed as he ratcheted a bolt tight.

Im going tomorrow. Thought Id get all dressed up, bring some flowers, a little boxed dinner Ida is going to make up. Make it real special. Just me and her.

Ida German was the next-door neighbor. She had lived in the neighborhood longer than anyone else. She had been good company to his father ever since his wife had gone away.

Shell love that. Fiske sipped on his beer and smiled at the picture the two would make together. Ed finished up what he was doing and took a minute to clean up, using gasoline and a rag to get the grease off his hands. He grabbed a beer and sat down on an old toolbox across from his son.

Talked to Mike yesterday, he said.

Is that right? Fiske said with no interest.

Hes doing good up there at the Court. You know they asked him back for another year. He must be good.

Im sure hes the best theyve ever had. Fiske stood up and went over to the open doorway. He took a deep breath, letting his lungs fill with the scent of freshly cut grass. Every Saturday growing up, he and his brother would mow the lawn, do the chores and then the family would pile into the mammoth station wagon for the weekly trip to the A&P grocery store. If they had been really good, done all their chores correctly, not clipped the grass too short, theyd get a soda from the machine next to the paper box outside the A&P. To the boys it was liquid gold. Fiske and his brother would think all week about getting that cold soda. They had been so close growing up. Carried the morningTimes Dispatchtogether, played sports together, though John was three years older than his brother. Mike was so gifted physically that he had played varsity sports as a freshman. The Fiske brothers. Everybody knew them, respected them. Those were happy times. Those times were over. He turned back and looked at his father. Ed shook his head. Did you know Mike turned down a teaching job at one of them big law schools, Harvard or something, to stay at the Court? He got a slew of offers from big law firms. He showed me em. Lord, they were talking money I cant even believe. The pride in his voice was obvious.

More power to him, Fiske said dryly. Ed suddenly slapped his thigh. Whats wrong with you, Johnny? What the hell do you have against your brother?