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I smile, but I don't commit to anything.

She crosses to Lis' car, where Lis is already waiting behind the wheel, and gets in easily, no roof handle, no two tries.

"That clown car is a disgrace to the rental industry," she says through the open window.

I tip my hat, then Lis backs out and drives them off.

The dining room smells like chicken and something citrus they use on the tables. I pull a chair up beside Hildie instead of across. Her plate comes with rice and green beans, cut small, and she's working at it slow but steady.

There's an oval pill in a little paper cup beside her fork. I know that one. It goes down with food, middle of the meal. I don't touch it, and I don't point at it. I eat my own plate, and I keep half an eye on her.

She gets through most of the chicken. Halfway in, she picks up the cup, looks at it, and swallows the pill with her water. It's what she did at Christmas at her own table with the tree lights going.

She sets her fork down and looks at me straight.

"Carson, I have a question."

That's my name out of her mouth for the first time since the beginning of May. I keep my face level.

"Did you get your hay up?"

"Working on it."

She knows it's July, and she's known the shape of my year since I was eighteen.

"You always cut it too early. You'd rather have it in the barn wrong than in the ground right."

She picks her coffee up and takes a sip.

"Your mother never could make a decent pot of coffee. This is better coffee."

Wyoming and my mother and the coffee in front of her, all in the same breath, all true to her at once. I don't correct a damn thing. She's looking at me and knows who I am. For however long it lasts, that's enough.

"It is better coffee," I say.

"I'm glad we're in agreement."

An aide comes by to clear the empty plate at the next seat. Hildie turns to her, as polite as ever. "What time does the bus run?"

The aide smiles at her. "Not for a while yet, Miss Hildie."

"All right."

And that's it. She's back to looking for a way out to somewhere that isn't here. I don't tell her there's no bus or that she's home, more or less, as home as she gets now.

Manny comes through a little later, pushing the cart. He has rainbow reading glasses propped in his hair. He stops by my chair.

"Second culture's cleaner than the first one."

"That's moving in the right direction."

"It is."

He moves on down the row.

Supper breaks up and the room empties toward the hall. Her clear stretch is gone by then out and I drive off, but I got my name back for a few minutes.

That's more than I had in Wyoming. For tonight, it's enough to know bringing her back was the right call.