There Are Doors

audibility, singing to the tune of the cracked old piano someone had donated to the hospital. No, he could not call Dr. Nilson. He couldn’t even mention Tina when he went on Tuesday.

He reached for a towel.

In bed Tina said, “I can sleep on top of the covers. But it would be better if I slept under them. I’d stay warmer.”

He lifted the blankets for her, and she snuggled beside him. After a time he said, “How old are you, Tina?” He could just see her in the faint light leaking past the blind.

The doll turned over and yawned theatrically, an elfin hand covering her mouth, a tiny arm stretching above her head. “How old are you?”

He told her, then added a year. “My birthday was last month. I’d forgotten.”

“That’s old.”

“I know,” he said.

“I don’t think you’re that old. I’m not.”

“I didn’t think you were.”

“What did you get for your birthday?”

“Nothing. I really didn’t pay any attention to it.”

“Didn’t Mama and Daddy give you anything?”

He shook his head. “My mother’s been dead for a long time, and I haven’t seen my father for ten or twelve years.”

“But he still loves you.”

“No, he doesn’t. He never did.”

“Yes, he does.”

“Tina, you’ve never met him.”

“I know about Daddies, though. And you don’t.”

“All right,” he said, strangely comforted.

“What did you give him for his birthday?”

The question surprised him; he had to think for a moment. “Nothing. I never do.”

“You could give him a big kiss.”

“I don’t think he’d like that.”

“Yes, he would. I’m right and you’re wrong.”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Next birthday, what would you like?”

He told her about the desk.

“I think you should get that for your next birthday. I’ll tell Daddy.”

“It’s been sold already.”

“Maybe the lady would sell it, too.”

He nodded to himself. “Maybe she would. Would you like some more tea, Tina?”

“Yes!”

He threw back the covers, rose, and switched on the light. By a route he could not quite follow, Tina leaped from the bed to the dresser. “Is your tea set in here?”

“I don’t have a tea set,” he told her. “Not yet, anyway. I was looking for this check book.”

“I can’t read. I haven’t been to school.”

“I’ll read it for both of us,” he said. “I’ve got thirty-two hundred dollars. That’s more than the desk cost.”

“You should have bought it.”

“You’re right. Now let’s have some tea and talk about it. Do you think she’d sell it at a profit? Where do you think it ought to go?”

“Not facing the TV.” Tina hopped onto his shoulder. “So you’ll do your school work.”

“Not in a corner,” he told her. “I hate things in corners. Against the window.”

“All right!”

He turned up the burner under the pan of water, rinsed out Tina’s demitasse cup, and found a cup, a saucer, and a spoon for himself. There were only three tea bags left in the canister. “I’ll have to get more tea tomorrow,” he said.

“You sure will.”

“Tina, do you know a girl named Lara?”