Kuperman did not move into Judith's apartment. But he began taking his breakfasts and dinners with her. He kept a robe and pyjamas, a toothbrush and razor at her place. Some nights he slept over, holding her. They fell asleep listening to Schubert Impromptus played by a French pianist named Marçelle Meyer on a small CD player Judith kept in the bedroom. He still went to work every day; still bought his close-outs; ran his auctions. He even unloaded those eight-cent ties, for a decent profit. 

Fortunately, Chicago had enough musical life for them to go to one or another kind of concert almost every night. The summer festival at Ravinia was beginning. He made a $5,000 contribution so that he could get good seats to everything Judith wanted to hear. 

They would drive out along Sheridan Road, stopping some nights in Hubbard Woods for Chinese food, other nights Judith would make a light cold dinner that they ate on the lawn. After the night she told him about its return into her body, she never again mentioned the word "cancer", and he didn't, either. 

They sat in the little Martin Theatre at Ravinia and watched and listened to a vast quantity of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and endless French composers whose names Kuperman couldn't quite keep straight. Judith listened to the music with a concentrated serenity that filled Kuperman with admiration. They had taken to holding hands through these Ravinia concerts. Kuperman tried to take Judith's advice and let the music come to him. He paid the strictest attention; his mind wandered less. He heard patterns, felt themes emerge and re-emerge, detected what he thought were subtle turns and twists in the music. But the mystery of it was never revealed; ecstasy, the deeper meaning of it all, escaped him. 

By early August Judith's appetite had all but disappeared. She grew thin. Her energy was much less. They stayed home most nights, sat on the couch in her living room, and listened to CDs, holding hands. Kuperman made and served her tea; she might take a single bite out of a cookie. What a lottery life was, Kuperman thought, the lousy luck of the draw! A pathetic bit of wisdom to arrive at after eight decades of living, but he had no other.