Mother said the old man had never been touched. I didn’t know what she meant by “touched,” but I had heard enough. That afternoon, I leaned over the fence and grated cheese into the old man’s backyard. His cat licked every cheddar shred from the weeds. Its intestines must have gotten clogged, but it lived. The cat disappeared after city workers buried the old man. Months later, a storm buried the eastern seaboard in golden, blanket-sized leaves. Far south of there, we savored the peripheral breeze. Mother had taught me to savor, whenever possible, the small pleasures which occasionally attended…