Trev, says Margaret.

Trevor turns away from her, walks over to the boxes set in the shady grass in the front of the yard. I follow him. Do you want to take a break? I ask. He ignores me.

He crouches by the milk crate, his back arched in a C-curve, and silently flips through his father’s old record albums. He looks like his father — smaller than average, even a bit shorter than I am. Stocky, with the kind of muscles that I’ve always thought were good for rock climbing or skateboarding. We kissed once. In the kitchen at the Murphys’ annual holiday block party. Trevor came in looking to refill his glass with something, and there I was, refilling my own. We were both drunk. He pressed me up against the refrigerator when we kissed, and my back slid over a button on the fridge door that made a pile of ice cubes fall out. They spilled all over the floor like a cold, glittering win at a private slot machine.

When I found out that Paul Farenbacher was sick, I started to come over to visit during the day, when Margaret was at the office. Trevor was still in Costa Rica. I made miso broth with thin slices of green onion and I served it to him in a deep red and white soup bowl I found in Chinatown. We listened to the radio together. I offered to make him a Blu-Green Banana Smoothie once, and he made a face and smacked the air with his hand. Those people don’t know shit from putty, he said. Throw that stuff away. The smell of Windex made him feel sick, so I spritzed their windows and countertops with my spearmint-scented Demeter Spray.

He bought the La-Z-Boy as a gift for himself soon after his diagnosis. He said he’d spent his whole life fighting it, but that it was finally time to recognize the desires of his inner lazy man. He showed me a catalogue of chairs for lazy people: slots for the remote controls, coolers in the armrests, space for a whole six-pack of beer. Paul ordered the basic model in solid blue. After the chemotherapy, this was the only place he could still feel comfortable. He often spent the night there, in the reclined position, a blanket tucked up around his chin. He’d lost all of his thick white hair — he’d gone silver in his twenties, and as long as I’d known him, his hair was a source of pride — but he refused to wear a toque over his bald head, even on cool nights. My head is not a teapot, he’d say.

Trevor finally says something to me. Should I keep this? he asks. He’s holding an Arlo Guthrie album.

You keep whatever you think, I say. Keep it, if you want it.

He slips it back into the milk crate and stands up. No. I have enough.

Why don’t we get some coffee. Get out of here for a while.

I’ll take the whole crate, says a man behind us. I turn around. A pair of sunglasses hang around his neck on a thick orange plastic cord. He already has his wallet out in his hands. His fingers press two green bills out of the crease. He says, I’ll give you forty bucks and I’ll take the record player and this whole crate of albums off your hands.

The record player alone is twenty-five, says Trevor.

I’ll give you forty for the whole shebang.

What did I just say? says Trevor.

I put my hand on Trevor’s back and feel his spine through the cotton. That’s fine, I say gently. We can do forty. Do you need a hand getting it to your car?

The man is still looking at Trevor. No, thank you, he says carefully. I’ve got it.

After he’s gone, Trevor says, Well, he just cleaned up, didn’t he.

It’s just five dollars. It doesn’t matter.

Whatever, he says. I hardly remember Dad using that record player anyway.

Your dad liked his music, though, I say.

What do you mean by that? Trevor looks at me.

What I meant was that Paul Farenbacher liked his music, those records that just drove off in a blue car with a yellow “Save Our Troops” decal. He had no use for contemporary artists. I’d burned him CDs thinking I could find something with a classic roots feel, a new collaboration he’d like despite himself: Billy Bragg playing with Wilco, Robert Plant with Alison Krauss. He thanked me for the albums but never listened to them more than once. Eventually I accepted that he simply preferred the sound of his own records.

Your father had strong opinions, I say to Trevor. I mean, he knew what he liked and didn’t like.

Trevor looks at me slantwise. How is your father doing, Meredith? He must like his new job, sitting on the couch testing candy all day.

He’s actually on the computer all day.

I was only kidding.