3.
It wasn't enough that Silvie came over every other day to force me to get out of the apartment, to take a walk, but she even went so far as to keep precise records of how far I walked and how long it took me to do it. At first it would take me half an hour to walk a single block, but after a few months she had me walking several blocks in as few as fifteen minutes. Constantly dodging traffic and other pedestrians, many of them with their dogs or packs of dogs belonging to others in tow, we'd make our way down Hudson Street almost as far as Canal. And then we'd turn around and come back, not on Hudson but maybe on Greenwich or Washington, or sometimes along the river just beyond West Street. Silvie jotted down my time and distance and then was off, saying she'd see me the day after next. I said, "We'll see."
