Sometimes these visi­tors would pause their fret­ting long enough ask how Dennis was, and he would tell them he was fine as brie­fly as he could because he knew they didn’t real­ly care, or that they wan­ted to be qui­ck­ly reas­su­red he was okay enough to always be cemen­ted where they could rely on him, so, in a way, their show of inter­est was a secret way of making sure he wasn’t doing all that well, because they actual­ly wished the worst for him, or wished the worst that wouldn’t kill him.