Fox River. Emilie Richards

“Work going well?”

      “Liz Schaeffer brought me a mantel clock that’s been in her family for three generations. Ticking fifty beats to the minute.”

      “Can you fix it?”

      “I’ll have to see if I can find a new part, but most likely.” He swallowed her in his arms, as if he knew she needed his warmth. “I made chili for dinner. And corn bread’s ready to go in the oven.”

      “You’re too good to me.” She relaxed against him, looking up at a face that was growing increasingly lined with age. Jake had never been a handsome man, but he had always been distinguished, well before the age the adjective usually applied. His hair was snow-white, but still as thick and curly as it had been the first time she saw him—and still, as then, a little too long. His eyes were the brown of chinquapins, eyes that promised patience but of late showed a certain fatigue, as well. Sometimes she was afraid that he was simply and finally growing tired of her.

      “Let me put things away and I’ll be in to finish the meal.”

      She moved away in a flurry of guilt. “Don’t be silly. I’ll put the corn bread in the oven and make a salad.” She paused. “Do we have lettuce?”

      He smiled a little. “Uh-huh. I shopped yesterday.”

      “Where was I?”

      “Holed up in your study.”

      “Oh…”

      “I like to shop, Maisy. I always see somebody I know. I do more business between the carrots and eggplant than I do on the telephone. Go make a salad.”

      She made it to the doorway before she turned. “Would you mind if Julia and Callie came to live with us?”

      He looked up from his workbench. “Was that Julia’s idea?”

      “I made the offer.” She paused. “I pushed a little.”

      “Like a steamroller on autopilot.”

      “She shouldn’t be there, Jake. You know that place. She’s miserable.”

      “You know Julia and Callie are welcome here.”

      “Was I wrong to push?”

      “You’re a good mother. You always do what you think is best.”

      She knew the dangers of acting on instinct, yet she was pleased at his support. “I’m going back tomorrow.”

      “Bard won’t be happy if you interfere.”

      She stepped outside and peered up at the sky, now a seamless stretch of polished pewter. The temperature was dropping, and she shivered. Autumn was exercising its muscle. Maisy decided that after dinner she would ask Jake to make a small fire in the living room, then she would tell him in detail everything that Julia had said.

      She wondered, as she did too often now, if he would find the recounting of her day too tedious to warrant his full attention.

      

      Julia knew Bard would visit after dinner, not because his schedule was predictable but because he needed to see for himself that everything at the clinic was under control. In the early days of their marriage, that quality had reassured her. She was married to a man who had answers for everything, and for a while, at least, she had been glad to let him have answers for her.

      She felt a vague twinge of guilt, as she always did when she had disloyal thoughts about Bard, the man who had stood beside her at the worst moment of her life. Bard could be overbearing, but he could also be strong and reassuring.

      In some ways Bard was the product of another era. He was older than she, almost twelve years older, but it was more outlook than age that separated them. Bard would have felt at home in King Arthur’s court, a knight happiest slaying dragons. But Bard would never be a Lancelot. He wasn’t motivated by religious fervor and rarely by romance. Dragons would fall simply because they stood in his path.

      At seven o’clock Julia found her way to the dresser where her comb and brush were kept. Her black hair was shoulder-length and straight, easy enough to manage, even when she couldn’t see it. She brushed it now, smoothing it straight back from the widow’s peak that made it difficult to part.

      She didn’t bother with cosmetics, afraid that lipstick poorly applied was worse than none at all. Earlier she had changed into wool slacks and a twin set because her room was cooler than she liked. Maisy always insisted she’d feel warmer if she gained weight, but Julia doubted she was destined to add pounds at this particular juncture of her life. The clinic food was exactly what she’d expected, low-fat and bland—garnishes of portobello mushrooms and arugula notwithstanding.

      She was just buttoning her sweater when a gentle rap on the door was followed by Karen’s voice. “It’s chilly in here. Would you like a fire tonight? Dr. Jeffers has given permission.”

      She supposed permission was necessary. After any time at Gandy Willson, even a patient in her right mind would want to throw herself into the flames.

      “You’re smiling,” Karen said.

      She realized it was true. “It’s the thought of a fire,” she lied. “What a nice idea.”

      She fumbled her way across the room and sat on a chair by the bed, listening as Karen brought in logs. The sounds were all familiar, as was the burst of sulphur when the match was lit.

      “Just a tiny one,” Karen said. “Nothing more than kindling. But it will warm you. We’re having trouble with the heat in this wing.”

      Julia thanked her, then sat listening as the wood began to crackle.

      In the hospital, immediately after the accident, she had found it impossible to measure time. Without visual clues, one moment still seemed much like the next. The sun or the moon could be sending rays through her window and she wouldn’t know. The overhead lights could be on or off, the news on her neighbor’s television set could be either the morning or evening edition.

      Little by little she’d learned new cues to guide her. The buzzing of the fluorescent lamp in the corner when light was needed in the evening, or the scent of disinfectant when the hallway was mopped each morning. The cues were different here, but just as predictable.

      She had also learned that time passed more slowly than she realized. Without the constant distractions of a normal life, each second seemed to merge in slow motion with the next. She had never understood Einstein’s theories of time and space, but she thought, perhaps, she was beginning to.

      After she was sure she’d been sitting for at least a day, she heard Bard’s perfunctory knock. He always rapped twice, with jackhammer precision. Then he threw open the door and strode purposefully across the floor to kiss her cheek.

      Tonight was no different. He was at her side before she could even tell him to come in. She smelled the Calvin Klein aftershave she had helped Callie pick out last Christmas, felt the rasp of his cheek against hers.

      “You look tired.” He had already straightened and moved away. She could tell by his voice.

      “Sitting still all day will do that to you,” she said.

      “You need the rest. That’s why you’re here.”

      She was here to keep from embarrassing him. She suspected that not one of their mutual friends knew exactly what had happened to her, and she wondered what story he was telling. “I would get more rest at home. I could find my way around. Get a little exercise. I’d feel more like sleeping.”

      “We’ve been over and over this, Julia.”

      The forced patience in his voice annoyed her. “You’ve been over and over this, Bard. I’ve had very little to say about it.”

      “I understand your sessions with Dr. Jeffers aren’t going well.”

      “If you mean that I haven’t miraculously regained my eyesight,