Again, they both nodded. Doctor Frost looked at Edgar’s mother.

“It would be ideal if Edgar stayed somewhere else for a week.”

She shook her head. “There’s nowhere else.”

“Nowhere? How about with Claude?”

She laughed wheezily and rolled her eyes, but there was a flash of anger in her expression as well. Edgar could see her thinking: small-town busybodies!

“Absolutely not.”

“All right, then we have to minimize contact between you two for the next ten days. No meals together, no sitting around in the living room watching television, no hugs and kisses. Can you quarantine a portion of your house? Someplace you can sleep and keep the doors closed?”

“Not perfectly. I can close my bedroom door. But it opens onto the kitchen, and there’s only one bathroom.”

“I don’t like that, but I suppose it’ll have to do. I realize I’m suggesting extraordinary measures here, but this is an unusual situation.” He turned back to the chart and scribbled. When he finished he looked up. “There’s one other thing, Trudy. You need bed rest-don’t cheat on that.”

“How long?”

“A week. Ten days would be better. You’re going to sleep as much as you can for the next week.”

“You’re joking.”

“Not in the least. I’m telling you, Trudy, don’t push this thing. Antibiotics aren’t miracle drugs. If you run yourself down, they won’t help.”

He turned to Edgar.

“Edgar, if you start feeling like you have a chest cold, if your chest gets tight, let Trudy know. Sometimes people don’t want to admit they’re getting sick. But if you play that game, it’s going to be tough. Understood?”

Doctor Frost led them to the waiting room. He appeared in a few minutes at the receptionist’s window with a prescription and a vial of pills, handed Edgar’s mother a Dixie cup filled with water, and had her swallow the first dose on the spot.

IN THE TRUCK, EDGAR sat listening to the whistle in his mother’s breath. She frowned and turned on the radio.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Quit worrying.”

They drove on, music crackling over the truck’s speaker.

“You’re going to have to do the kennel by yourself.”

I know.

When they got home, Trudy went to her bedroom, pulled off her shoes, and dragged the blankets over her shoulders. Edgar stood in the doorway and watched her.

“Is spring break next week?”

Yes.

“I’ll call the school and have you excused until then.”

Okay.

“Maybe your teachers can send assignments home on the school bus.”

Okay.

“About the kennel. Just get the chores done. Check the pups every morning and night. Don’t worry about training.”

I can do some training.

“Then work your litter the most. Nothing fancy. One dog in motion at a time. Remember that.”

Okay, okay.

“Spend as much time as you can in the kennel. Take books. Stay out of the house unless you need to eat, sleep, or-” Before she could finish, a cough wracked her shoulders off the bed. When she stopped, she was propped up on one arm, panting.

What if you need something?

“I won’t need anything. I can make soup and toast for myself. I’m going to be sleeping anyway. Now close the door, please.”

He stood memorizing her features under the yellow lamplight.

She pointed at the door. “Out,” she mouthed.

WHEN HE AND ALMONDINE returned to the house that night, the bedroom door was closed and his mother’s wind-up alarm clock sat on the kitchen table. He turned off the kitchen light and held the clock to his ear and looked at the green radium dots on the tips of the hands. A glow shone yellow beneath the bedroom door. He eased the door open. On the bed, his mother lay in a fetal curl, her eyes closed. Her exhalations sounded ever so slightly easier than they had that afternoon. He stood watching and listening for a long time. Almondine pushed past him into the room and scented his mother’s thin hand, resting lax and upturned on the sheet, and returned to his side. He closed the bedroom door and stood thinking, turning the wind-up alarm over and over in his hands. Then he walked upstairs. He pulled the blankets off his bed and squeezed his pillow under his elbow and carried them out to the barn. He pushed together four bales of straw in the aisle between the pens and he spread the blankets over the bales and sat and unlaced his shoes and looked at the row of lightbulbs shining over the aisle. He trotted barefoot to the front doors and flipped the light switch. A clap of dark filled the kennel. He flipped the switch up again and took a galvanized pail from the workshop and worked his way along the aisle, stepping onto the upturned pail and licking his fingertips against the heat of the bulbs. He unscrewed all but one, and that far down near the whelping rooms. In the semidark he twisted the knob on the back of the clock until the alarm hand pointed to five then set the clock on the bales beside the pillow and lay back.

Almondine stood on the cement, watching him doubtfully.

Come on, he signed, patting the bales. It’s just like in the house.

She circled the setup then climbed aboard and lay with her muzzle near his face. Wind rattled the doors. A pup yipped from the whelping rooms. He pressed his hand into the plush on Almondine’s chest, feeling its rise and fall, rise and fall.

He was genuinely terrified of getting sick. It was going to be hard enough keeping his mother in bed; if she thought he was sick, she would do the kennel work anyway, and then she would end up hospitalized. And yet, despite his apprehensions, the prospect of running the kennel alone excited him. He wanted to prove he could do it, that nothing would go wrong. And now that he’d begun to see the real problems in training, he felt so many possibilities whenever he worked his dogs.

There was another feeling as well, something darker and harder to think through, because there was a part of him that wanted to be away from her. Ever since the funeral, they’d depended on each other so heavily that it was a relief to be alone, self-reliant. Perhaps he thought distancing himself from his mother might distance the fact of his father’s death. He understood that might be part of it, and if so, it was an illusion, but that didn’t change how he felt. He lay under the gaze of the kennel dogs, his hand on Almondine’s side, and thought about being alone.

WHILE HE WAS EATING BREAKFAST, his mother talked to him through the closed door, pausing to catch her breath at disturbing intervals.

“Have you been to the barn yet?”

He swung the bedroom door halfway open. She looked at him glassy-eyed.

Everything is okay. Are you okay?

“About the same. Real tired.”

Have you taken those pills?

“Yes,” she said. “I mean, not yet. I will when I eat breakfast.”

I’ll make it for you.

He expected her to say no, but she nodded.

“Just toast and strawberry jam. And orange juice. Just set it on the table before you go.”

He closed the bedroom door. He mixed up the orange juice, toasted the toast, and covered it with plenty of jam, his heart pounding all the while. When he looked in again, she was asleep. He waited a moment, trying to decide what the right thing to do was, then knocked on the door.

“I’m up,” she said groggily.

Breakfast is ready, he signed. I’ll check back at noon.

FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS HE KNEW she’d been awake only because the breakfasts he prepared were gone at lunchtime and the soup eaten when he checked at night. She must have called the school, because the bus didn’t slow down at their driveway. Invariably, she was asleep when he looked in on her, a book splayed out on the covers beyond her fingertips. Whenever he woke her she seemed startled; it took a minute for her to make sense of his questions. He asked how she felt; she said she could tell the antibiotics were working. She asked if there were problems in the kennel; he said no.