“I didn’t know what I would do without you here, Lucy.”

I bent down, fingered his hair aside, and kissed him on the forehead, something I had never done before. The heat of his fever lingered on my lips and fingers, like a faint electric charge; it would be a long night, I knew.

“Well, I’m here now,” I said quietly, and shut out the light. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

I spent most of the night in a chair by his bed, finally moving down to the sofa just before dawn. A little after eight, I telephoned the doctor. Paul Kagan had been the town’s only physician as long as I could remember, the sort of cradle-to-grave practitioner you think exists only in movies: gruff, wise, and beloved, a man who on any given day might see a toddler with an earache or somebody in their eighties with enough problems to sink a battleship. He kept his office in the back of his small, shingled house by the post office, and as a child the thing I always liked best about it was the big tank of tropical fish in the waiting room.

I told him about what I’d seen at the Rogues’, the cough and fever, and my suspicion of pneumonia.

“If he’s as you say, you should take him down to Farmington.”

“I don’t think he’ll go.”

I heard Paul sigh. Given the general crustiness of his clientele, half of them holed up in trailers and shacks miles from anything you might call a respectable road, this was a conversation he probably had five times a day.

“Well, I’m seeing Sarah Rawling later this afternoon. She’s out your way, more or less. I guess I could come then. Woman’s got congestive heart failure, and she won’t go to the damn hospital either.”

“You’re an angel.”

He chuckled. “Hardly, but spread it around. Where you been keeping yourself, Lucy? Your mother said you’d gotten some great new job someplace. Sort of thought maybe we’d seen the last of you.”

“Just needed to get away for a bit, I guess.”

“Don’t we all. Course, I never will. You should come in and see the fish. I got some new ones just last month, real beauties.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Think three o’clock, maybe a little earlier. He gets any worse, though, no fooling-you get him down to Farmington, don’t wait for me. He’s not as tough as he thinks he is.”

I returned to Joe’s bedroom. He was resting quietly-the worst of the coughing had abated for the moment-and I decided not to rouse him. I was wearing the same jeans and blouse I’d put on a day ago in Portland, and would have liked a shower, but even this seemed like work. For a while I dozed in the chair. Sometime in the night the rain had blown through; a weak, unhurried sun, the sun of illness, pulsed in the drapes. For lunch I made the last of the cheese and crackers, though Joe ate just a few bites, and I finished what was left. How would I get into town for groceries? I wondered; what would become of us, stranded out here? And, a dark thought I couldn’t push away, much as I wished to: what would I do if he died?

I was in the kitchen, taking stock of the larder-not much, just a few cans of soup and some stale spaghetti I thought I might be able to do something with for dinner-when the phone rang. I hoped it might be Paul, but the voice on the other end was a woman’s.

“I know it’s probably too late, but do you think we could get a reservation for the last week in July?”

For a second I was lost. “I’m sorry. The camp’s closed.”

“Oh.” The woman seemed not to believe me. “Really? We were there last year, and my husband just loved it.”

“Like I said, we’re closed. You might want to try the Lakeland Inn.”

I gave her the number and hung up the phone. Not five minutes later it rang again. The voice this time was a man’s.

“Is this Crosby ’s?” Before I could answer he charged ahead. “I’ve been trying to get through for days. Listen, Joe said he’d hold the same week in August for us, party of four, name of Gaudio. I was wondering if we could move it up a week. We’re taking the boy off to college, and I didn’t realize he’d have to be down there before Labor Day.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gaudio. The camp’s closed. It doesn’t look like we’re going to be open this season.”

“Closed.” Like the first caller, he paused, taking this in. “Closed, like out of business?”

I didn’t really know the answer. The question seemed too large. “Why don’t I take your number?”

“And do what with it?” he huffed impatiently. “See here. We had an agreement, young lady. Are you people going to live up to it or not?”

“No,” I said, and hung up.

It went on like this. Over the next couple of hours I fielded three more phone calls, each replaying more or less the same conversation: a question about a reservation and my news that the camp was closed, followed by incredulity, various forms of bargaining (one man actually asked if we would be selling off any of the furniture), more apologies, expressions of anger and disappointment, and so on, until one of us hung up on the other. It was all perfectly understandable-who wants to hear that the rug’s been yanked from under their one week of reliable fun?-and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this before. Usually the camp opened two weeks after Memorial Day. What would happen when people who had booked the year before just started showing up?

I was fretting about this when I heard a car outside, and then, below me, Paul Kagan’s heavy steps in the main room.

“Lucy?”

I went to the top of the stairs and called down. “Up here!”

He met me on the landing. Paul Kagan was probably close to retirement, but like many fixtures of small town life, he seemed ageless, a permanent fifty-five. He appeared a little flustered at the sight of me, not certain if he should kiss me hello or not, and we settled on an awkward hug.

“How’s the patient?” He was carrying an instrument bag, old leather so crinkled it looked chewed.

“His temperature’s 101. And he won’t eat a thing. The cough’s gotten a little better though.”

We entered the room together. Joe was sitting up against a pile of pillows, his face white as paper. I realized for the first time that he was afraid, though I didn’t know how much of this was caused by his illness, and how much by the prospect of being examined by a doctor.

“How we doing, Joe?” Paul said loudly. He sat on the bed and opened the bag at his feet, removing a thermometer, which he began to shake down.

Joe stifled a cough. “Been better.”

“Oh, you don’t look so bad to me. Don’t know what Lucy’s so worried about. Let’s see about that temperature.”

He nimbly popped the thermometer into Joe’s mouth, then took his wrist and counted off his pulse. Paul had unusually large, long-fingered hands, which I knew he kept soft with a bottle of moisturizer stationed on his desk.

“You’ve been taking your pills?”

“Hm-mm-hmm.”

“No need to talk, just nod.”

Joe nodded. Paul released his wrist and bent at the waist to take out his stethoscope and blood pressure kit from the bag. He placed the head of his stethoscope in the crook of Joe’s elbow and listened as he pumped the little bulb, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, away. The cuff gave a little hiss of gas as he released the pressure. He pulled the thermometer from Joe’s mouth and peeked at it quickly, frowning.

“All right, handsome, off with the shirt so we can hear those lungs.”

With slow fingers Joe undid his pajama top and leaned forward from the pillows for Paul to reach behind him.

“Deep breath now. That’s it.” Paul padded the stethoscope up and down his back. “So Lucy tells me you were staying with Hank Rogue.”

“For a bit.”

Paul paused to listen, then moved the stethoscope again. “Funny thing. I suppose you could call it a coincidence, but guess who came in yesterday afternoon with a nasty cut on his head?”

My whole body clenched with alarm. “God. Was he all right?”