Treasure Box

13. Salad

It was a hundred-mile drive up the valley. The snow was deep and the plows were out in force, as the towns of the Hudson Valley locked down for yet another major storm. "We need some relief," said Chief Bolt. "About time we had another winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Only sure way of preventing snow for a whole winter."

"You're just getting old," said Quentin. "I still love the snow."

"You're just from California," said Bolt. "If you grew up shoveling it, you wouldn't think it was so nice. You sure you know how to drive in it?"

In answer, Quentin accelerated and then did a sharp enough lane change on the highway to set the car fishtailing a little on the snow. He handled it immediately, stabilizing the car and drifting back down to a safer speed.

"Next time just answer with your mouth," said Bolt. "I don't need a demonstration of stunt driving."

"I spent a winter in South Bend and another in Duluth and another in Laramie."

"Sounds like you need a new travel agent. Turn off at the next light."

"Left or right?"

"Right puts us in the railroad right-of-way, so I guess left."

"Since we're out of your jurisdiction, can I tell you that nobody likes a smug bastard with a badge?"

"I don't want to be liked, Quentin, I just want to get some of this chili out of my system."

"How far are we from the rest home?"

"They put these things close to the main highways so the families won't have any trouble visiting. Not that many of them do. Left at the next light. Then the next right and it's on the right."

"What's it called?"

"I don't remember. It's the only rest home there. Looks like a big motel, only less parking and no neon."

"It looks more like a prison than a motel," said Quentin, when it came into view.

"Yeah, well, you haven't seen many prisons, then."

"I meant except for no bars on the windows."

"And no twenty-foot fences and guard towers and floodlights and checkpoints."

"So when did I say I was an expert on anything?" said Quentin. He pulled the car to a stop in a parking place. At least he was pretty sure it was a parking place. There were plenty of choices but no visible lines. Now that he was here, he wasn't sure what he hoped to accomplish. Bolt said she was in a coma, or at least not coherent. If that was true, there was no hope of learning anything useful from her. Yet she had called him, asked him to find her. Or had she? How did he know the message was really from her? Up against an illusionist like the User, how could he ever be sure what was real?

The snow was real, he was confident of that. Thick and cold as it worked its way up his pantlegs and down into his running shoes.

The front door of the rest home was unlocked, but there was no one at the reception desk. There was a bell. Chief Bolt rang it, but nobody came.

"Hello?" called Bolt. Quentin walked on into the main hallway and looked left and right. Nobody.

"They can't all be out on a field trip," said Bolt.

"Probably shorthanded, in this storm," said Quentin. "It's four o'clock. Maybe everybody's fixing dinner."

"Dining hall's straight ahead, kitchen's off to the left," said Bolt.

Sure enough, the cook and two attendants were frantically making dinner. "Forget looking for people and pitch in and cut up lettuce for the salad!" cried the cook.

"Yeah, right," said Bolt.

"Why not?" said Quentin. "It's not like we have an appointment."

"I could do this at home!" Bolt protested.

"Yes, but here we'll be doing it out of pure virtue." He was already washing his hands.

"Thank you!" cried the harried cook.

"Does this mean I can go back to bedpan duty now?" said one of the attendants.

"Break's over, back on your heads!" said the other. Nobody laughed.

Quentin took a big knife and started hacking at the lettuce. Soon Bolt was beside him, peeling and slicing cucumbers. "I always feel like I'm emasculating something when I do this," said Bolt.

"Didn't know you cops lived such metaphorical lives."

"Told you I was a poet."

They chopped for a while in silence, except for the songs the cook began but never finished. A line or two of some Elvis song or a Four Seasons tune in full falsetto, and then she'd peter out, humming and getting the melody wronger and wronger until it was some other song which she would drift into singing till she ran out of lyrics.

"I know why we're doing this," said Bolt.

"Oh?"

"Because you're scared of the old lady and you're putting off meeting her."

"That's why I'm doing this," said Quentin.

"Yeah, well, I have no will of my own."

"No wonder you send the other cops out to run your speed traps. 'No, Officer, I was only going twenty-five.' 'Oh, sorry, my mistake, what was I thinking?' "

It took longer than Quentin thought it would. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty, but finally it was done, three huge bowls of green salad, with cucumbers, radishes, cherry tomatoes sliced in half, carrot shavings, and garbanzo beans. It actually looked pretty good.

"If only some of the customers had teeth," said Bolt.

"They all have teeth," said an attendant, "if they remember to bring 'em." By now he was in full sweat, taking trays of chicken out of the oven and putting more in.

"Hate to chop and run," said Bolt.

"You were a great help," said the cook. "I was really joking when I asked you to help, and I probably broke sixty regulations by letting you do it, but I usually do this with a staff of four, some of which know what they're doing."

"Bon appetit," said Quentin.

Out in the dining room, a few residents were scattered around at the tables, though no food was being served. Apparently they brought the ones in wheelchairs early. And some of the slow walkers probably needed a head start. Shorthanded as they were, the attendants were running around like country club towel boys.

"Hard to believe this," said Quentin. "Working so hard, and no tips."

"Yeah, well, that's because the nurse who runs this place is a cast-iron bitch," said Bolt.

In a moment the nurse in question charged into the dining room heading for the kitchen. At first glance she seemed middle-aged, but that turned out to be the uniform and her businesslike air and her complete lack of makeup. Actually she couldn't be much over thirty, maybe younger, and if she hadn't stopped cold and given Quentin and Chief Bolt a hostile look, she might even have been attractive. "My evening shift can't get through the blizzard," she said, "but I still get visitors."

"We made the green salad," said Quentin.

"Oh, get real," said the nurse. "There is no salad fairy." She brushed past them and went on to the kitchen. At the door she stopped and called out to a big Polynesian-looking attendant, "Bill! Escort these two guys to the reception area, would you?" Then she disappeared into the kitchen.

As Bill the Polynesian approached, Bolt pulled out his badge and held it up. Bill took a few more steps as he recognized what it was, then gestured for them to sit down wherever they wanted.

The nurse emerged from the kitchen in a slightly better mood. "I shouldn't let non-employees handle the food, but I can't think of what you could do to poison a green salad," she said. "Mrs. Van Ness says you washed your hands."

"Could have done surgery," said Bolt.

"I know you," she said to him. "You're the cop from Mixinack who used to visit Mrs. Tyler."

"It's nice to be recognized."

"Who's the other salad fairy?"

Quentin rose to his feet. "Quentin Fears," he said.

"Sally Sannazzaro," she said. "I'm the medical officer and acting superintendent of this medium-care facility." They shook hands. "Are you a lawyer?" she said. "You don't look like a lawyer."

"Good," he said. Why had she thought he might be a lawyer? "You don't look like the medical officer and acting superintendent of a medium-care facility, either."

"Yes I do," she said pointedly.

This is going so well, thought Quentin.

Bolt took a step toward the door. "You won't be feeding the bed-care patients till later. Mind if we go visit Mrs. Tyler right now?"

"I mind very much," said Sannazzaro. "I don't allow unsupervised visits of my total-bed-care patients." To Quentin she added, "They're helpless and every visitor is a potential heir in a rush."

Bolt's face reddened. "I'm an officer of the law."

"I remember that and I don't care," said Sannazzaro. "Don't rattle my chain, Chief. You always want to see her alone and we always get mad at each other so let's skip straight to the part where you do what I say without any further argument so I don't have to get another restraining order."

"You have never had a restraining order against me!"

"Wasn't that you?" She didn't seem interested in them anymore. "I have places to go." She headed for the door.

"I always prefer a woman who knows her place," said Bolt loudly.

She didn't even look back at him.

"Why are you goading her, Mike?" asked Quentin.

"She just brings it out in me."

Sannazzaro was brusque, but she was under a lot of pressure tonight and certainly didn't need to deal with visitors.

"It's no surprise when women like that never get married," Bolt added.

This wasn't like Bolt. He had always been barbed, yes, but Quentin had never seen him mean. Till now. "Knowing men the way I do," said Quentin, "I'm surprised women ever marry."

Bolt answered with a sneer. "You didn't tell me you were so politically correct. Is somebody keeping your balls in a freezer in case you need them later?"

Was this even the same man? "It doesn't take balls to call hardworking women bitches and make their lives harder," said Quentin.

Bolt's face got ugly then, but instead of answering he stalked off to the reception area. Quentin only caught up with him when he sat down and picked up yesterday's paper. Quentin didn't try to talk to him, just sat and read the latest Time while Bolt cooled off.

But Bolt didn't want to cool off. Quentin had barely gotten into the story about the new fat substitute that caused anal leakage before Bolt was talking again. "I can't believe she still has it in for me."

"What?" said Quentin. It had seemed to him that it was Bolt who had it in for her.

"That crack about never knowing who was an heir in a hurry."

"I thought that was interesting, that they have to have a rule like that. Do you think there are a lot of murders in rest homes?"

"No," said Bolt. "That was nothing but a jab at me. The first time I visited Mrs. Tyler here, some nurse had moved her pillows around and she looked uncomfortable. So I pulled out one of the pillows to plump it up and for a split second I set it down so a corner of it was across her face while I was reaching under her to lift her up and get the pillow under her, you know, and at that exact moment Nurse Ratched walks in and jumps to the conclusion that I was smothering Mrs. Tyler."

"Life's embarrassing moments," said Quentin.

"I explained it but she treats me like a pariah."

"Was there ever a restraining order?"

"She threatened one, but it never would have stuck. I mean, if I don't visit her, who will?"

"Rowena?"

"She thinks her mother murdered her brother."

"Do you?" asked Quentin.

Bolt glared at him. "So you think I was trying to kill her so Rowena would be grateful to me? Rowena's happily married to somebody else and so am I. And she's not vengeful. She left home to get her freedom. She didn't have to kill her mother. I can't believe I'm defending myself to you. You expect me to believe your version of how you spent your first night in Mixinack, but now you're suspecting me of trying to kill a helpless old lady who gave me every break I ever had in my life."

"I didn't suspect you of anything, Mike," said Quentin. "You're jumping to conclusions way too fast."

"Am I?" The paper went back up in front of his face.

For the next hour, the only thing said by either of them was when Bolt muttered, "We make the salad and they don't even offer us a soda pop." Instead of letting himself be annoyed at Bolt's petulance, Quentin decided to be annoyed at Time for the way every reference to the budget deadlock seemed to blame Congress instead of Clinton. At least they could try to be impartial, he thought.

He knew that he was only trying to fool himself into ignoring his own fears. Things were completely out of his control. He had thought Bolt might become a friend, but the way he acted with Sannazzaro reminded Quentin of the way he had acted earlier that day in the kitchen at the Laurent house, when he threatened to beat Quentin up. I don't have any allies in this, he realized. None of the people I trust really believe in what's happening, and those who believe in it all have their own agendas. Bolt. Grandmother. What did the old lady want? Someone who could make words appear on a door a hundred miles away wasn't helpless even if she did spend her life in a rest home bed.

Nurse Sannazzaro finally approached them at quarter to seven. "I'm sorry you came on such an impossible night," she said. "I would have asked you to come back tomorrow, but I know Chief Bolt drives up all the way from Mixinack and so you'd want to wait."

"Thanks," said Quentin. "Can we see Mrs. Tyler now?"

Sannazzaro studied his face. For what? What kind of judgment was she making? "Forgive me, gentlemen, but I have to ask you—see her for what? She doesn't speak. I'm not sure she even knows what people are saying when they speak to her."

"But she's not in a coma?" asked Quentin.

"No," said Sannazzaro. "Nor is she paralyzed." Again she sized him up, as if to decide whether he was worth the trouble of explaining. Apparently he was. "It's like she simply doesn't care enough to pay attention to her own body or her own life."

"Depression?" asked Quentin.

"Despair. I've seen it before. Doesn't respond to Prozac. The only surprise is that she hasn't died yet. Usually once a resident loses all hope, death comes quickly. But Mrs. Tyler has lingered in this state for years now. You're wasting your time." She did not need to add: And mine.

"Ms. Sannazzaro," said Quentin, "I honestly don't know what this visit will accomplish. But it was my idea to come here, not Chief Bolt's. He just came along to show me the way. I don't mean any harm to Mrs. Tyler or anybody in her family. But I'd like to try to talk with her. That can't do her any harm, can it?"

Sannazzaro considered this. "I guess you're right."

They followed her out into the corridor.

"She couldn't have stopped us anyway," said Bolt, obviously intending Sannazzaro to overhear him. "This isn't a prison and there's such a thing as habeas corpus and privacy rights."

Quentin wasn't a lawyer, but he was pretty sure that neither legal principle applied in the case of two non-family visitors without an appointment on a busy understaffed night at a rest home. But he said nothing to Bolt, not in the testy mood he was in tonight.

Sannazzaro also ignored Bolt. "I hope this won't take too long, Mr. Fears. We have a lot of baths to give tonight."

They followed her to an elevator and went up to the top floor, then down to the end of a corridor. "Our bedridden patients don't need to be particularly convenient to the recreation and dining areas," Sannazzaro explained. "They also have fewer visitors than anyone else, so it makes sense to put them in our remotest locations."

Mrs. Tyler had a room to herself. She lay stretched out on the bed, her hands at her sides. She might have been arranged that way by an undertaker. No human being would voluntarily assume such a symmetrical position.

It took a moment, looking at her, to be sure she was the same woman he had seen at breakfast in the Laurent house.

"I found you," said Quentin.

The old lady's eyes opened for a long moment, then closed.

"Well, I'll be," said Nurse Sannazzaro. "She actually noticed you."

Quentin sat down next to her and took her by the hand. "It's good to meet you in the flesh, Grandmother," he said.

"Grandmother?" asked Sannazzaro.

"Can't you at least pretend not to be eavesdropping?" snapped Bolt.

Sannazzaro stood in the doorway, silent now.

Not moving his lips, Quentin formed words carefully in his mind. Can you understand me? Can you read my thoughts the way Madeleine could?

No answer. Not even the fingers squeezing his hand.

"You wanted me to come," Quentin said quietly. "You wanted me to find you."

"She's a turnip," said Bolt impatiently. "Now you've seen her, let's go."

It bothered Quentin that there was no hint of affection for her in his words. Back in Mixinack, it had been obvious that Bolt really cared for the old lady. But now...

"Sorry if I'm boring you," said Quentin. "What do you do when you visit? Play chess with her? Go on walks?"

"I sit and hold her hand," said Bolt.

"And he plumps up her pillows," said Sannazzaro dryly.

Bolt glared at her. Quentin was surprised that a medical officer would taunt someone like that—especially someone who looked after a helpless old lady without being paid for it. Though come to think of it, he wasn't sure but what Bolt was getting paid out of the estate. All that mattered right now, however, was communicating with Mrs. Tyler, and the hostility between Sannazzaro and Bolt wasn't helping.

"If we can't all be friends," said Quentin, "can you both just shut up? Of course I mean that in the nicest possible way."

"It's stuffy in here," said Bolt, standing up. "Will you call your lawyers if I ask for leftovers in the kitchen?"

"Eat anything that isn't actually on the floor with a footprint on it," said Sannazzaro. "But not until the cook brings it out to you in the dining room. It really is against state health regulations for you to be in the kitchen."

Bolt got up and shambled to the door. "Of course, you both know that I'm really going to the john. That chili keeps coming back to me in waves."

For Quentin, the chili had seemed far too mild to cause any discomfort. But then it was only New York chili, and besides, he hadn't eaten half as much as Bolt.

The door closed behind Bolt.

Quentin turned back to Mrs. Tyler. "We're not going to be alone," he said quietly, "so if you're going to talk to me, now would be a really good time."

But she said nothing. Not even a blink or a squeeze of his hand.

Quentin sighed and leaned back in his chair, letting go of Mrs. Tyler's hand. "What a waste of time," he said. "I'm sorry, Ms. Sannazzaro."

"I do appreciate your help with the salad," said Sannazzaro. "We don't get much volunteer help here, as you might guess. Most of our residents are alone or forgotten. Living on their savings or the sale of their houses. Many of them never had children. Those who did generally seem not to have had very devoted ones. I'm afraid I've become cynical, but the only people who visit our bed-care residents seem to be heirs who need money, hoping to get a better estimate of how long the stubbornly nondeparted are going to keep on depleting the estate."

"I'm not an heir," said Quentin.

"But you called her Grandmother."

"That's how my wife introduced her to me."

"I don't know which lie is more obnoxious, Mr. Fears, that you claim to be married to her granddaughter or that you claim you were ever introduced to Mrs. Tyler."

" 'There are stranger things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' " Quentin quoted. "Please open your mind to the possibility that I might be an honest man who was himself deceived."

"Why do you care what I think?" asked Sannazzaro.

That was a good question. There was more to it than trying to get along with the keeper of the gate. He wanted Sannazzaro to think well of him. He delivered his answer in the first words that came to mind. "Because you seem to be an honest person who performs well under pressure and genuinely has the best interests of the residents at heart." And then he thought of a few things he didn't say: That she wasn't trying to get anything from him. That she made snap judgments but then wasn't afraid to change her mind. That she said and did what she thought was right without apology but also without unnecessary harshness.

"It's obvious you don't care what I think," said Quentin, "and normally I could say the same about myself, but the truth is I don't like it when good people think ill of me. Actually, I don't like it when bad people think ill of me, either, but there's not much I can do about that without becoming one of them."

Sannazzaro smiled. It was better than a face-lift. "How good are you at telling the difference?"

"No better than anyone else," said Quentin. "I tend to trust people until they prove me wrong. I get fewer ulcers than the people who trust nobody."

"Not to mention saving yourself from a colostomy," said Sannazzaro. "Different generations seem to express stress through different body parts. Our parents got stomach disorders. Our generation seems to be more rectally oriented."

"Now there's a pretty thought."

"So you really thought you were being introduced to Mrs. Tyler?"

Quentin looked at the old lady and nodded.

"And your wife said she was Mrs. Tyler's granddaughter?"

"She took me to Mrs. Tyler's house and said it was her grandmother's."

"Where is your wife, Mr. Fears?" asked Sannazzaro.

Quentin chose his words carefully. "She left me under conditions that suggest our marriage wasn't quite as honest and openhearted as I thought it was."

"Well, then, you won't be surprised when I tell you that Mrs. Tyler has only one child, her happily married daughter Rowena, and she has only one child, a little girl named Roz. Ten or eleven years old by now."

"You know them?" asked Quentin.

"I have Mrs. Tyler's records. And my memory of our long conversations. She wasn't like this when she first came here. It was very sad to watch her slip away into this dreamy state after only a few months."

"Did you like her?" asked Quentin.

"Oh, yes. Not demanding, not complaining." Then Sannazzaro smiled wryly at her own words. "I suppose those are the virtues of the comatose, as well. No, what I valued about Mrs. Tyler was her grace and strength. I got the impression that she had seen the worst that life has to offer and still managed to find joy somewhere, hidden in the folds of despair."

"But then the despair won."

"I don't know about that. She's still alive. So I like to imagine that wherever she's wandering, she's not so much lost as simply contemplating the daisies she found in the midst of the wasteland."

" 'A host of golden daffodils.' " He quoted impulsively, almost before the thought came to mind. As if, talking with Sannazzaro, he had just opened a doorway into his mind and whatever he free-associated came tumbling out.

"Wordsworth," said Sannazzaro. At least she recognized the source. " 'I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vale and hill, when all at once I spied a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.' What a stupid poem, don't you think? Here I thought I had the only high school English teacher who made students memorize and recite bad Romantic poetry."

"You probably did. I just read things and some of them stick in my memory, kind of randomly."

"You mean you picked up Wordsworth voluntarily?"

"Until I got married I had a lot of time on my hands. For a while I tried to work my way through the entire Penguin library."

"What stopped you?"

"There's an awful lot of really dull stuff masquerading as English literature."

"I always think of books as being like people," said Sannazzaro. "Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them."

"The disadvantage with people," said Quentin, "is you can't put bookmarks in them and set them aside till you want them again."

Sannazzaro gave a hard, sharp bark of a laugh, then raised an eyebrow. "On the contrary," she said, "I've had people do that with me lots of times."

"Feeling a little dog-eared?"

"Aren't you?"

"At the moment," said Quentin, "I'm feeling well-read."

To his amazement, she blushed slightly and looked away. Somehow things had got too personal. He could see her put on her business face again. "Well, Mr. Fears—"

"Please call me Quentin. Like the prison in California."

"Minus the 'San'?"

"You've got my 'San,' " Quentin said. "Doesn't your name mean St. Nazareth?"

"Holy Man of Nazareth, I think. Mostly it means my mother and father. Hardworking people and they loved me but it was my brothers who were meant to go to college."

"You were supposed to marry and have babies?" asked Quentin.

"Or disappear. They welcome me home for holidays but nobody ever, ever asks me what I do or cares when I tell them anyway. My married sisters and my sisters-in-law, though, there's always plenty to ask them about. They're ranked according to the number of babies they've had or are about to have. They've got quite a competition going."

"Babies are good," said Quentin, perversely. He had already convinced Chief Bolt that he was politically correct; now was he trying to make Sannazzaro think he was a neanderthal? Was he simply too tired to care what he said?

No, that was a lie. He liked Sannazzaro and so he didn't want to be polite with her, he wanted to be honest and so he said what he believed.

"I know babies are good," said Sannazzaro, predictably irritated. "I didn't say they weren't."

"I didn't say you said they weren't," said Quentin. "I just thought about babies and how my wife has left me and I'm not going to be watching our babies grow up around me. I'm just feeling sorry for myself. My babbling has kept you here when you have baths to give. Sorry."

He started to get up, but to his surprise Sannazzaro waved him to sit down, and sat herself in the other guest chair, the overstuffed one at the foot of the bed. "We're not going to be able to keep to the regular bath schedule tonight anyway. As soon as I go out there, the attendants will feel I'm putting them under pressure and everything will get tense for them. The truth is they're all working overtime and they want to go home and in a few minutes I'm going to dismiss all but the one who's really supposed to be on shift tonight."

"Your night shift is only one?"

"Supposed to be four after the dinner rush is over and then two after everybody's tucked in. But I'm staying the night so we'll be all right. And I've got to admit I enjoy a couple of minutes of visiting with somebody who isn't afraid of me."

He wasn't sure that was true—she was an intimidating person. But not because she wanted to be, or tried to be. Rather she was so direct, so forthright, so clearly uninterested in making a good impression that it gave her the upper hand. Quentin liked this about her. It made him curious. "I've never heard of a nurse being in charge of a rest home. Usually isn't it a salesman type who can sucker people in?"

"This really is a good rest home, so our residents aren't suckers," said Sannazzaro. Before Quentin could protest his innocence, she went on. "But you're right, it used to be a salesman type. Then they caught him with his hands in the till and his fly open in some of the residents' rooms—I don't know which was worse in the owners' minds. Anyway, they needed a fully trained replacement immediately. I was already here as medical officer. So I've been acting superintendent since October of '94."

"Why don't they just make it official?" asked Quentin.

"Because I don't want the job and I keep turning it down."

"So why don't you quit running the place and go back to your nurse duties?"

"Because if I do they'll bring in another salesman type to run the place, and I'd hate going back to that nightmare."

"So you won't take the job, but you won't give it up," said Quentin.

She laughed. "It sounds just as stupid to me, but what can I do? They're paying me at the nurse level plus a bonus, which saves them money, and in the meantime I don't have some cost-cutting moron glad-handing the public and stealing from the patients. Except that I'm tired all the time and don't have a life, things are going great."

Again Quentin found himself speaking on impulse. "It's a good thing we both know that I'm depressed and recovering from a spectacularly failed marriage, or I'd offer to take you away from all this." Quentin wondered at his own words. Was this flirtatious conversation for its own sake? Or did he unconsciously mean something by it?

Fortunately, she took it as a joke rather than a come-on. "Just don't say anything about the Virgin Islands or I'll take you up on it and you'd be stuck with a cast-iron bitch who doesn't look all that good in a bikini."

"Now you've done it. Now I'm thinking of you in a bikini."

They laughed.

Quentin was relieved that it was just a flirtation between two tired people who knew nothing would come of it. But he hadn't had many ventures into the world of flirtation, and most of what he'd seen had been while waiting to meet partners in upscale bars where all the flirters were so drunk that it didn't take much for them to think each other clever. It kind of gave him a thrill to play at it with a sober person whom he liked. But it also made him feel guilty. Even though he knew Madeleine wasn't real, he still felt married and he was a faithful husband.

"You're thinking of your wife," said Sannazzaro.

"Yeah, well, I was thinking that I still feel married."

"I'm glad to hear it. I've known too many men who never felt quite married no matter how many wives they've been through. Their own and otherwise."

Remembering again where they were, Quentin looked at Mrs. Tyler's closed and silent face. "I wonder how Mrs. Tyler felt about her husband."

"Loved him," said Sannazzaro. "But he died young. She told me that she thought the death of their first child, a boy, was too hard on him. He lost heart. Like I said—when people truly despair, they don't live long."

"She seems awfully old to have her oldest grandchild be only ten."

"I think the little girl is eleven. But yes. Mrs. Tyler married late. Maybe that was part of her husband's despair. She was forty before she started having babies."

"What was the delay?"

"What is it ever? She married Mr. Tyler only six months after she met him. He was more than ten years younger than her. She always assumed that he'd outlive her, which was fine, she didn't want to be a widow."

"Bummer," said Quentin.

"And you meant to be a father," said Sannazzaro. "Nobody's life ever goes according to plan."

"So why do we keep on planning?"

She thought for a moment. "Because that's how we know who we are. By what we intend to be. By what we try to become."

"And fail."

"I don't say 'fail,' Mr. Fears. I say we aim and miss. But we still hit something."

"Ouch."

She smiled. But she had been serious, and he could see that his joke disappointed her.

"Sorry," he said. "I think what you said is right. I'm just kind of caught up in the target that I missed. I haven't even looked to see what I might have hit. Maybe the arrow hasn't even landed yet. And please call me Quentin."

"Minus the 'San.' "

"That's what I'll call you."

"Call me Sally," she said.

"Sally, may I call you?" he said. And there it was. He wasn't content for this conversation to amount to nothing.

She looked at him for a while before saying, "When you know what's happening with your marriage, I wouldn't mind a phone call now and then."

He smiled. He liked a woman who knew how to spell out the rules. He also liked it that she had the same rules he did.

She smiled back.

He got up to leave, and so did she. He was reaching for the door when he saw words appear on it.

DON'T GO

His hand hovered over the doorknob.

"Well?" asked Sannazzaro. Sally.

He looked at her. She didn't see the words. Too bad. It would have been nice if he could tell her what was really going on. But without the evidence of her own eyes, like Bolt had had, she would never believe him. And he didn't want her to think he was crazy. He wanted very much for her to like him because he needed a friend who was good and decent and lived in the real world and didn't charge him three hundred bucks an hour.

"Sally," he said. "I want to talk to Mrs. Tyler. Alone. I know she won't hear me, but it would mean a lot to me. I'm not going to hurt her. If you want affidavits about my character, call my lawyer, his number's on my card." He handed her one. "Or call my parents and they'll tell you I was always a good boy."

"Maybe I should call your neighbors," said Sally.

"They'll just tell you I'm a loner who keeps to himself." He grinned.

She shook her head. "Quentin, I don't know why I should trust you. You're such a smooth operator. You're not telling me the truth. And you came here with slime on your shoes."

Apparently she really didn't like Bolt. "The way Bolt acted here tonight, I've never seen him like that. If I'd known the way things stood between you, I never would have brought him. Everything I've told you is true but you're right, I haven't told you everything because I don't want you to think I'm crazy."

"So. Convince me you're not crazy."

"Sally, I saw Mrs. Tyler in a house in Mixinack a few days ago. She slept through breakfast but in the parlor she looked me in the eye and said, 'Find me.' That's why I'm here."

"This isn't helping."

"You can see why I didn't tell you, but it's the truth. Crazy things are happening but I know I'm not crazy because every now and then somebody else sees the same things I see. Earlier today I saw writing magically appear on a door in that house in Mixinack—and Bolt saw it too."

"Better not use Bolt as a witness of your sanity, Quentin."

"And when a limo driver dropped me and my wife off a few days ago, he saw lights on in the house and a servant waiting to meet the car, just as I did. Only the next day I found out that the power hadn't been on in that house ever since Mrs. Tyler came here. And the only footprints in the snow were the driver's and mine."

She shuddered. "This isn't funny, Mr. Fears," she said.

"You asked for the truth," said Quentin. "But when I tell you the truth, I stop being Quentin and become Mr. Fears again."

"I don't believe in ghost stories."

"That's good," said Quentin, "because my wife's not dead and neither is Mrs. Tyler."

Sally looked at him for a long moment, her expression shifting among conflicting emotions. Then, abruptly, she reached for the knob and drew the door open.

Bolt practically fell into the room. He laughed nervously as he recovered his balance. "I was just coming in."

"You were listening at the door," said Quentin.

"I thought it was funny," said Bolt, "you trying to convince her of some idea that doesn't fit into her narrow little nurseview of the universe."

Quentin wanted to deck him. "Of course she doesn't believe me. It isn't believable."

"So why did you tell her? You had her eating out of your hand."

Quentin felt unutterable contempt for Bolt. Where was the man he thought he knew back in Mixinack? Did he really think that the conversation between him and Sally was nothing but manipulation? "Let's get out of here," said Quentin.

"About damn time," said Bolt. He shot Sannazzaro a triumphant glance. Quentin took his arm and almost dragged him out of the room.

"What's the rush?" said Bolt. "You were sure taking your time before."

"For a while today I thought I liked you," said Quentin. "But I was wrong."

"Ah, the rest home witch has enchanted you, has she?"

Instead of jabbing an elbow into his mouth, Quentin strode on ahead.

"Mr. Fears! Quentin! Wait!"

He stopped and turned. Sally Sannazzaro had rushed into the hall from Mrs. Tyler's room.

"Quentin, she spoke! She told me to bring you back!"

Quentin turned in surprise to look at Bolt. Bolt looked angry, even ashamed. "She's lying," he whispered. "The old lady is brain dead. She's a vegetable."

"Bolt, I know that she's not, and so do you."

"She's dead," muttered Bolt. And he didn't come with Quentin back up the corridor.

Quentin paused in the doorway to meet Sally's gaze. "I wasn't lying, Sally," he said.

"I trust Mrs. Tyler as a judge of character," she answered softly. "Apparently you have the gift of bringing people back from the dead."

"Wouldn't that be nice."

"I'll leave you alone with her, but don't let Bolt in here, Quentin."

"I won't."

Then he went inside and closed the door behind him. Mrs. Tyler turned her head and looked at him. "Thank you for coming," she whispered.