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"It’s Becky Myers and Dr Blus you back to Union County?" He leans over to shake the doctor’s hand, and when there’s no response, frowns and looks at me with concern

"Dr Blum isI don’t kno to put thisdisabled"

The vet looks hi a la"

"No one knohat’s wrong with hiht be the shock of his wife’s death, a stroke, or possibly catatonia Remember? We heard about her accident"

I take up the narrative a second ti the history and what the doctors proposed "The neurothey could do, except electroshock treatuarantee with that"

"So why’d you co deep into Dr Blum’s pale eyes "A daain

"Well, he told me to"

"That doesn’t sound catatonic"

"It wasn’t a conversation, just one wordno, three words in allAfter his brother disowned him We were out of money and owed three months’ back rent Since he couldn’t take care of hi my hair out about a probable eviction when he opened his inia’ "

"That’s all he’s said in a year?" Patience moves to the sink to pump water

"Yes That’s about ituntil yesterday when he spoke again After the lawyer told us that his house had been soldere sitting on Main Street in his Pontiac, broke with nowhere to go I’ll be honest, I was crying when Dr Blum spoke for the second tiht he meant to be patient and have faith, then I realized he meant Patience, the midwife

"We drove up to your old house on Wild Rose Road, hoping to find shelter and found you were gone, but ca lost Mr Maddock was the one who told us you’d moved to the other side of the et upwe could stay there for a while, take care of the empty house for you" I trail off, suddenly e I’m used to

"Of courseof course," Patience reassures "You’d be doing us a favor We thought of selling the place, but no one can afford to buy it nowexcept the very rich, who are already hovering like vultures, taking advantage of the foreclosures and bottoets pink and her voice crackles Hester reaches over to pat her ar of a leftist, sympathetic to the poor and suspicious of the rich

"There’ve been hundreds of drifters and hoh, but we’ve been reluctant to just let a stranger les and a three-legged ht even have sos and linens You could stay here with us for the night, and in the ives his wife a kiss on her neck