"Helen thought so. Her death makes her anauthority on the subject."

"What do you propose to do about it?"

"I'd like to fly to Iffinois tonight and talk toHelen's father. But I can't afford to do it on my own hook."

"You could phone him."

"I could. My sense of the situation is that itwould do more harm than good. He may be a tough nut to crack."

Godwin said after a minute's thought: "I mightconsider backing you."

"You're a generous man."

"A curious one," he said."Remember I've been living with this case for over ten years. I'd give agood deal to see it ended."

"Let me talk to Alex first, and askhim how he feels about laying out more money."

Godwin inclined his head and remainedbowing as he stood up. He wasn't bowing to me. It was more of a general andhabitual bow, as if he could feel the weight of the stars and was asking theirpermission to take part of the weight on human shoulders.

"I'll get him out of there. He'sstayed long enough."

Godwin disappeared down the hallway. A fewminutes later Alex came back alone. He walked like a man in a tunnelunderground, but his face was more serene than I'd ever seen it.

He paused in the doorway. "Dr. Godwin said youwere here."

"I'm surprised to see you."

Hurt and embarrassment flickered acrossthe upper part of his face. He brushed at it impatiently with his fingers. Thenhe stepped into the office, shutting the door behind him and leaning on it.

"I made a fool of myself today. I tried tochicken out."

"It takes guts to admit it."

"Don't gloss it over," he saidsharply. "I was really lousy. It's funny, when Dad gets upset it has apeculiar effect on me. It's like sympathetic vibrations: he goes to pieces, Igo to pieces. Not that I'm blaming him."

"I'm blaming him."

"Please don't. You have no rightto." His eyebrows knitted. "The company's talking about bringing incomputers to handle most of the work in the office. Dad's afraid he can'tadjust, and I guess it makes him afraid of things in general."

"You've been doing somethinking."

"I had to. You started me off withwhat you said about annulling myself. I felt that way when I went home withDad—as though I wasn't a man any more." He pushed himself clear of thedoor and balanced himself on his feet, his arms swinging slightly at his sides."It's really amazing, you know? You really can make a decision insideyourself. You can decide to be one thing or the other."

The only trouble was that you had to makethe decision every hour on the hour. But he would have to find that out forhimself.

"How is your wife?" I said.

"She actually seemed glad to see me. Have youtalked to her?"

"Dr. Godwin wouldn't let me."

"He wouldn't let me, either, till Ipromised not to ask her any questions. I didn't, but the subject of therevolver came up. She'd heard two of the aides talking about some newspaperstory—"

"It's in the local paper What did shehave to say about the gun?"

"It isn't hers. Somebody must havehidden it under her mattress. She asked me to describe it, and she said itsounded like her Aunt Alice's revolver. Her aunt used to keep it on her bedsidetable at night. Dolly was sort of fascinated by it when she was a littlegirl." He breathed deeply. "Apparently she saw her aunt threaten herfather with it. I didn't want her to go into all that stuff but I couldn'tprevent her. She calmed down again after a while."

"At least she's stopped blaming herself for HelenHaggerty's death."

"She hasn't, though. She still says it was herfault. Everything's her fault."

"In what way?"

"She didn't go into it. I didn't want herto."

"You mean Dr. Godwin didn't want you to."

"That's right. He's calling the shots. I guess heknows more about her than I ever will."

"I take it you're going on with yourmarriage?" I said.

"We have to. I realized that today.People can't walk out on each other when they're in this kind of trouble. Ithink maybe Dolly realizes it, too. She didn't turn her back on me oranything."

"What else did you talk about?"

"Nothing important. The otherpatients, mostly. There's one old lady with a broken hip who doesn't want tostay in bed. Dolly's been sort of looking after her." It seemed importantto him. "She can't be so very sick herself." It was an impliedquestion.

"You'll have to take that up with thedoctor."

"He isn't saying much. He wants togive her some psychological tests tomorrow. I told him to go ahead."

© Alexander Sviyash, 2009