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  Joseph Duggan's face appeared in her mind's eye, and it brought an inexplicable shaft of longing that momentarily overrode her lingering depression over Meredith Emery.

  I wonder if he ever thinks of me. I wonder how he's getting along with his dim vague Perkins hostess. I wonder if, when she needs him, he answers her beck and call, maybe makes love to her slowly, expertly, then cradles her head against his chest and lets her talk it out while lying in his arms.

  Winn put on her sweats and went for a run that nearly dropped her in her tracks, for she'd worked out so strenuously at noon and had been under so much stress all day she was virtually exhausted.

  Paul never came. He called at nine-thirty and apologized, and said Arv had stayed later than expected and would Winnie like to talk about it now over the phone?

  No, Winn definitely would not like to talk about it over the phone. And anyway, her run, her weariness and the five-hour lag time between the two phone calls had helped her overcome the pressing need she'd carried home from the hospital.

  * * *

  But it was back afresh the following day and each day that week as she worked with Merry during her two scheduled therapy sessions. The child was bright, and it was easy to tell she had been very happy before the accident. She spoke of things like ballet class, gymnastics and ten-speed bikes, all of which she'd have to forgo for a long time. One day she said, "Next summer we're going to go to Disneyland." But the following day when Winn checked the child's chart, she read that Merry had had a very bad night. At 2:00 A.M. her breathing had been interrupted, and oxygen had had to be brought in.

  Standing with the clipboard braced against her stomach, Winn felt suddenly nauseous. She reread the charted information, and a premonition lifted the fine hairs along her back.

  She's going to die.

  That night when she called Paul, she didn't ask, she told him she was coming right over and needed to talk to him. But when she explained about Merry, he quietly encouraged her not to bring her troubles home from work. It's best if you leave the patients at the hospital, darling, he said. Yet when she walked into the house, she'd once again stolen him away from Rita. Winn closed her eyes and huddled against Paul's chest, cinching her arms around his back, wondering if he was moved at all by human plight. Or was he threatened by it? Was that why he could not let it infiltrate his very analytical mind? It could not be data processed. It could not be broken apart and analyzed on a green screen. Thus, perhaps it was beyond his concern.

  He asked her if she'd stay that night, but she declined, dreaming up an excuse about it being somebody's birthday at work tomorrow and how she'd baked a cake that still needed frosting before she went to bed tonight.

  Back at home she slumped onto the foot of her bed and fell back, supine, staring at the ceiling. She understood fully for the first time why every instructor she'd ever had in her college medicine courses had adamantly badgered their students about the pitfalls of becoming emotionally involved with their patients.

  Not only will it be painful to you, should they die, but if they don't, you must make sure they never grow dependent upon you. The mark of a good therapist is knowing when to withdraw his or her support and make the patient stand alone.

  Her head hurt. Her neck ached. She wished she were at work so she could stretch out on a table and have one of the other therapists give her a massage. She wished she had said yes to Paul's invitation to spend the night. But she'd felt oddly reluctant to sleep beside him after his failure to understand her need for a sympathetic ear and an understanding heart.

  The name "Silicon Chip" came back to niggle.

  Had Joseph Duggan been right? Was that all Paul Hildebrandt had for feelings-silicon chips?

  She wondered, were she to call Joseph, and tell him she needed him, what would his response be? She somehow sensed he'd have the ready store of human compassion her fiance seemed to lack.

  She rolled to her side and curled up in a ball, blanking out the inviting idea of turning to Jo-Jo Duggan.

  * * *

  The next day Merry's chart showed she'd had another difficult night, and during her hydrotherapy session she had another even worse attack. When the child was returned to her room, Winn sought out Dr. Eldrid Childs, Merry's attending physician. She found him on the fourth floor, making rounds.

  "It's about Meredith Emery, doctor," she explained.

  "You're her therapist, aren't you?" The intelligent eves met hers directly.

  Winn nodded, then asked softly, "She's going to die, isn't she?"

  He studied her silently, tapped the palm of one hand with the fingers of his other, then took her arm and walked her idly along the hall. "Yes, it looks that way. This morning it was more than a lung that failed. It was her kidneys." So often with explosion victims it was not the burns that got them but the resultant damage to vital organs that didn't always show up immediately.

  Winn's eyes slid shut, and she struggled to keep from crying. Next summer we're going to Disneyland . She gulped at the lump in her throat, but it could not be swallowed away.

  "You're involved in this one, huh?"

  She nodded, keeping her eyes tightly closed. They were no longer walking.

  "Sometimes we're wrong, Gardner. Sometimes they fool us."

  She opened her eyes. He seemed to be swimming in a white lake of milk. "Yeah…" she grunted thickly. "Yeah, sure."

  * * *

  When her shift ended at 3:00 P.M., she faced her empty town house with the heaviest heart she'd ever borne. The child's eyes seemed to be staring at her from the bouquet of milkweed pods given her in a different time by another patient, but one who'd recovered.

  She called Sandy 's house, knowing perfectly well her friend was still at work, but thinking just by chance, if she'd stayed home today, the two of them could have a game of racket ball.

  God, she needed to pound something, beat something, lash out and get even!

  The house haunted. Outside it was spring, the season of renewed life, with robins nesting, angleworms squiggling and ants building doughnuts of sand. May was here. Trees were bursting with bloom.

  Winn needed to be out there where the air was ripe with the promise of summer. She got in the car and drove. Unconsciously. Not caring where she went or whether she held up impatient drivers behind her. She was in an insulated bubble where hurt was temporarily held in abeyance.

  She left Brooklyn Park behind and headed into the farm country north of the suburb, where farmers were planting their vast potato fields, and children were riding their bicycles in the driveways in the balmy late afternoon. She turned west off Douglas Drive and headed toward the old-fashioned water tower that lifted into the skyline ahead. Several minutes later she entered the quaint town of Osseo -population 2,906-by one of its lesser-used streets. Winn let her nose lead her, up one avenue and down another, searching for some sign she'd recognize, though she didn't know where it was or even if the business had a sign.

  She found it on Second Avenue, two blocks off the main street of town, beside a gravel alley with grass beginning to sprout up its middle. It was a square brick building with old-fashioned double wood doors beside a windowless service door, and the sign said Duggan's Body Shop.

  She stepped inside and found herself in a reception area of sorts, if it could be elevated to such a title. There was a desk made of oak, far older than his Haynes, and a nondescript pair of wooden chairs, a file cabinet, telephone and refrigerator, also very ancient, with rounded instead of squared corners. On the far side of the room an open doorway led to the shop beyond, and from it came the screel of an electric sander upon metal and the sound of someone whistling along as a country station played a Waylon Jennings song.

  She stepped to the open doorway. The body shop had a cavernous ceiling, grease-stained concrete floors and a single line of windows up eight feet off the floor, plus another matching row at eye level across the dated double doors.

  A man was leaning over at the waist, running the sander al
ong the flank of an orangy-colored fender on a navy blue car. Two others were bending over another hoodless car, peering at its engine. Above them dangled a set of enormous chains with hooks at the ends, attached to the arm of a monstrosity that looked as if it might drop on their heads at any moment. The man on the left lifted his head, spied Winn and came over immediately, wiping his hands on a stained blue rag.

  "Hi." His smile was Joseph's, but his eyes weren't nearly as pretty. "What can I do for you?" The rear end of the man she thought was Joseph was still protruding from the dismantled car.

  "Is Joseph here?"

  "Sure." He turned and bellowed over his shoulder. "Hey, Jo-Jo, somebody to see ya."

  But Waylon was singing louder than Joseph's brother, and the sander was still whining. Brother Duggan crossed toward the bending figure in the washed-out blue jeans and called again, "Hey, Jo-Jo, there's a lady here to see you."

  Joseph straightened halfway and looked over his shoulder. Winn's heart seemed to swell and thud while an awful constriction squeezed her chest. He straightened the remainder of the way very, very slowly, reaching blindly for a shop rag without taking his eyes from her. As he crossed the greasy floor, his smile grew broader with each step. Three feet before her, he stopped, wiping his hands. "Well, hello."

  She had forgotten the magnetism of his incredible smile. "Hello, Joseph." Her heart was hammering so wildly it was difficult to speak in her customary tone of voice.

  "What brings you to the thriving metropolis of Osseo?"

  "Am I interrupting something important?"

  "No. We're just jerking an engine. One's just like all the rest. It can wait." He shrugged and tossed the shop rag aside. He was dressed in filthy blue jeans and a soiled blue chambray shirt, a pair of boots that might have been those she'd seen in his living room. His hands were black and the nails lined with grease. He looked every bit as inviting as he had in his tux and ruffles.

  "I probably should have called first, but I didn't really plan to stop here. I was just out driving and…" She grew terribly self-conscious and gestured vaguely with one hand.

  He glanced toward the windows in the double doors. "You got car troubles or something?"

  "No. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought maybe you could play a game of racket ball… or go out for a cup of coffee or… or something," she finished lamely.

  He reached for her elbow, glanced at his dirty hand and thought better of it. With a jerk of his head he ordered her to follow. "Hey, John, tell Tommy to turn that sander off. There's somebody I want you to meet."

  When she hesitated, Joseph turned, held out a hand as if to take her elbow, but didn't. His brothers came forward, and she saw again the sharp resemblance to Joseph in Tommy's smile. It was there in John's, too, that same contagiousness. "This is the lady I told you about, the one I walked down the aisle with, Winn Gardner." Jo-Jo smiled at her while going on, "And these are my kid brothers, Tommy and John."

  She extended her hand, realized too late it was the wrong thing to do, but kept it where it was while Tommy glanced at it, said, "Hi, Winn" and finally with a crooked smile grasped hers in his greasy hold before John did likewise.

  "Hey, Jo-Jo, she's all right," Tommy approved.

  "Damn right she's all right. But wipe the leer off your face, brother. She's spoken for, as I also told you." Without pause he informed them, "I'm gonna knock off for the day, but you two get that cherry picker on this engine and get 'er hoisted up, then check to find out if those kingpins and bushing are in. If they've got 'em, leave a note on the kitchen table so I can pick 'em up in the morning. I might be late." Then he turned to Winn and said, "Let's go."

  It had taken him less than three minutes to give the remainder of the day to her.

  Outside he said, "Well, this is a surprise."

  "For me, too."

  "You and old Hildegard have a fight or something?"

  "No, not a fight." She glanced at him askance. "But something."

  He glanced at her car, parked at the curb. "I walk to work, since it's only a few blocks. Do you mind driving so we can stop by the house and I can wash up and get my sweats and racket?"

  "Get in."

  He craned around to check his backside, then grinned at her across the hood of the car. "My front side usually gets dirtier than my back, so I shouldn't get your car seat dirty."

  They had just climbed in and slammed their doors when a rotund man came walking down the sidewalk, raised a hand and called, "Hey, Joey!"

  Joseph turned, then smiled and hooked an armpit over the window ledge. "Hiya, pa, what's up?"

  From her side of the car Winn saw the man bend down, then in the window appeared a smiling face beneath a cap advertising "John Deere." Into Joseph's lap he tossed a knotted plastic bag.

  "Your mother says the rhubarb is ripe and sent me over to bring you some. And who's this pretty little thing?" His face was merry as he smiled at Winn, and she understood from whom Joseph inherited his charm.

  Joseph awarded her a proud smile, informing his father, "This is Winn Gardner, the lady I met at Mick's wedding. Remember I told you about her?"

  "Oh, she's the one!" Mr. Duggan doffed his cap. "Well, nice to meet you, Winn. I'm Joey's dad." He thrust his hand across the front seat and shook hers.

  "Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Duggan."

  "You takin' off for the day?" he asked Joseph.

  "Yeah, but the boys are inside."

  "Guess I'll go in and say hello and tell 'em ma sent the rhubarb."

  When he was gone, Winn's eyes dropped to the bag of pink and green fruit, then lifted to Joseph's face. He smiled and hefted the bag. "Ma thinks we don't eat right since we moved out, and she keeps sending over our favorites."

  "They live close to you?"

  "Yeah, right here in town. Pa works at the hardware store, ma raises gardens and thinks she's still got to baby her boys." But he chuckled good-naturedly and for a moment Winn envied him his very ordinary, but obviously caring family. There were more questions she wanted to ask about them, but while she drove, Jo-Jo changed the subject. She felt his eyes on her as he commented, "I never thought I'd see you again. At least, not one on one."

  "I've had one of those days we'd all like to forget, and I needed something to take my mind off it. I tried calling Sandy, but she's still at work, and Paul was too, and my mother." She clutched the steering wheel and refrained from turning to look at him. "I'm probably out of line, turning to you, but I was just driving and there was Osseo in front of me, and I thought of you and wanted… to… well…" Words finally failed and, anyway, explanations seemed suddenly phony.

  "I'm glad," he said quietly, and pointed to a white house with red shingles and trim. "That's it." She'd never seen it in daylight before. It was quaint and farmlike, and very much a grandma's house.

  Inside, it was just as she remembered, except the kitchen stove had been cursorily cleaned, and the Dutch oven was nowhere in sight. The ivy hung in the west window above the kitchen sink, and the little red plastic clock read three-fifty-five. There was a bag of Taystee bread on the kitchen counter and a duster of green grapes in the middle of the porcelain-topped table, not even in a bowl, just lying there with half their stems denuded.

  The room was ugly. Homey. She loved it. From the red dotted Swiss curtains that had probably been hanging limply since years before his grandmother died, to the worn-off spots in the linoleum where she had undoubtedly stood while preparing hundreds of meals, Winn loved it all.

  Jo-Jo uncapped a jar and took up a handful of something that looked like cold cream and began rubbing it into his hands. He turned on the kitchen faucet and scrubbed first his knuckles, then his nails with a small orange brush. She stood behind him, watching his blue shirt stretch tightly over his shoulders as he worked over the old-style double-width sink that had no divider, but a drain board off to one side.

  He leaned down, opened a cabinet door and retrieved a square yellow plastic dishpan, then began filling it with water.<
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  Glancing over his shoulder, he invited, "Listen, if you'd rather wait in the living room, make yourself at home. I'm gonna wash up here quick and get rid of most of the grease smell, anyway."

  He turned to face the window while one-handedly unbuttoning the dirty blue shirt. He stripped it off and flung it across the cabinet top. Picking up a bar of soap, he bent forward and began scrubbing his face, neck, arms, armpits and stomach. He went at it as if in a great hurry and wasted no time being gentle with his own hide.

  She stood in the archway leading to the living room, watching. When he leaned over the dishpan, the white elastic of his shorts peeped from beneath the waistband of his blue jeans. She caught a glimpse of hair under his arms and watched in fascination as the curls at the back of his neck grew wet and changed to a darker color. He turned on the water, cupped his hands and clapped them to his face about five times, snorting into the water to keep it from getting up his nostrils. It was like watching a dog charge out of a river and shake himself. Water flew everywhere, up onto the red curtains, across the faded gray linoleum lining the top of the cabinets and onto his dirty shirt there.

  He straightened, groped beside his right hip for a towel that was strung through one of the drawer pulls and stood erect while beginning to dry his face.