I barely felt his fingers as he took care of the hooks. “Thanks,” I said, and scurried back into the bathroom. When my mission was accomplished, I gathered up my discarded clothes and brought them out with me, shoving my shoes ahead of me with my foot. I’d kept my socks on. It was just too cold to take them off.

Tolliver had turned down my sheets and blankets for me, and propped up the pillows. My book was on the bedside table; but my bad arm would be toward that side. I hadn’t thought about that when I’d picked the usual bed.

He held the covers up while I maneuvered myself into bed. Then he covered me up. Oh, even on this lumpy old bed, being on my back felt divine.

“I’m all tucked in,” I said, already feeling sleepier. “Gonna read me a story?”

“Read your own damn story,” Tolliver said, but he was smiling, and he bent over to give me a kiss. “You’ve been a real trouper today, Harper. I’m proud of you.”

I couldn’t see what I’d done that day that had been so outstanding. I said so. “It’s just been another day,” I said, my eyelids drifting shut.

He laughed, but if he said anything in response, I missed it.

When I woke up, it was daylight. I hadn’t even had to get up to use the bathroom during the night. Tolliver was still asleep in the bed to my left. There weren’t any curtains up over the big windows in the cabin—maybe they’d been taken down for the winter, or maybe the family just dispensed with them out here—and I could see trees outside. I turned my head and looked over the hump that was Tolliver to peer out the glass doors onto the big porch outside. Was it a porch, or a balcony? It was on the second floor of the structure…. I decided it was a porch, and I could see that it was no weather to stand outside on it. The sky was clear and beautiful, and the wind was blowing; it looked cold, somehow. If the weatherman had been correct, this would be the high point of the day.