“We thought it might help her. We’d go only if the school disowns her, which they’re going to do if she’s not speaking by the time the semester starts. It’s bad, Mother. Things are not getting any better.”

His mother is quiet for a moment. “I remember when your father took you to Africa,” she says.

“Yes, I showed her the slides.”

“Nicholas was about Isabelle’s age then, wasn’t he?”

“About,” Wilson says.

“I imagine it’s a very different place now.”

“Yes.” Wilson looks at the paper before him; it is filled entirely with circles. Over the intercom, a voice announces that Mrs. Carter is on line two, and Wilson is puzzled for a moment, since Mrs. Carter is on line one, until he realizes the voice means Ruth. “Tell her I’ll call her right back,” he says into the intercom. “Mother,” he says. “I have a few tax forms I need you to sign. I was going to fax them to Branwell and have him bring them over, but I guess I’ll just bring them when we come up.”

“Good. Do call before that,” she says.

“I will, and I’m going to call Branwell about another horsewoman—”

“Wilson—”

“And I don’t want any arguments.”

He hears his mother sigh.

“Good-bye, Mother,” he says.

He hangs up with his finger, a pause between Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Carter, the younger of whom he has been putting off calling ever since he heard from the vet. With another round of treatment, the vet has said Maggie’s chances are about twenty percent. One in five, Wilson thinks. If there were a one-in-five chance that he’d, let’s say, be killed, he’d consider those odds pretty good, and he’d be afraid. So shouldn’t he be as hopeful that Maggie will live as he would be frightened if he had a one-in-five chance of being killed? Still, he’s not sure he wants to tell Ruth about Maggie—not until the dog’s been back to the vet anyway. There is, after all, a twenty percent chance she’ll be okay, so shouldn’t he spare Ruth the worry? He can hear his wife even now, blaming herself for insisting that they pick up Maggie a day early, though that has nothing to do with it at all—typical Ruth, to blame herself for everything. And Isabelle—if she knew Maggie is this sick—it’s nothing Wilson will even consider! There is something about admitting a thing that makes it real, and Wilson doesn’t want this illness to be real; if the treatment works, then no one will ever have to know.

“Hi,” he says, when finally he’s dialed and Ruth has answered.

“Did you know about the ants?”

“What?”

“The ants. Did you know about the ants?”

“What ants? What are you talking about?”