Peppy tapped after me while I struggled into a bra and a blouse. I let her out the back door before trying to make my breakfast. I had planned to go to the store this morning. No bread. No fruit, not even an old apple. No yogurt. A little milk that smelled as if it should have been drunk yesterday. I poured it down the sink, and made myself a cup of stove-top espresso, which I drank out on the back porch, hugging my arms against the thin gray air, eating some rye crackers to keep my stomach company.

I lounged around most of the day, calling clients, doing what I could at home from my laptop, finally venturing out in the late afternoon to get some food. I had hoped to get down to Bertha Palmer for basketball, but I had to call the school to cancel. Friday, to my annoyance, I still had enough anesthesia in me that I continued to be too groggy to do much, but Saturday I woke early. The thought of lounging around the house for one more day made me feel like nails on a blackboard.

Morrell was still asleep. I finished dressing, including putting on a sling that the hospital had given me with my discharge papers, then scribbled a note that I propped on Morrell’s laptop.

When I got downstairs, Mr. Contreras was glad to see me, but not happy when I announced I was going out for a while with Peppy. Even though she’s so well trained she’ll heel without straining on her leash, he thought I should spend the weekend in bed.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid, but I’ll go nuts if I lie around the house. I’ve already spent almost three days in bed—way beyond my lounging limit.”

“Yeah, you never yet listened to nothing I had to say, why should you start today? Whatcha gonna do when you’re out on the Tollway and that shoulder of yours won’t let you turn the steering wheel fast enough to get out of the way of some crackpot?”

I put my good arm around his shoulders. “I’m not going on the Tollway. Just down to the University of Chicago, okay? I won’t go over forty-five, and I’ll stay in the right lane all the way there and back.”

He was only mildly mollified by my sharing my plans, but he knew I was going to go whether he grumped or not; he muttered that he’d walk Mitch and slammed his door on me.