“Albert,” Susan said, trying not to sound too alarmed.

For a long, awkward moment at the door, Albert seemed not to recognize them. “You’re back in town,” he said finally, and he gestured them in. He moved a pillow to make room among the songbooks and music catalogs on the couch. Under the pillow, the floral blanket covering the upholstery was torn.

“Guess that’s in disrepair,” he said, and he sat on a folding chair at a card table stacked with opened and unopened mail. Susan tucked her skirt under her knees and sat on the edge of the easy chair.

“I fell last week,” Albert said, his hand on the thick white padding of the brace. “I was on the phone long distance and I started talking—saying words that aren’t words. Words I was making up. And then I fell backward and lit on my shoulder.” He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled the fabric off his shoulder, revealing a bruise the color of a black plum from his collarbone halfway down his left arm.

Susan flinched at the sight of the bruised skin, and regretted it. “Oh, Albert,” she said.

“Some people were here, I had some people visiting,” Albert said. “I don’t remember what happened, but they got me to the hospital.”

“Do you need anything now?” She wished they had brought something useful—a loaf of bread, a quart of milk—wished Clay were acting even a little sympathetic. The accident was going to make their request difficult. Albert was not what he had been.

“I still cook up big soups like when my brother was alive, so I’ve got stuff in the freezer,” he said. He spoke to Clay, who flipped through a book of bluegrass songs.

Clay closed the book in his lap. “Can you play guitar still?”

“I haven’t, but I can play,” Albert said, fingering chords in the air with his left hand. “If I could rest this elbow on something. Are we supposed to be playing somewhere?”

“I don’t think so, not until you’re healed up,” Clay said. “The band needs you.”

“Well,” Albert said. “Yes, I have milk and everything.” He waved a wrinkled hand with flat, calloused fingers in Susan’s direction. “When my friends came by they brought me milk.”

Susan tried to think who the friends would be. “The friends who took you to the hospital?”

Albert looked at her. “I was on the phone when I fell, I was alone.”

Susan glanced at Clay. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you said friends were visiting.”

He stood, frowning, and rummaged through the papers on the card table. “Well, people were here,” he said. “I wasn’t stuck on my back like a turtle all night.” He hobbled, bent over in his brace, into a back room.