The tumultuous first days after the accident had gone by in a blur. Mary Beth and Parr had settled into a routine of sorts. Taking turns with room visits on different floors, overnight stays, getting updates from doctors when either of them could catch one, and practical advice from the busy nurses—by now, Mary Beth was numb.

She had slept in chairs and relied on midnight meals of stale peanut-butter crackers from vending machines when she ate at all, and helped to fill out countless forms for both Bobby Joe and Alma, giving the same information over and over as they moved from one stage of care to another. And here we go again, she thought. One more form.

“So you are Mary Beth Caine, with an e on the end, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And your relationship to the family is . . . ?” The hospital social worker paused and looked up, his pen still on the top sheet of paper on his clipboard.

“I’m Bobby Joe’s—fiancée.” Mary Beth stumbled over the word. But it was still a fact. “Not quite a relative.”

Needing something to do, she’d asked his doctors if she could speak to someone who’d help plan home care for him and his mother when the time came, and they’d recommended Ned Quinton. Parr hadn’t been able to make the hastily scheduled conference. Mary Beth knew why the social worker asked her the question: her name appeared in both files as a contact.

“But still part of the family.” Quinton’s kind smile eased her nervous tension.

“Someday, yes,” she said in a voice that lacked confidence. “We announced our engagement several weeks ago.”

“I see. I’m so sorry that this happened.”

The sympathetic comment was sincere enough. Ned Quinton didn’t know the family. The hospital was a big one, miles away from Iminga.

“Though Mr. Weston is improving, according to his doctors,” he added.

“Yes.” She swallowed hard, trying to compose herself.

Mary Beth didn’t share the social worker’s professional optimism, not after the time she’d spent at Bobby Joe’s bedside. Just to be with him and take care of the little things, like making sure the blanket didn’t slip off the frame over the cast on his shattered leg. She talked to him sometimes. The neurologist had told her that he could hear, even if he couldn’t respond.

Bobby Joe’s head injury had required round-the-clock care in the days right after the accident, and the trauma specialist had thought it best to put him under deep sedation for a while, administering medication that kept his concussed brain from swelling.

He was lucid at times. Now and again he managed to say he was in pain and where it hurt. He realized he was in a hospital. But not why.

Yesterday morning he had squeezed her hand and mumbled her name before he drifted off again.