He came. I was surprised he came, but he did. It was the end of the workday, and he had clearly had a good one downtown—he smelled of clean sweat, and he was smiling when he walked in. “What’s this?” he said, laughing. “You sure you happy to see me?”

Mama smiled and nodded. She had asked Lenore to make a cake. She placed the cake in the middle of her examination room table and led him there. She took her place on the small wooden seat.

“Now,” Mama said as she spread her skirts out about her, “how are you, Mr. Ben?”

He looked taken aback, but he answered. “Fine, Miss Doctor, just fine,” he replied. “Figure I may as well pass the time with you ladies, and now that I’ve got such a warm welcome, you’ll be hard pressed to get me to leave.” He laughed again.

Mama laughed, too. They talked for a bit more. Mama reached over to cut Ben Daisy a slice of cake, and when he caught that, he smiled, a little meaner. She placed the slice in a square of cloth, put it in the palm of his hand. He hunched over to eat it, looking at her sideways.

I sat on a stool in the corner. Mama had told me beforehand to only begin when she gave me the signal. At last, Mama lifted one finger, and I picked up my pen.

“I wish to talk to you a bit about Daisy.”

I watched his shoulders slump forward, ever so slightly, and then back upright, as if he had remembered something. “So that’s what you want,” he said.

“You miss her,” Mama said.

It was quiet for a bit. But then Ben Daisy trusted himself enough to say “She was a fine gal. I miss her something terrible.”

“What if I could give you something,” Mama said. “Something to help with the pain.”

“I’ve already got that down at Culver’s.” Ben Daisy laughed sadly.

“But Culver’s whiskey doesn’t help you,” Mama said.

“It’ll do what it’ll do.”

“But it makes you listless and miss your work. It makes you quarrel with your sister.”

Ben Daisy was quiet. Then he said, “What does Hannah want from me?”

“Nothing,” Mama said.

“That’s right. It’s all nothing.” Ben Daisy lifted his head off the back of the chair and put his hands on the arms, ready to push himself off the big leather seat and out our door.

That’s when Mama said, “You wouldn’t want Daisy, if she were here, to know you like this, though, would you? If she were able to see you. Are you the man she’d wish you to be in freedom?”

Ben Daisy lowered himself back into the chair. “So, what are you proposing?”

Mama stood up and told me to fetch the solution. She measured some out, very carefully, into a smaller vial and handed it to him.

“You take this,” she said. “One swallow, and one swallow only each night. It’s night, isn’t it, that the pain’s the worst?”