The other times he’d taken it, Ben Daisy had only grimaced at the taste—“Golly, Doctor, you can’t cut this with nothing?” This time, he truly gagged. His knees rose up to his chest and he coughed, and Mama stepped back, surprised, then called for water.

She poured it in a slow trickle in his mouth until he was swallowing good and steady, and then she let him go. He slumped back in the chair, breathing heavily. Another cough. A third. He swallowed. And then he vomited something green and awful-smelling, all down the front of his shirt.

I jumped forward, Lenore cursed—“Oh damn”—and Mama stepped back again.

“Get it off,” she said to Lenore. She grabbed one sleeve. “We’ve got to get it off.”

Between the two of them, they managed to get the shirt over his head.

Ben Daisy lay in the chair bare-chested, his belly soft in his breeches, his eyes still closed, his breath in shuffles. Then his eyes flickered open, and he slowly sat up straight.

“You all right?” Lenore asked.

He put his hands on his knees, shook his head gently.

“Sit still, sit still,” Lenore insisted. But Ben Daisy stood up, creaking, and made his way toward the door. By now it was dark; the sun was gone, and the fireflies of Kings County were out.

At the door, he looked out over the fields and watched the lights scatter across the long grass, as if everything was new to him. Then he gave a deep sigh, like the sound the water makes when the ocean turns over. And he lurched out into the night, still bare-chested.

“Well,” Mama said. “Well,” she half laughed. She was nervous.

“Should I run after him?” Lenore asked.

“No,” Mama said. “I am sure he will be fine.” But she did not look certain.

The next evening, just as Lenore was to leave for the day, the office door swung open and Ben Daisy stood in the frame.

“What did you give me?” he said.

“Why?” Mama asked. She snapped her fingers for my attention, and then pointed to the ledger book. I reached for a pen to transcribe their conversation.

“All day long,” he said. “All day long, it’s felt like this.”

“Like what?”

“I hear it lapping at my ear, you know. I hear it crashing.”

“Sit down,” Mama said, guiding him to the leather chair. “Tell me what you mean.”

“I hear it, in my ear. Lapping, lapping. It’s been lapping all damn day, Doctor.”

“Were you able to work?”

“I had to stop a turn and box my own ears, I did. Nothing came out.”

“Lie back,” Mama said. “Let me see.”

She snapped her fingers again, and I put down the record book, took one of the slim white candles she used for close examination, and lit its wick in the fire. I placed it in the small glass lantern and came and stood at Mama’s side.