“Don’t forget the ice,” she said, nodding her agreement.

Joe got his mother settled up on the second floor. He’d had a stairlift installed a few months ago, with a seat built into it, so he didn’t have to help her up. Once upstairs, he assisted her into the bathroom, discreetly slipping into the hall while she did her business. Then he helped her to her bedroom. She got comfortable in a faded, fraying lounge chair, and he made sure she had something to drink—bottled water, as well as her scotch and some ice—and her favorite snacks, including a cardboard tube of Pringles and some seedless grapes. He set her phone on the table next to her and connected it to a charger.

“Joe,” she said as he was starting to leave the room, “can you grab me the remote?”

It was resting on the bedside table, next to a well-thumbed, used paperback copy of a John Irving novel. Joe grabbed it, and the book, and set them in his mother’s lap.

“I really have to go, Mom,” he said, his face starting to crack again.

She nodded. “Go save the island,” she said. “And be careful.”

He tried to crack a smile. “Later, I’ll arrest myself for stealing a bicycle.”

Joe slipped out of the room. She heard him go down the stairs and out the door. She picked up the remote with her bony hands and hit the red button to turn on the oversized, boxy television that sat atop her dresser. She flipped through the channels until she landed on CNN. Where was Wolf? Wasn’t Wolf supposed to be on now? It was one of the women anchors. Lillian couldn’t keep them all straight. They all looked the same to her. All very young and very pretty. At least when it was Wolf, you knew it was Wolf.

The female anchor was saying, “Details of what, exactly, is happening on Garrett Island continue to come in. There are reports of multiple casualties as autonomous cars made by the Arrival corporation continue to go haywire. And it’s not just happening on the island. We’re hearing that across the country.”

She watched a few more minutes of the news and concluded that she knew more than the reporters did. She’d had some firsthand experience of what was going on here.

Lillian picked up the remote and started flipping through the channels.

“Oh,” she said when she landed on Dr. Phil.

He should do a show on her, she thought. Dr. Phil should do a show about sons who were thinking about putting their mothers in a home.

She couldn’t imagine that Joe would do that now. Not after what she had been through. She’d been traumatized.

Every cloud had a silver lining.

Joe hopped onto his stolen bike and pedaled toward the downtown. The headquarters of the Garrett Island Police Department was one block off the common, and that seemed like the most sensible place from which to get a handle on things.