I awoke the next morning to the sounds of Haley trying to get dressed without making any noise. The dresser drawer creaked as she opened it; she dropped what may have been a shoe.

“What are you doing?” I mumbled.

“There’s a heavy fog. I’m going to go for a run.”

Fogs are a rarity in June along the Florida Panhandle. The humidity is there, but the temperature usually doesn’t drop below the dew point. When it does, and fog forms, it’s like a cool blanket that muffles sound. By eight or nine o’clock, it’s gone.

“If you’ll keep it to a brisk walk, I’ll go with you,” I said.

“I’m about ready. Why don’t I go run a little while and meet you back at the stile?”

That suited me. As much as I like walking in the fog, I also need a coffee jump start.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“About seven. Want a cup of coffee? I’ve already made it.”

“Bless you, my child.”

After Haley left, I pulled on a pair of baggy white shorts and a T-shirt I had bought at a garage sale, which proclaimed in large blue letters that I was a Happy Camper. Then I took my coffee into the living room and admired the fog, which was so thick it feathered onto the balcony. The beach was barely visible, and the water and fog were one.

Mary Alice wafted into the room in the pink peignoir that had almost blinded poor Fairchild. “What are you doing up so early?” she asked.

“Going walking in the fog. Haley’s already gone. You want some coffee?”

“I’ll get it. I didn’t sleep worth a damn last night. Did you?”

“Better than I thought I would.”

“I even got up and worked on my story some, the one about the manic-depressive man who marries all the lesbians. But I really couldn’t get into it. You know?”

“Hmmm.”

She went into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, and came back. “So I told myself, I said, Mary Alice Tate Sullivan Nachman Crane, you don’t know these people well enough, don’t know what makes them tick.”

“You don’t know a wheelchair repo man, either.”

“But I’ve had some pretty sad jobs. Some that would suck the very soul from you.”

“I don’t remember you having any sad, soul sucking jobs.”

“Well, I did. Like the summer I kept the Bishop kids.”

“All you did was baby-sit.”

“But I was seventeen. And the three-year-old would hold her breath until she passed out. Scared me to death the first few times she did it.” Mary Alice sat on the sofa and reached for the remote. “My whole seventeenth summer.”

“The three husbands being buried together would make an interesting story,” I said.