“Perhaps you’re unaware of the fact that we have signed papers, all of us, so that Chip’s father and I can make decisions for him should it become necessary. I think that time is here. I’m going to have to ask that Chip stay with us all the time now. And I think, too, that maybe he should have another nurse.”

“Mrs. Reardon—”

She hangs up.

Fifteen minutes later, the phone rings. Mr. Reardon. Asking me to continue seeing Chip. Asking me to let him continue coming to my house.

“Maybe it would be best if we were all to get together,” I say. “I think we need to talk about this.”

“Well, my wife has agreed to let Chip do what he wants.”

I tap my pencil eraser on my desk, stare at my calendar. Then I say, “May I speak with her?”

When she comes to the phone, before I can say anything, she says, simply, “Take him, I don’t care.”

“I’d like to come and see you, Mrs. Reardon.”

“I don’t want to see you. I said, take him. That’s what you want. You don’t need to see me. I’m not the patient.”

“May I please come and talk with you?”

Silence.

“How about tomorrow afternoon?”

A long pause. And then, “At what time?”

“Four o’clock?”

“Yes,” she says, sighing. “All right.”

I hang up the phone, stare out the window, imagine her doing the same, her well-manicured fingers to the hollow of her neck, her blue gaze steady. I do understand, I want to tell her. I do.

• • •

A little after eleven that night, I am working in my office when I hear a noise. I look up and see Diann, dressed in shorts and Chip’s T-shirt. “Can I come in?”

“Sure.” I close Grace’s chart. “Is he all right?”

“Yeah. Sleeping.”

“You can’t, though, huh?”

“Well, I’m used to staying up a lot later. But he gets so tired. You know.”

“Right.”

“So,” she says, sitting down in the armchair across from me. “Big meeting tomorrow!”

“Yes. I really need to get some things straight with his mother.”

“Good luck. You know, his Dad’s a real peach, but that mother …”

“Chip told me you two had never gotten along.”

“That’s putting it mildly. From the first time I met her, she was always very cool toward me. And then I slept with Chip for the first time in her house.”

“You did?”