“Oh, we were out days ago. Everyone refilled everything they had or could get their hands on. We’re waiting on a shipment, but I don’t have high hopes. There are shortages everywhere.”

“Why should we go to the pharmacy, then?”

The doctor looked at us blankly. As if we should know this already. “Vitamins,” she said. “Over the counter pain meds. But especially vitamins. Get as many as you can carry.” She opened the broom closet door.

“Wait,” Grayson said. “Do we stop by the front desk or—”

The doctor was already in the hall. Now that the door was open, we could hear crying. An adult this time. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I don’t have insurance.”

“Why bother?”

And she was gone.

What had happened in the slow, predictable days I had spent on the farm, rotating and watering the plants, chopping firewood? How much had gone wrong? How fast?

We pushed through the swinging double doors, Grayson walking with a hitch as he dragged his bad leg. His foot looked heavy in its new brace, like he was towing a log, and his breath sounded jagged. He was trying to get used to the pain. The waiting room had gotten more crowded since we had been in the storage closet, and out the windows, the parking lot looked strange. Too white. It had snowed again.

At the clinic pharmacy, a line of people waited in the prescription drop-off area. But I headed straight for the shelves. I swept bottle after bottle of vitamins into my arms, then I started filling Grayson’s arms.

“Hey, those are prenatal vitamins, for pregnant people,” he said.

“So?” I thought for a moment, then put the prenatal vitamins, and gummy vitamins for kids, back. I added boxes of cough syrup, bottles of iodine, rolls of tacky bandages, and painkillers.

“I don’t have enough money for all this,” Grayson whispered.

“I do.”

It was a short line to pay; most people were still at the drop-off desk, clamoring for refills, for something for their pain. The cashier had a look I was starting to think was the look, her lids popping open, her pupils the tiniest dark dots. The whites of her eyes looked as shocked as snow. She filled several paper bags with our purchases and shoved them across the counter to us. A man started to bang his cane against the counter to get her attention.

Grayson and I reached the lobby. The nurse who had given him the ice pack stood on a chair and was shouting, “Please remain patient. You will be seen in the order you arrived.”