I gave in. It seemed selfish to do otherwise. If a month on the farm was what he wanted, surely the rest of us could put up with it. Duff seemed quite willing, even eager to go along with his father’s wishes, but Franny made no comment on the decision.

I phoned Mrs. Reddy, who was overjoyed. No, Stephanie wasn’t busy and, yes, she’d be glad to take care of Mr. Caine. There was no suggestion of consulting Stephanie, although I assumed the matter had been discussed with her earlier. I didn’t have the courage to ask if Mrs. Reddy had been in our yard before dawn that morning.

At the end of the week Jack came back as he had left, by ambulance, and there was quite a welcoming party to greet him. In addition to the three of us and Stephanie, looking very professional in her starched uniform, Mrs. Reddy and her daughter and son-­in-­law were also in attendance. Jack was carried to his bedroom by the ambulance men and escorted by the rest of us, Franny bringing his crutches and Duff pushing the wheelchair.

I thought we might have Mrs. Reddy, Rose and Emil with us for the rest of the day, encouraging Stephanie in her work, but after a short interval of congratulating us on securing Stephanie’s services and assuring us that Jack was going to receive care such as he could get nowhere else in the county, they left us.

And I must admit that Stephanie did take good care of Jack. I gave her the room adjoining his, while I moved in with Franny upstairs, and from then on she seemed to spend all her days and half her nights attending him. When she wasn’t bathing or massaging him or pushing him around in the wheelchair, she was reading to him from a pile of Perry Mason paperbacks she had brought with her.

Jack loved it. He never had as much attention from me, more’s the pity, I suppose. And Duff and Franny seemed to like Stephanie too, not that she ever had much free time to spend with them. In fact, I was rather surprised at Duff’s interest in her, not only because of her lumpish appearance, but because she didn’t offer him any intellectual challenge. Her mealtime conversations were limited to monosyllabic answers to questions and occasional pointless stories of other nursing experiences she had had.

Then after two weeks or so of Stephanie, we received a phone call from the Scarsdale real estate agent. Jack had written him about prolonging our stay in Ohio, and now the agent wanted to make another offer. He had a client, an oil company executive, who was willing to pay a thousand dollars a month rent for our furnished home on a six-­month lease with an option to buy for ninety-­five thousand if we decided then to sell.

“No,” I said.