“Gaby. Why would you want to keep going?” Behind them in the fog a bob-white began to call. “Did the man who jilted you mean that much to you?”

“No, he was a boy, not a man. But I was . . . I thought I was dying.”

“Why?”

“I had pains that tormented me. Patches of numbness, overwhelming weariness. The same symptoms my grandmother had had while she was dying.”

Ah. The collection of nostrums in the medicine cabinet suddenly were a pathetic part of the narrative. “It sounds like a textbook case of hysteria,” he said gently.

“Of course.” She allowed a handful of sand to drift through her fingers. “I know I’m a hypochondriac. But at the time I was convinced that a horrible sickness was going to take my life. Being convinced that you have that kind of disease can be just as bad as actually having it. Believe me, Doctor.”

“I know.”

“I guess the swimming was a way of seeking out what I feared, an attempt to get it over with.”

“Jesus, but why did you come here? Why didn’t you go to a doctor?”

She smiled. “I had been to doctors. And doctors. I simply didn’t believe them.”

“Do you believe them now when they say you’re all right?”

She smiled. “Most of the time.”

“I’m glad,” he said. Somehow he knew she was lying.

Around them the fog seemed to lighten. Overhead a glow began to spread through the mist.

“What did your parents think of your living out here alone?”

“My mother had just remarried. She was . . . preoccupied. She sent me an occasional letter. My father never even sent me a postal card.” She shook her head. “He really is a bastard, Adam.”

“Gaby . . .” He sought the right words. “I don’t like him, but we’re all weak, each of us in some kind of a bag. I’d be a hypocrite to condemn him. I’m sure I’ve done most of the things for which you loathe him.”

“No.”

“I’ve been on my own most of my life. I’ve known a lot of women.”

“You don’t understand. He’s never given me anything. Never anything of himself. He paid my college tuition, then sat back and waited for me to be properly grateful.”

Adam didn’t say anything.

“I have a feeling that you worked your way through college,” she said.

“I got through Pitt because of my Uncle Vito.”

“Your uncle?”

“I had three uncles. Joe, Frank and Vito. Frank and Joe were built like bulls, they worked in the steel mills. Vito was tall, but he was fragile. He died when I was fifteen.”

“He left you some money?”

He laughed. “No. He didn’t have any money. He was a towel man in the locker room of the East Liberty branch of the Pittsburgh Y.M.C.A.”

“What’s a towel man?”