"Water it is."

The living room had what his mother's generation would have called "a woman's touch." Aside from the tall bookcases stuffed full of books on early American history and Irish settlers, a large map of Rhode Island spread out on a table beside the cramped computer desk and a rifle hung over the fireplace, there were crystal dishes on lace doilies, patterned china and small glass animal figurines in a hutch, burnished silver candelabras on the mantlepiece, the candles melted down to nubs, and fine lace curtains—once white, now beige—draped over the windows. All of this was coated in a thick layer of dust that lumped up brown like eraser shavings when Sheila ran her finger across the lid of the upright piano as the doctor toddled into the kitchen.

He returned a moment later with a tall glass of water sloshing over the sides and a plate of cubed cheese and sliced meat. "Hope you don't mind. I missed lunch."

"Not at all," Sheila said, though now that she smelled the sharp cheddar and spicy sausage, she kind of wished she hadn't skipped lunch herself. Her stomach rolled. She took a sip of Martin's water, garnering a slight scowl from him, and placed it back on the ring of water it left on the glass tabletop.

The doctor plucked a piece of meat off his plate and began to chew, his chapped lips smacking lightly. "So," he said, still chewing, "you wanted to talk about my practice."

"Lack of practice, more so," Sheila said. "You said you've been retired—"

"Going on ten years now."

"And before you retired, you worked in Barrows Bay?"

"No, ma'am. I practiced out of Narragansett."

"Has there ever been a practicing obstetrician in town?" Martin asked.

Sheila gave him a look. She'd expected to be leading the interview and he'd taken the words from her mouth.

"Not to my knowledge, no." The doctor scarfed a chunk of cheese, breathing noisily through his whistling nostrils as he chewed. "Which is one of the reasons I got into the business in the first place. I've always found this town's fascination with those old dames a tad... well, cultish, frankly. The way people fawn over them. Talking about them in hushed, reverent voices in the grocery store, at the Legion Hall. Some of them even call her 'Mother,' as if she spat them out of her very own womb. It just curdles my blood."

Sheila frowned. "I read on your website you were born here, is that right? But you just said there was no obstetrician here before you got into it."

"If you mean to ask if I was delivered by a midwife, the answer is yes." He gave Martin a serious look, undercut by licking his fingers. "By Ruby Savage, in fact."

Martin blinked. "My mother?"

"No offence, but can I ask—" Sheila began.

"I'm seventy-three years old." He caught their looks of shock and chuckled lightly. "Oh, I know, I don't look a day over sixty. But there you have it. I'm seventy-three years old, and your mother was twice your age back then if she was a day. Impossible as it sounds, it's the gospel truth."