In the morning when we go downstairs for breakfast, the hotel owner informs us that a Mrs. Candace Hocking has paid for our stay and has secured the room for as long as she will require me to have it. She has also paid for our meals and the daily travel to and from the sanatorium. I am both relieved and a little miffed that Candace is meeting my expenses. I don’t want to be paid to care for Kat—as though I am an employee—and that is what this seems like. But the cash from the strongbox won’t last forever and I don’t know how long I will be here. It seems this is a time when I will have to take each day as it comes.

Before we head out to the sanatorium, I take Kat to a little stationer’s store a few blocks from the inn, where I purchase a tablet of paper and some wax crayons so that she can draw pictures. I have learned that this is one of the ways Kat can communicate. On the carriage drive to the sanatorium she draws a picture of a baby wearing a pink ruffled dress. It is as good a likeness of an infant as one could expect from a nearly seven-year-old, perhaps better. I know without asking that Kat has drawn a picture of Sarah. She misses the little one. I find that I do, too, strange as it may sound. I miss the baby and I miss having Belinda to talk to. When we return to town today I will need to send Belinda a telegram letting her know that I might not be leaving Tucson for a while.

Truth be told, I am hoping I am here indefinitely. Though I long for the calm beauty of the Loralei and the fragrance of the country air and the new home waiting for me away from the echoes of what happened in San Francisco, it won’t be near as sweet without Kat. I don’t want to return to that idyllic place if it means leaving Kat.

When we arrive at the sanatorium, the residents have just had their lunch. Several, including Candace, are on the patio awaiting their afternoon visitors. She seems less pale today, almost rosy-cheeked. Being reunited with her daughter seems to have invigorated her.

Today, there is a little boy with his mother visiting an older man who appears to be the boy’s grandfather or uncle. The two children eye each other for a while before the lad finally comes over to Kat and asks if she wants to come play with him and his toy soldiers. By this time we have been visiting with Candace for close to an hour. Kat has already shown her the picture of Sarah, and now she is interested in the boy’s miniature armies. The little boy, whose name is Randolph, looks to be about Kat’s age, and he doesn’t ask why she doesn’t speak. Indeed, as Kat sits down in silence several yards away to look at the tiny brigade, I wonder if he is the youngest in his family and happy to dominate the conversation for a change.