The Four Lakes bass fishing competition was this weekend, and Maud was rushed off her feet. Ruth had helped her all morning—even with cleaning the rooms. Without Ruth, she was sure she would have had a breakdown.

She hurried over to Magnus’s cabin with a basin of warm water. As she approached, her heart began to pound and little flecks of light appeared, floating before her eyes. This would happen any time she went near his cabin. As she entered, this incipient panic was quenched by a mixed feeling of revulsion, fury, fear, and guilt, a feeling articulated by the awful smell of the room, the sight of the little shot glass from which he drank his warm milk, and that head of his craning up in all its ghoulish need. His thin white hair, which he refused to let her cut, was down to his shoulders, his grayish beard thick, his body skeletal. Now he would produce a pathetic smile and say, “Good morning, my dear.” Just waiting for this made her feel nauseated.

Laying a playing card between the pages of his book, he smiled and said, “Good morning, my dear.”

Without responding, she checked the pitiful contents of his bedpan: only a little honey-colored urine. Sometimes he wouldn’t defecate for days. When he did, he produced tiny black pellets, often together with blood, since he had developed hemorrhoids. His skin was incredibly dry, his lips cracked, his eyes bloodshot. His gums had gone dark, his breath unbearably rank. And always—always—that damn simpering sickly smile.

“Would you mind, my dear, propping that door open just for a moment so I can look at the Rose of Sharon outside. Perhaps you could bring me a flower, my love. I had a dream that a woman brought me flowers. White flowers. I think it was Death.”

“Then I’ll bring you as many damn flowers as you want.”

“I see souls,” he said. “And I must tell you, my dear, that your soul is torn.”

“It’s damn well sick and tired, is what it is. Look, I don’t know what’s wrong with you and the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong with you. And right now I have every cabin full.”

“I pray for you every day.”

“I don’t need you to pray,” she said. “I need you to shit, which means I need you to eat so you can get out of this damn bed.”

“Why hasn’t Annie come to see me?”

“She has a baby; her husband’s missing; she works; she’s busy.” She calmed herself. “Raj is helping her a bit. He’s back for the summer.”

“So the Moor returns?”

“The what?”

He didn’t continue, just stared into the ceiling, rubbing at his beard.