“No. Just sweats. My hair’s too wet to lie on the pillows, so I’ll stretch out on top of the bed for now.”

He got out the clothes she wanted, and then dressed himself and went to get her hair dryer.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said.

“It won’t take but a few minutes,” he said, then plugged it in and dried her hair enough so she could lie down.

He went to put up the dryer, and when he came back, she was already on the bed, curled up on her side. He got a blanket from the foot of the bed and covered her, then lay down beside her. When he finally heard her breathing soften and slow down, he knew she’d fallen asleep.

Satisfied she was resting comfortably, Sully got up, leaving the door open so he’d hear her if she called out, and went downstairs to make some coffee. The doorbell rang while he was still in the kitchen, and he went to answer it.

It was Elliot, holding a small jar of jelly.

“Elliot. Come in,” Sully said. “Come look at where we’ve hung your painting.”

“Well, just for a minute,” he said, and then beamed when he saw it. “It looks fine there, but that’s not why I came. This is a jar of quince jelly. I have a tree in the backyard. The fruit is terrible eaten raw, but it makes the most delightful jams and marmalades. This is marmalade and is quite good with meats. Give Melissa my best. She will recover just fine.”

“Thank you,” Sully said. “I will do that, and thank you for the marmalade as well.”

Elliot nodded, let himself out, and was gone.

Sully smiled and held the jar up to the light, marveling at the rich red color and the fact that the old man was a jelly maker, too.

He took it into the kitchen and set it on the table where Melissa would be sure to see it, then took his coffee to the living room and sat within the silence of the house, thinking of the woman he loved upstairs and looking at the painting of Janie. A stranger, and yet she was the reason he was here.

* * *

Melissa woke up with a headache and went into the bathroom to find some over-the-counter pain pills. She took two, then finger combed her clean hair and went to look for Sully.

As she neared the kitchen, she could hear the washing machine on spin cycle. Sully was doing laundry, and something was cooking. The normalcy of it all was the best thing for her. At this moment, she would not have been able to ask for one more thing. She was home, and she was alive.

She walked in, saw him stirring something in a pot on the stove, then wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his back. She felt the rumble of his laughter against her ear as he patted her hands and turned around.