It was out of the question.

We worried about this for several days, as I urged Emily to keep taking Joseph lemons for his tea, then soup, the same broth she had made for all of us. I had watched her in the kitchen over her huge pot, filled with beef bones, carrots, celery. The pot simmered for hours as Emily tended it, stirred it, then the beef bones were lifted out onto a plate: giant bones, steaming. And I — I scooped the silky marrow from the bones, and spread it, warm, on thick slices of white bread. I ate it.

A life-giving soup. I felt myself revive, become stronger. I saw I’d need strength.

What I didn’t see was just how much strength I needed.

EMILY SAID Joseph wasn’t getting better. He likes that soup, ma’am, she said, ah, everyone likes that soup, but he’s not getting better, ma’am. He needs a doctor, Sidney must come, she said.

Sharply — more sharply than I intended — I said, Sidney can’t see him, Sidney doesn’t know he’s there, did you forget? Forget about Sidney, we’ll make another plan, I said.

That night Howard said, what if we bring Joseph up here into the house, and have Sidney see him here, not in the garden room? We’ll say he’s a friend visiting.

I felt the familiar, new irritation with Howard. His naïveté. Bringing Joseph into the house, right into our house, from his hidden place, felt . . . wrong. And the children. It was enough the children knew a man was living in the garden room, a friend, but a secret, because of the government. Bringing him into our house? And I’ve said before: I didn’t trust Sidney.

We’d have to introduce Joseph by name, we’d have to make up a name, Sidney would ask where he came from, who knows what Sidney would ask, I said. No. We would not do that.

Howard threw up his hands, I’m finished with this, he said.

I told you long ago this was going on too long. You could have foreseen this, I said.

THE NEXT DAY I walked myself to the garden room, in the early afternoon. I knocked, and it’s true, as Emily said, he took longer to answer. And when he came to the door I could see he’d been sleeping, he was in his clothes, his wool sweater, the cap, the woolen cap, that I’d not yet seen, on his head. He was putting on his glasses. And then, when he spoke I could hear he had a cold, the cold that had come for us all.

Joseph, I said. A doctor. You need a doctor. Yes I do, he said. The comrades are bringing one, they’re waiting for one they can bring. A secure person for us. Are you sure, I said. When will he come? As soon as they can get him here, they’ll bring him with them one night, he said. I felt a wave of irritation then, irritation with him, all this energy I had to spend on him, on this situation.