"Lily. Why'd you leave last night?"

"I just felt restless. I'm not used to sharing time, or space, with anyone. I'm not used to visiting people's homes as a guest. You're still married. You're used to having someone else around. Probably you and Thea were invited places, right? But I'm not. I don't date. I'm just..." I hesitated, not sure how to characterize my life of the past few years.

"Coasting?"

I considered. "Existing," I said. "Going from day to day safely. Doing my work, paying my way, not attracting any attention. Left alone."

"Not lonely?"

"Not often," I admitted. "There are not that many people I like or have respect for, so I hardly want their company."

Marshall was propped up on one elbow, his muscular chest a treat for my eyes. And I thought of it that way, as a treat: a seldom-achieved, rare thing that might not happen again. "Who do you like?" he asked me.

I thought about it. "I like Mrs. Hofstettler. I like Claude Friedrich, I think, in spite of everything. I like you. I like most of the people in the karate class, though I'm not partial to Janet Shook. I like the new doctor, the woman. But I don't know any of those people that well."

"Do you have any friends you don't know through work or karate class, anyone your own age that you ... go shopping with, go to eat in Little Rock with?"

"No," I said, my voice flat and verging on anger.

"Okay, okay." He raised a placating hand. "I'm just asking. I want to know how uphill this is going to be."

"Pretty uphill, I'm afraid." I relaxed with an effort.

I glanced at the clock again. "Marshall, I don't want to leave, but I have to work."

"Are you just having a flash of anti socializing, or do you really have to work this morning?"

"I really have to work. I have to clean the doctor's office this morning, visit Mrs. Hofstettler, go to the police station, and do my own shopping this afternoon." I keep grocery expenses down by making a careful list and following it to the letter on my one visit to the grocery store a week.

"How are you going to manage with your ribs?"

"I'll just do what I have to do," I said with some surprise. "It's my job. If I don't work, I don't get paid. If I don't get paid, I go down the drain."

"I have to open up the gym, too," he said reluctantly. "At least it opens late on Saturday, but I don't have anyone to work until one today, so I do have to get there."

"We have to start moving," I suggested, but I was suddenly reluctant to crawl out of the warm bed with its odor of him and sex.

"Can I take you out to supper tonight?"

I had that pressed feeling again. I almost balked, said no. But I told myself sternly that I'd be cutting my own throat. Marshall was throwing out a lifeline and I was refusing to grasp it.

"Sure," I said, aware that I sounded stiff and anxious.

Marshall studied me.

"You pick the place," he suggested. "What do you like?"

I had not eaten in a restaurant in longer than I cared to add up. On nights I decide I don't want to cook, which isn't that often, since I enjoy cooking and it is cheaper than eating out, I pick up food and bring it home.

"Um," I said, drawing on an old memory, "I like Mexican food."

"Great, so do I. We'll go to El Paso Grande in Montrose."

Montrose was the nearest large town to Shakespeare, and the one where Shakespeare residents did most of their shopping when they didn't want to drive the hour and a half to Little Rock.

"All right." I carefully sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I bit my lip and I stayed there, trying to feel like getting up and brushing my teeth. I wanted Marshall to ignore my struggle, and miraculously he did, letting me take my time and rise on my own, then walk stiffly to the bathroom for a quick sponge bath and a meticulous brushing of my teeth and hair. I applied makeup quickly and thoroughly, hoping the scratches would be less conspicuous. I turned my face from side to side, checking it in the mirror, and decided I looked much better.

But I still looked just like a woman who'd been in a fight.

I walked out, still holding myself stiffly upright, to let Marshall have his turn.

By the time he emerged, having showered and used a toothbrush in a plastic wrapper I'd put out for him on my sink (the dentist gives me a new one every time he cleans my teeth, but it is a brand I don't like), I'd managed to dress myself in the cheap clothes I wore to work: loose-leg blue jeans and an old dark red college sweatshirt with lopped-off arms. I hadn't been able to cope with pulling on socks, so I'd slid my feet into loafers instead of my usual cross-trainers.

Marshall started to speak, stopped, thought the better of it, and finally settled with saying, "Pick you up at six?"

I approved of his skipping all the "Are you sure you can do it? Why don't you call in sick today? Let me help you" stuff I'd been afraid he was going to put us through.

"Sure," I said, showing him gratitude with my smile.

"See you then," he said briefly, and went out to his car, which was still parked rather crookedly in front of the house.

Moving slowly but keeping going, I gathered together what I needed for the day and drove over to the doctor's office. As usual, I parked in the paved area behind the building, intended for the doctor and staff. I noticed without much interest that Dr. Thrush's car was there, too. Dr. Thrush is new in town and I had just started cleaning for her three weeks ago.

I used my key and stepped uncomfortably over the high threshold. Carrie Thrush was sticking her head out of her office, her brows drawn together with anxiety.

"Oh, thank goodness it's you, Lily!" the doctor exclaimed. "I forgot it was time for you to come."

Then, as I moved down the hall, the relieved smile gave way to concern. "Good God, woman, what happened to you?"

"I had a fight last night," I said.

"In a bar?" The young doctor looked amazed, her dark brown eyebrows raised above eyes just as dark and brown.

"No, a guy jumped me in my yard," I said briefly, explaining only because she'd asked with so much concern.

I didn't have much energy to spare today, so I had to focus on the job at hand. I opened the door of the patients' bathroom in the hall. That was the worst place, so that was where I always started. I had a strong feeling that between my own scheduled cleaning times, Dr. Thrush came in every morning and gave it a light going-over herself. That bathroom would be even dirtier otherwise. I pulled on my gloves and started in.

I cleaned the little double-doored space where patients put their urine samples, then wiped off the knob of the little door into the lab. I laid a fresh paper towel down for the next patient's sample. I remembered I hadn't tested this pair of rubber gloves for leaks, and reminded myself to do that when I got home. The last thing I needed was to catch a bug here.

I became aware that Dr. Thrush was standing in the bathroom doorway staring at me.

"You surely can't work in that condition!" Carrie Thrush said.

She has a firm voice that I believe she assumes to keep people mindful she is indeed a doctor. Carrie Thrush is shorter than I am and pigeon-plump. She has a round face with a determined jaw, unplucked eyebrows, and acne scars. She wears her chin-length black hair parted and brushed back behind her ears. Her dark brown eyes are round and clear, all that saves the doctor from plainness. I set her age at about my own, early thirties.

"Well, yes I can," I said, since she was waiting for a response. I was not in the mood for arguing. I sprinkled powdered cleanser in the sink and wet the sponge to scour it. I compressed my lips in what I hoped was a determined line.

"Could I just look at your ribs? That's your problem, right? Listen, you're in a doctor's office."