For lunch, David met Angela at the coffee shop run by the volunteers. Over sandwiches, they discussed their morning.

"Dr. Wadley is terrific," Angela said. "He's very helpful and interested in teaching. The more I see him, the less he reminds me of my father. He's far more demonstrative than my father ever would be-far more enthusiastic and affectionate. He even gave me a hug when I arrived this morning. My father would die before he'd do that."

David told Angela about the patients he'd seen. She was particularly touched to hear about Marjorie Kleber's reaction to David's arrival.

"She's a teacher," David added. "In fact she teaches the third grade so she'll be Nikki's teacher."

"What a coincidence," Angela said. "What's she like?"

"She seems warm, giving, and intelligent," David said. "I'd guess she's a marvelous teacher. The problem is she's had metastatic breast cancer."

"Oh, dear," Angela said.

"But she's been doing fine," David said. "I don't think she's had any recurrence yet, but I haven't gone over her chart in detail."

"It's a bad disease," Angela said, thinking how many times she'd worried about it herself.

"The only complaint I have so far about the practice is that I've seen too many oncology patients," David said.

"I know that's not your cup of tea," Angela said.

"The nurse says it was just a coincidence that I started with two in a row," David said. "I'll have to keep my fingers crossed."

"Now don't get depressed," Angela said. "I'm sure your nurse was right." Angela remembered all too well David's response to the deaths of several oncology patients when he'd been a junior resident.

"Talk about depression," David said. He leaned closer and whispered. "Did you hear about Dr. Portland?"

Angela shook her head.

"He committed suicide," David said. "He shot himself in the office that I'm now using."

"That's terrible," Angela said. "Do you have to stay there? Maybe you can move to a different suite."

"Don't be ridiculous," David said. "What am I going to say to Kelley? I'm superstitious about death and suicide? I can't do that. Besides, they repainted the walls and recarpeted the floor." David shrugged. "It'll be okay."

"Why did he do it?" Angela asked.

"Depression," David said.

"I knew it," Angela said. "I knew he was depressed. I even said it. Remember?"

"I didn't say he wasn't depressed," David said. "I said he looked ill. Anyway, he must have killed himself soon after we met him because Charles Kelley said he'd done it in May."

"The poor man," Angela said. "Did he have a family?"

"A wife and two young boys."

Angela shook her head. Suicide among doctors was an issue of which she was well aware. One of her resident colleagues had killed herself.

"On a lighter note," David said, "Charles Kelley told me that there's a bonus plan to reward me for keeping hospitalization at a minimum. The less I hospitalize the more I get paid. I can even win a trip to the Bahamas. Can you believe it?"

"I've heard of that kind of incentive plan," Angela said. "It's a ploy health maintenance organizations use to reduce costs."

David shook his head in disbelief. "Some of the realities of this 'managed care' and 'managed competition' stuff are really mind-boggling. I personally find it insulting."

"Well, on a lighter note of my own, Dr. Wadley's invited us to his home for dinner tonight. I told him I'd have to ask you. What do you think?"

"Do you want to go?" David asked.

"I know we have a lot to do at home, but I think we should go. He's being so thoughtful and generous. I don't want to appear ungrateful."

"What about Nikki?" David asked.

"That's another piece of good news," Angela said. "I found out from one of the lab technicians that Barton Sherwood has a daughter in high school who does a lot of sitting. They are our closest neighbors. I called and she's eager to come over."

"Think Nikki will mind?" David asked.

"I already asked her," Angela said. "She said she didn't care and that she's looking forward to meeting Karen Sherwood. She's one of the cheerleaders."

"Then let's go," David said.

Just before seven Karen Sherwood arrived. David let her in. He wouldn't have guessed she was a cheerleader. She was a thin, quiet young woman who unfortunately looked a lot like her father. Yet she was pleasant and intuitive. When she was introduced to Nikki she was smart enough to say she loved dogs, especially puppies.

While David drove Angela finished putting on her makeup. David could tell she was tense, and he tried to reassure her that everything would be fine and that she looked terrific. When they pulled up to the Wadley home, both were impressed. The house wasn't as grand as theirs, but it was in far better condition and the grounds were immaculate.

"Welcome," Wadley said as he threw open his front door to greet the Wilsons.

The inside of the house was even more impressive than the outside. Every detail had been attended to. Antique furniture stood on thick oriental carpets. Pastoral nineteenth-century paintings adorned the walls.

Gertrude Wadley and her courtly husband were significantly different people, lending credence to the saying "opposites attract." She was a retiring, mousy woman who had little to say. It was as if she'd been submerged by her husband's personality.

Their teenage daughter, Cassandra, seemed more like her mother initially, but as the evening progressed, she became more like her outgoing father.

But it was Wadley who dominated the evening. He pontificated on a number of subjects. And he clearly doted on Angela. At one point he looked skyward and thanked the fates that he had been rewarded with such a competent team now that Angela had arrived.

"One thing is for sure," David said as they drove home, "Dr. Wadley is thrilled with you. Of course, I can't blame him."

Angela snuggled up to her husband.

Arriving home, David accompanied Karen across the fields to her home, even though she insisted she'd be fine. When David got back, Angela met him at the door in lingerie she hadn't worn since their honeymoon.

"It looks better now when I'm not pregnant," Angela said. "Don't you agree?"

"It looked great then and it looks great now."

Stealing into the semi-dark living room, they lowered themselves onto the couch. Slowly and tenderly they made love again. Without the frenzy of the previous evening, it was even more satisfying and fulfilling.

Once they were through, they held each other and listened to the symphony of chirping crickets and croaking frogs.

"We've made love more here in the last two days than in the previous two months in Boston," Angela said with a sigh.

"We've been under a lot of stress."

"It makes me wonder about another child," Angela said.

David moved so that he could make out Angela's profile in the darkness. "Really?" he asked.

"With a house this size, we could have a litter," Angela said with a little laugh.

"We'd want to know if the child had cystic fibrosis. I suppose we could always rely on amniocentesis."

"I suppose," Angela said without enthusiasm. "But what would we do if it were positive?"

"I don't know," David said. "It's scary. It's hard to know what the right thing to do is."

"Well, like Scarlett O'Hara said, let's think about it tomorrow."