The toilet flushed and Jean emerged, red-eyed and sniffling.

“This is just too much for her, you know,” she said.

There was accusation in her voice. Jiminy braced herself.

“She told me on the phone,” Jean continued. “She could barely speak, but she said to me, ‘I’m not strong enough for this. I’m just too tired now. I don’t want to disappoint her, but I’m just too tired.’ ”

Jiminy stayed quiet, watching Jean’s trembling lips.

“She couldn’t take the stress of what you’re bringing down on us. Maybe if it was five or ten years ago, maybe then. But she’s exhausted now, and you’re forcing her to relive the worst experience of her life. You’re forcing all of us to do that. Why? Is it really worth it?”

Jean flung these questions through the air like so many quivering daggers. Before Jiminy could address them, or raise her shield, there was a knock on the door.

“The nurse wants to see you,” Walton called.

It felt strange to Walton to be back in the hospital he’d presided over for fifty-plus years. He was surprised at how many young people were now in positions of authority. He’d begun when he was in his twenties, but now that he was aware of how little he’d really known during those years, he was alarmed that the world was still letting youngsters take it over. It made everything feel very unstable. It made him feel unsafe.

Sitting in the waiting room comforting Jean was not where Walton wanted to be. He’d have prefered to be in the operating room, with his medical coat and surgical tools, making life-or-death decisions. His strongest memories of the waiting room were all about telling people bad news. He’d also given people good news here, but good news in an emergency room was relative. It was good news that your loved one was going to live, but more than likely, just a short while before, it hadn’t crossed your mind that there was any alternative. This room was about sudden accidents and bad luck. Walton didn’t care to linger here.

Remembering his doctoring days did afford him a uniquely clinical frame of mind, which came in handy amid all the emotions running wild. He felt he could analyze the situation better than his companions, and he put this talent to use as he checked in on how they were all faring.

He found it a little peculiar that Lyn was still waiting. He wondered if it was out of a sense of obligation, or paralyzing concern, or simply inertia. She’d spent most of her life waiting on Willa in some form or another. Perhaps she couldn’t see her way out of the pattern.

He didn’t question that she was genuinely worried. He understood there was real affection between Willa and Lyn, and he knew Lyn’s life would be seriously impacted should Willa pass on. But Walton wondered whether it wouldn’t also be a release of some sort. He wondered whether or not Lyn was quietly struggling to keep from acknowledging a dark wish for the worst, as she sat silent and frozen in her corner of the room, where she was still gripping her great-nephew’s arm.

The young man really did look uncannily like Edward. He was lighter skinned, but otherwise a spitting image. Supposedly, he was studying to be a doctor.

Walton hadn’t recognized the nurse who strode through the doorway, but he’d recognized the look of purpose on her face. She’d come to tell them something. Walton had crossed to the bathroom door and knocked.

As Jiminy was led to see her grandmother, she glanced sidelong at the doctor whom Walton had mistaken for a nurse. She was only a few years older than Jiminy, but she appeared considerably more weathered and drawn. And more accomplished, clearly. Her name tag read “Dr. Connors,” which made Jiminy wonder if she was any relation to Suze. Everyone in Fayeville tended to be related one way or another. The doctor opened the door to Willa’s room.

“We need to monitor your grandmother very closely for the next forty-eight hours. She’s sedated, so she probably won’t wake up, but you can talk to her. She can hear you.”

Visitors liked being told that patients could hear them, even when this wasn’t necessarily true. The doctor had no problem comforting people with harmless fiction. So often, she had to hurt them with unavoidable, cruel facts.

Jiminy nodded and crossed the cramped room to the bed, breathing carefully to control the panic she felt at seeing tubes snaking in and out of her grandmother’s body. The doctor lingered for a moment to check Willa’s heartbeat before leaving grandmother and granddaughter alone.

“Hi,” Jiminy said softly, taking Willa’s hand in her own.

They both had small hands. Willa’s felt thin and papery, like a breeze might blow it away. It reminded Jiminy of the onionskin transcript Carlos had found. She traced the lines of her grandmother’s palm with her finger, trying to remember what they represented. One was her lifeline, she knew. The other was for love. And the number of children could be divined, or so people claimed. All of Willa’s lines were short, deep creases. Jiminy covered them with her palm.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, keeping her voice soft and hopefully soothing. “I know we haven’t been particularly close, but I love you. And I’m sorry if I did this to you. I didn’t mean to. I really didn’t.”

Jiminy bowed her head and let her tears have their way.

Half an hour later, Willa fluttered her fingers. Jiminy looked up, startled.

Willa’s eyes were closed, her lips parted. She had oxygen tubes inserted in her nostrils to help her breathe, but Jiminy saw that she was inhaling and exhaling through her mouth, reclaiming her life on her own terms.

“It’s not your fault,” Willa said.

Jiminy felt relieved and humbled. In Willa’s state, fighting to come back, she was still attempting to comfort another.

“You were doing it for Jiminy, I know.”

It was a quick trip from relieved and humbled to confused and concerned.

“I’m Jiminy, Grandma,” Jiminy said.

Willa kept her eyes closed but squeezed her hand.

“No, no, dear, Jiminy died. I’m sorry. You were so young, you didn’t understand. I know you loved her. There was so much you couldn’t understand.”

Before Jiminy could argue or investigate further, the doctor entered the room.

“She woke up?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Jiminy replied. “Sort of. She hasn’t opened her eyes but she’s talking and moving a little.”

The doctor examined Willa and checked the machines to which she was hooked.

“Miz Hunt?” she said loudly and clearly. “Miz Hunt, can you hear me?”

Willa didn’t stir. She again appeared to be sleeping.

“She wasn’t making any sense,” Jiminy replied. “I think she may have thought I was my mother.”

The doctor frowned.

“She had multiple strokes. We won’t know the full damage till I do some more tests. Even if she comes out of this completely fine, it would be very normal to have disorientation after a trauma like this. It happens in people a fraction of her age, so I would certainly expect it to happen to her. Excuse me a moment.”

The doctor glanced down at her pager then back up.

“If she moves or speaks again, will you press that button?” she asked Jiminy, as she hurried from the room.

That was something Jiminy felt sure she could do. Pushing people’s buttons had become a specialty.

When Roy Tomlins pulled into the driveway of Brayer Plantation, he was surprised by the activity on the sprawling front lawn. Travis Brayer’s son Bobby, the state senator and candidate for governor, formed the epicenter of a mini-tornado of action. Roy saw cameras, cords, boom microphones, sunglasses, clipboards, water bottles, and large shiny discs that a man and a woman were angling and adjusting in different directions. Bobby appeared unfazed by it all, cool as usual in blue jeans and a button-down shirt tucked snug by a large American flag belt buckle. He was talking into the camera, until the noise from Roy’s truck proved too distracting.