Mohawk

always are. That’s part of the ritual.”
    “I always mean it,” Diana said. “Doesn’t
that
count?”
    “Of course it counts. It’s the only thing that does. Just don’t try to talk me out of being angry. In fact, you ought to try getting bent out of shape yourself.”
    “I’m bent enough, apparently.”
    “Forget it. That kid was a jerk.”
    On the way into the hospital, one of the young interns had asked if Milly and Diana were sisters. An honest mistake.
    “I’m going home,” Dan said.
    The lights in the corridor dimmed briefly, then came back again.
    “Yes,” Diana said, blinking, “Go.”
    “Come with me. We could both use a night without the bell.”
    Diana hesitated, considering, but the struggle was brief. “No. I’ll try to get back in an hour or so.”
    “Come now.”
    “No.”
    “All right, stay. Call if there’s any bad news.” He wheeled around and started for the exit.
    “Don’t make me dislike you, Dan,” his wife said. They were the only two people in the corridor. “I don’t think I could stand disliking you.”
    He stopped, turning the chair sideways. “It was a rotten crack. I apologize.”
    “Get Fred to help you in. The lights were on in their living room when we left. They’ll still be up.”
    “Sure,” Dan agreed.
    “I mean it. You’re too tired.”
    He wheeled out to the lobby. He was tired, but he had no intention of tooting outside his neighbor’s house. Not that Fred would mind. But for some reason, hefelt like risking something. Early in the day, he felt strong and had no problem pushing the chair out the passenger door, setting it up, then sliding himself into it. But when he was tired, things sometimes went wrong. Once he hadn’t secured the brake, and the chair had rolled down the sloping driveway and into Kings Road, riderless, leaving him clinging to the door handle with one hand and the roof of the Lincoln with the other until he was rescued an interminable five minutes later, the last strength ebbing out of his white fingers.
    In the lobby near the door was a pay phone, and Dan slipped in a dime. “I could use a hand,” he said into the receiver. “I’ll be the one in the souped up Lincoln with the wheelchair on the license plate. Accept no substitutes.”
    In the parking lot he chinned himself into the driver’s seat, surprised at how strong he suddenly felt. A passerby stopped to offer assistance with the chair. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Do I look helpless to you?”

33
    Anne pulled in behind Dan’s Lincoln. It was late, and along Kings Road the Woods’ house was the only one with lights on. The rain had stopped but it was cold, and the shallow puddles Anne stepped around rippled in light cast by the streetlamp.
    The chair, still collapsed, sat on the driveway. “Make sure the brake is on,” Dan said, and did the rest on his own. “Come in.”
    “I shouldn’t.”
    “I don’t see why not.”
    They went in through the garage, Dan flipping the switch for the kitchen overhead.
    “Guess who showed up today?” she said.
    “Lyndon Johnson. How the hell should I know?”
    “You could go along and guess wrong a few times so I could properly astonish you.”
    “It
was
Lyndon Johnson?”
    “No. Randall.”
    Dan frowned. “That doesn’t sound good.”
    Anne considered. “It’s hard to say. He’s always been such a strange boy.”
    “Genetics.”
    “Go to hell.”
    “Actually, I was thinking of Mather and how the Grouse blood skipped a generation.”
    “I’m very much like him.”
    “You aren’t like anybody. And you’re even less like him than all the other people you don’t resemble.”
    “I’ll have to think about that.”
    “Let’s try the living room. You can build a fire if you want. We haven’t had one all winter. Her majesty doesn’t like the smell of burning wood.”
    “Another false alarm?”
    “Third one this month. They seem to coincide, more or less, with not getting her own way.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    “No. Let’s not talk about old women. Let’s drink. The liquor cabinet ought to have something in it.”
    Fourteen or fifteen bottles was all. Bourbon, scotch, brandy. Backups for each. “What do you want?”
    “Whatever,” he said. “You choose.”
    “Brandy.”
    “Only if you’ll build a fire.”
    “I don’t know how, if you can believe it.”
    “I’ll show you. People start them all the time and they don’t even mean to. Did he flunk out, or what?”
    Anne opened the