She laughed and squeezed his bare left hand in both of her gloved ones. Ralph squeezed back.
"You never went to see Dr. Litchfield about it, did you, Ralph?
"Nope. Made an appointment once, but cancelled it."
"Did you put it off because you didn't trust him? Because you felt he missed the boat on Carolyn?"
Ralph looked at her, surprised.
"Never mind," Lois said. "I had no right to ask that."
"No, it's okay. I guess I'm just surprised to hear the idea from someone else. That he... you know... that he might have misdiagnosed her."
"Huh!" Lois's pretty eyes flashed. "It crossed all our minds!
Bill used to say he couldn't believe you didn't have that fumble-fingered bastard in district court the day after Carolyn's funeral. Of course back then I was on the other side of the fence, defending Litchfield like mad. Did you ever think of suing him?"
"No. I'm seventy, and I don't want to spend whatever time I have left flogging a malpractice suit. Besides-would it bring Carol back?"
She shook her head.
Ralph said, "What happened to Carolyn was the reason I didn't go see him, though. I guess it was, at least. I just couldn't seem to trust him, or maybe... I don't know..."
No, he didn't really know, that was the devil of it. All he knew for sure was that he had cancelled the appointment with Dr. Litchfield, as he had cancelled his appointment with James Roy Hong, known in some quarters as the pin-sticker man. That latter appointment had been scratched on the advice of a ninety-two or -three-year-old man who could probably no longer remember his own middle name. His mind slipped to the book Old Dor had given him, and to the poem Old Dor had quoted from-"Pursuit," it had been the p h e n called, and Ralph couldn't seem to get it out of his head... especially the part where the poet talked about all the things he saw falling away behind him: the unread books, the untold jokes, the trips that would never be taken.
"Ralph? Are you there?"
"Yeah-just thinking about Litchfield. Wondering why I cancelled that appointment."
She patted his hand. "Just be glad you did. I kept mine."
"Tell me."
Lois shrugged. "When it got so bad I felt I couldn't stand it anymore, I went to him and told him everything. I thought he'd give me a prescription for sleeping pills, but he said he couldn't even do that-I sometimes have an irregular heartbeat, and sleeping pills can make that worse."
"When did you see him?"
"Early last week. Then, yesterday, my son Harold called me out of a clear blue sky and said he and Janet wanted to take me out to breakfast. Nonsense, I said. I can still get around the kitchen. If you're coming all the way down from Bangor, I said, I'll get up a nice little feed for you, and that's the end of it. Then, after, if you want to take me out-I was thinking of the mall, because I always like to go out there-why, that would be fine. That's just what I said."
She turned to Ralph with a smile that was small and bitter and fierce.
"It never occurred to me to wonder why both of them were coming to see me on a weekday, when both of them have jobs-and they must really love those jobs, because they're about all they ever talk about. I just thought how sweet of them it was... how thoghtful... and I put out a special effort to look nice and do everything right so Janet wouldn't suspect I was having a problem. I think that rankles most of all. Silly old Lois, 'Our Lois," as Bill always says... don't look so surprised, Ralph! Of course I knew abol]t that; cild you think I fell off a stump just yesterday? And he's right, I am foolish, I am silly, but that doesn't mean I don't hurt just like anybody. She was beginning to cry.
"Of course it doesn't," Ralph said, and patted her hand.
"You would have laughed if you'd seen me," she said, "baking fresh squash muffins at four o'clock in the morning and slicing mushrooms for an Italian omelette at four-fifteen and starting in with the makeup at four-thirty just to be sure, absolutely sure that Jan wouldn't get going with that 'Are you sure you feel all right, Mother Lois?" stuff, I hate it when she starts in with that crap. And do you know what, Ralph? She knew what