Treasure Box Page 0,80

you might guess. Most of our residents are alone or forgotten. Living on their savings or the sale of their houses. Many of them never had children. Those who did generally seem not to have had very devoted ones. I'm afraid I've become cynical, but the only people who visit our bed-care residents seem to be heirs who need money, hoping to get a better estimate of how long the stubbornly nondeparted are going to keep on depleting the estate."

"I'm not an heir," said Quentin.

"But you called her Grandmother."

"That's how my wife introduced her to me."

"I don't know which lie is more obnoxious, Mr. Fears, that you claim to be married to her granddaughter or that you claim you were ever introduced to Mrs. Tyler."

" 'There are stranger things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' " Quentin quoted. "Please open your mind to the possibility that I might be an honest man who was himself deceived."

"Why do you care what I think?" asked Sannazzaro.

That was a good question. There was more to it than trying to get along with the keeper of the gate. He wanted Sannazzaro to think well of him. He delivered his answer in the first words that came to mind. "Because you seem to be an honest person who performs well under pressure and genuinely has the best interests of the residents at heart." And then he thought of a few things he didn't say: That she wasn't trying to get anything from him. That she made snap judgments but then wasn't afraid to change her mind. That she said and did what she thought was right without apology but also without unnecessary harshness.

"It's obvious you don't care what I think," said Quentin, "and normally I could say the same about myself, but the truth is I don't like it when good people think ill of me. Actually, I don't like it when bad people think ill of me, either, but there's not much I can do about that without becoming one of them."

Sannazzaro smiled. It was better than a face-lift. "How good are you at telling the difference?"

"No better than anyone else," said Quentin. "I tend to trust people until they prove me wrong. I get fewer ulcers than the people who trust nobody."

"Not to mention saving yourself from a colostomy," said Sannazzaro. "Different generations seem to express stress through different body parts. Our parents got stomach disorders. Our generation seems to be more rectally oriented."

"Now there's a pretty thought."

"So you really thought you were being introduced to Mrs. Tyler?"

Quentin looked at the old lady and nodded.

"And your wife said she was Mrs. Tyler's granddaughter?"

"She took me to Mrs. Tyler's house and said it was her grandmother's."

"Where is your wife, Mr. Fears?" asked Sannazzaro.

Quentin chose his words carefully. "She left me under conditions that suggest our marriage wasn't quite as honest and openhearted as I thought it was."

"Well, then, you won't be surprised when I tell you that Mrs. Tyler has only one child, her happily married daughter Rowena, and she has only one child, a little girl named Roz. Ten or eleven years old by now."

"You know them?" asked Quentin.

"I have Mrs. Tyler's records. And my memory of our long conversations. She wasn't like this when she first came here. It was very sad to watch her slip away into this dreamy state after only a few months."

"Did you like her?" asked Quentin.

"Oh, yes. Not demanding, not complaining." Then Sannazzaro smiled wryly at her own words. "I suppose those are the virtues of the comatose, as well. No, what I valued about Mrs. Tyler was her grace and strength. I got the impression that she had seen the worst that life has to offer and still managed to find joy somewhere, hidden in the folds of despair."

"But then the despair won."

"I don't know about that. She's still alive. So I like to imagine that wherever she's wandering, she's not so much lost as simply contemplating the daisies she found in the midst of the wasteland."

" 'A host of golden daffodils.' " He quoted impulsively, almost before the thought came to mind. As if, talking with Sannazzaro, he had just opened a doorway into his mind and whatever he free-associated came tumbling out.

"Wordsworth," said Sannazzaro. At least she recognized the source. " 'I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vale and hill, when all at once I spied a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.' What