PART 1 — THE WOMAN BESIDE THE SUV

The woman beside Calvin’s SUV did not take the paper cup he offered her.

She kept both hands in the pockets of her coat and watched him open a brown folder.

I had arrived at Havenwood Rehabilitation at 4:40 that afternoon, intending to ask Calvin why he had stopped answering my calls.

I had not expected to find him standing beside a woman I had never seen before.

He held the cup out again.

“At least drink some of this before we go inside,” he said.

The woman looked at the cup, then at the folder.

“Is that all of it?”

“Just the papers they asked me to bring.”

“All right.”

She accepted the cup but did not drink.

Calvin turned the folder toward her and pointed to a page near the middle.

I could not read the writing from where I stood.

I could see that he had written something in the margin, though.

He used a blue pen, the same kind he kept in his kitchen drawer.

The woman leaned closer to examine the page.

She looked somewhere around forty.

Her hair was cut just below her ears, and she wore a plain blue scarf.