He wore a dark suit that had been made for him, wire-rimmed glasses, and he carried a leather briefcase, and his hair had gone handsomely to salt and pepper, so that I took him for somewhere in his middle fifties.

The nurse straightened up the instant she saw him, the way people do around someone important.

“Is this Frances Brennan?” he asked.

I wiped my eyes, embarrassed to be seen this way by a stranger.

“Yes,” I said.

He stepped into the room and looked at me with an expression I could not read at all — something searching, something almost afraid.

“Mrs.