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One of them told Joe, far too bluntly, that Sophie was going to die, anyway, so it mattered little what sort of treatment she received now. The other doctors, however, spent hours talking with Janine, on the phone and in person, but she wouldn’t budge on her plan to subject Sophie to Schaefer’s snake oil.
    Joe had even gone to see Schaefer himself, determined to try to understand exactly how he thought his Herbalina could help. Schaefer was a nerdy little man, unable to make eye contact, and seeing him had done nothing to ease Joe’s discomfort about the study. Even Schaefer’s voice was weak and hesitant. But he told Joe he was “almost certain” that he was onto something that would help children like Sophie. That was his reply to each one of Joe’s questions. Johnny One-note.
    In early April, Sophie’s primary nephrologist contacted Janine to tell her about a new study at Johns Hopkins, one using a more conventional approach to treat Sophie’s illness. Joe had pleaded with Janine to allow Sophie that chance, but she seemed positively driven in this. She refused to let Sophie suffer any longer if she could find a way to give her some relief, she’d said, and she’d found support for her intentions from an unlikely source.
    “It’s the gardener’s fault,” he muttered, as he turned the car onto Route 7.
    “What?” Paula asked.
    “The gardener at Ayr Creek. You know, Lucas Trowell.The guy Janine’s parents think is a pedophile?” He could picture the thin, bespectacled gardener pruning the azaleas or mulching the trees at Ayr Creek. The few times Joe had seen him there, Lucas had looked up from his task to stare at him. Not glance at him, but literally stare, as though Joe were a member of a species the gardener had never seen before. There was definitely something odd about that man.
    “How on earth is this his fault?” Paula asked.
    “He told her the study sounded like a great idea. He told Janine it made sense to him. He’s a gardener , for Pete’s sake. And probably certifiable, too. He lives in a damned tree house. I can’t believe she would listen to him instead of to Sophie’s doctors.”
    He and Janine’s parents had joined forces to try to dissuade Janine from putting Sophie in the study, and again from sending her away this weekend, but they had failed on both counts. Janine seemed to be under the spell of a lunatic doctor and a persuasive gardener.
    “I can relate to how Janine must feel, though,” Paula said, in her most careful, not-wanting-to-upset-him voice. “She’s concerned about quality of life for Sophie right now. The way I was about my mom before she died.”
    “Well, I think she’s lost her mind.” He honked his horn at a driver who pulled in front of him, cutting him off from Janine. “She never had most of her mind to begin with.”
    “Look, Joey.” Paula adjusted the chest strap of her seat belt so that she could turn to face him. “You’re angry and upset, and it makes sense that you’re trying to find someone to blame, but the truth is, if Sophie is late getting back from camp, it isn’t the fault of the study, or Schaefer, or the pedophile gardener, or Janine, or—”
    “It is Janine’s fault,” Joe interrupted as he passed the car ahead of him, pulling up behind Janine again. “Sophie should never have gone on this trip. She’s never been away from us. Even during all her hospital stays, she’s had one of us withher. Janine completely disregarded my wishes. I don’t get it, either. For the past few years, we’ve agreed on how to handle things with Sophie. And now…”
    “You mean, she’s gone along with everything you wanted to do.”
    He glanced at her. “What are you saying?” he asked.
    “I’m saying that Janine hasn’t dared to think for herself since Sophie got sick, when you and her parents pinned the blame on her.”
    “I never overtly blamed her for it,” he said, although he knew the argument was weak and that Paula could see