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a good half-hour drive east on Highway 14. Besides medical care, Lupine boasts a hardware-household goods-craft supply-drug store, one diner, a pizza place, a diesel mechanic shop, a post office and a decrepit library. You can get your needs met in Lupine, but if you want anything fancy — anything designer-labeled, custom-made or in the luxury goods category, you have to plan an expedition to Portland.
    An old Datsun pickup with pale, oxidized blue paint loomed in my rearview mirror. The driver ’s visor was down against the glare of the rising sun, so I couldn’t see his face. I slowed to let him pass, but he dropped back. There was plenty of room and no traffic.
    “ Make up your mind,” I muttered.
    A few minutes later, he was on my bumper again. I slowed, and so did he.
    “Probably on his cell phone. Good grief.”
    The Datsun followed me into the hospital parking lot and backed into a slot a few spaces away from where I parked. The driver wore a red baseball cap and sunglasses. He didn ’t have a passenger. Maybe he was picking somebody up. A makeshift plywood canopy covered the pickup’s bed. I smiled at how much I pay attention to pickups now that I own one myself with a special hitch to tow my fifth-wheel RV. Pretty good for a city-born and raised girl.
    I walked through automatic sliding doors into the ER entrance and took the first hallway to the left. The X-ray technician leaned against the waiting room wall, flipping through a Field & Stream magazine.
    “ Hey.” He brightened when he saw me. “Maybe today’s the day.”
    “ I sure hope so.” I followed him into a small white room.
    “ You know the drill,” he said.
    I took the sling off and stood with my right shoulder in front of a white box on the wall. The technician strapped a lead apron around my waist and spent a few minutes aligning my collarbone with the film slide. He stepped into his protective cubicle and pressed the button. Then he rearranged me and took one more image.
    “You can go wait for the doc. I’ll have these ready in a jiffy,” he said.
    My choices of reading material were the discarded Field & Stream and a year-old issue of Parenting , so I eyed the water stains on the ceiling. At least the hospital didn’t pipe Muzak into its waiting rooms. Hurried rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the waxed floor, pushing a clattering gurney. Laughter drifted in from a nurses’ station, along with the bitter smell of burnt coffee.
    “ Having trouble sleeping at night?”
    I jerked. Had I been dozing? The white-coated doctor stood beside me.
    “No. Just been sort of busy.”
    He grunted and beckoned. I followed him to his cramped, windowless office and slid into an empty chair. He sat on the corner of his desk and gave me the doctor look — the one that feels like they’ve peeled back your skin and are watching your innards chugging away. I held my breath.
    “ How’s the sling?”
    “ A nuisance.”
    “ Any pain?”
    “ Sometimes.”
    “ Show me what you’re doing when it hurts.”
    I demonstrated. “And when I pick up anything too heavy.”
    “ That’s all normal. The pain is telling you that you shouldn’t have done whatever you just did, so pay attention to it.” He handed me a printout. “And do these stretches three times a day to get your range of motion back. No skimping.”
    I nodded. “So I don’t have to wear the sling anymore?”
    “ Nope. Something tells me you haven’t been using it much lately anyway.”
    “ You can tell that from the X-rays?”
    He laughed. “Nah. Those motions you just showed me — you can’t do those with the sling on.”
    My face grew warm.
    “You have a mal-union, which means the broken ends of the clavicle are not perfectly matched up, but it’s healing nicely. Most patients get antsy to resume their regular activities, so they fudge with the sling. That’s when I know it’s time to stop using it. If the break wasn’t healing well, you’d still be uncomfortable enough to