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wine in her right hand, she took too large a swallow. It was a good California cabernet that merited leisurely sipping, but suddenly she was more interested in its effect than its taste.
        Standing across the desk from her, Marty said, "There's at least five more minutes of the same thing. Seven minutes in all. After it happened, before you and the girls came home, I did some research."
        He gestured toward the bookshelves that lined one wall. "In my medical references."
        Paige did not want to hear what he was going to tell her. The possibility of serious illness was unthinkable. If anything happened to Marty, the world would be a far darker and less interesting place.
        She was not sure that she could deal with the loss of him. She realized her attitude was peculiar, considering that she was a child psychologist who, in her private practice and during the hours she donated to child-welfare groups, had counseled dozens of children about how to conquer grief and go on after the death of a loved one.
        Coming around the desk toward her, his own wine glass already empty, Marty said, "A fugue can be symptomatic of several things.
        Early-stage Alzheimer's disease, for instance, but I believe we can rule that out. If I've got Alzheimer's at thirty-three, I'd probably be the youngest case on record by about a decade."
        He put his glass on the desk and went to the window to stare out at the night between the slats of the plantation shutters.
        Paige was struck by how vulnerable he suddenly appeared. Six feet tall, a hundred and eighty pounds, with his easy-going manner and limitless enthusiasm for life, Marty had always before struck her as being more solid and permanent than anything in the world, oceans and mountains included. Now he seemed as fragile as a pane of glass.
        With his back toward her, still studying the night, he said, "Or it might have been an indication of a small stroke."
        "No."
        "Though according to the references I checked, the most likely cause is a brain tumor."
        She raised her glass. It was empty. She could not remember having finished the wine. A little fugue of her own.
        She set the glass on the desk. Beside the hateful cassette recorder.
        Then she went to Marty and put a hand on his shoulder.
        When he turned to her, she kissed him lightly, quickly. She laid her head against his chest and hugged him, and he put his arms around her.
        Because of Marty, she had learned that hugs were as essential to a healthy life as were food, water, sleep.
        Earlier, when she had caught him systematically checking window locks, she'd insisted, with only a scowl and a single word-"Well?"- insisted on hearing about his one bad moment in an otherwise fine day.
        She looked up and met his eyes at last, still embracing him, and said,
        "It might be nothing."
        "It's something."
        "But I mean, nothing physical."
        He smiled ruefully. "It's so comforting to have a psychologist in the house."
        "Well, it could be psychological."
        "Somehow, it doesn't help that maybe I'm just crazy."
        "Not crazy. Stressed."
        "Ah, yes, stress. The twentieth-century excuse, the favorite of goldbrickers filing fake disability claims, politicians trying to explain why they were drunk in a motel with naked teenage girls-" She let go of him, turned away, angry. She wasn't upset with Marty, exactly, but with God or fate or whatever force had suddenly brought turbulent currents into their smoothly flowing lives.
        She started toward the desk to get her glass of wine before she remembered she had already drunk it. She turned to Marty again.
        "All right… except when Charlotte was so sick that time, you've always been about as stressed out as a clam. But maybe you're just a secret worrier. And lately, you've had a lot of pressures."
        "I have?" he