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they’re being anything but careful.”
    “What if we have something catching? Will we all have to be isolated?” She was thinking of her dancing and her plans for the next year. If she had to be isolated because of something her half-sister had, she would lose precious, irreplaceable time. Guilt grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, shaming her for putting her ambitions ahead of Marilee’s health, but the thought lingered and would not be denied.
    “What’s wrong, sugar?” asked her father when Laurie had been frowning in silence for the better part of a mile.
    “Nothing, really. Worries.”
    “We all have ’em,” Jonathon said quietly. “It’s part of living.”
    “Yeah.” She stared ahead, trying to find a way to make her own conflicting emotions more palatable. She never thought of herself as heartless, but perhaps she was, if she could be more apprehensive about a few lost months than that Marilee might have a fatal disease. She did her best to make her mind a blank and to concentrate on nothing but the people on the sidewalk. After a short while, she said, “There’s Mom.”
    Jonathon signaled and pulled toward the curb. “You’ve got sharp eyes, Laurie,” he said as he braked to a stop.
    “Hi,” said Catherine, opening the back door and pressing Laurie on the shoulder. “Don’t mind me riding back here. I want to stretch out and it’s easier in the back. You stay where you are, Laurie.” As she pulled the door shut, she said, “I can’t tell you how much trouble Dave is giving me about this second agency. He’s convinced that we need three more people for the office, minimum, and there’s no way we can afford them.”
    “Why all those people?” asked Jonathon, leaning back to exchange a twisted kiss with his wife.
    “Because Dave can’t stand the thought of having a small second office, that’s why. He doesn’t want to admit that all we need is three people and the computer and everything’s fixed.” She kicked off her shoes and lifted her legs onto the seat. “I don’t know how to convince him.”
    “Far Venture Travel isn’t exactly the biggest agency in the world,” said Jonathon. “You don’t need a huge staff, do you?”
    “I don’t think so,” said Catherine. “Dave’s trouble is he wants to be the boss, which means he wants someone to boss around, preferably a lot of someones. He hasn’t said so yet, but I think he imagines himself as a travel mogul, booking two hundred tours a year for groups of seventy and eighty. Ever since we handled that cruise for that Del Mar company, Dave’s got his eye on big package deals. He forgets that the bookings I handle— which he thinks are a waste of time—bring in more than sixty-five percent of our profit. Handling a European vacation for a family of three doesn’t appeal to him.” She put her hand to her well-cut greying hair. “Never mind that. I’m blowing off steam. I probably should have yelled at Dave, but that never gets me anywhere. How’s Marilee? Have you talked to Ben yet today?”
    “He still wants us to take those tests.” Jonathon glanced at Laurie as if to reassure himself that it was correct to discuss this in front of his daughter.
    “Well, if he thinks it’s necessary, it probably is. We want Marilee to—”
    “Get over the thing,” Jonathon finished for her. He reached out and gave Laurie a pat on her ann. “One casualty in the family is enough, isn’t it?”
    “Um-hum,” said Laurie, starting to feel scared again.

    —Harold Porter—

    Finally the snow got so bad that Frank Porter pulled his camper off the road in the town of Mullan, a few miles over the Idaho border. He wrestled himself into his heavy shearling coat and then turned to his son. “You keep an eye out for company. I’m going to walk to that service station and find out if there’s a motel open this time of night.”
    “Sure,” said Harold, his voice cracking. “I’ll do it.”
    “Good for you, son,” Frank