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medical students you can order around. And a team of residents. I’ve seen how it is on those TV doctor shows. But that’s not the way it is here. And don’t think I’m always going to be available to help you out. In fact, I only work half days on account of my heart.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with your heart?” he asked.
    â€œNothing,” she snapped. “I just don’t want to strain it.”
    â€œYou work half days, I’ll work the other half,” Hayley interjected.
    Sam turned to look at her, and so did the nurse.
    â€œYou?” they chorused.
    â€œYes, me. Of course I don’t have the training or the experience that you do, Mattie, but I might be able to do the billing and…whatever else is needed.”
    Sam glared at her. No. He didn’t want her in the office, distracting him, trying to help out. Reminding him he was there under duress. Of course, he didn’t want old stone-face around, either. He just wished it didn’t have to beeither of them. But he was going to need someone. It was true. He had medical students to do his scut work. Interns who made rounds with him and hung on every word he said. And he hadn’t the slightest idea how to run an office.
    â€œWell,” Hayley said brightly, “let’s take a tour, Sam. I’m afraid the equipment is sadly out-of-date,” she said as they went from the waiting room to the office to the examining room. “Just give me a list of what you’ll need, and I’ll order it.”
    â€œI’ll manage,” he said gruffly. He knew now why he should never have come. Once again he felt like the poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks being patched up by Doc Bancroft. The kid who couldn’t pay his bill, couldn’t even leave a sack of apples on the porch.
    â€œIt’s only for six months,” he reminded her and himself. He looked out the back window at a young woman pushing a stroller down Elm Street, and he wondered if he would remember how to deliver a baby, if he’d be telephoned in the middle of the night to reassure anxious parents when their kids were spiking fevers of 104 or having an asthmatic attack. “Maybe no one will come. Maybe they’d rather drive to Portland than put themselves in my hands. Did you ever think of that?” he asked Hayley.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous. Everyone I’ve talked to is delighted you’re going to be here. So delighted the local businesses have put together a welcome basket.”
    â€œA welcome basket. Just what I wanted. What’s in it? A loaf of bread from the Good Times Bakery where I used to snitch doughnuts before school? An ice cream cone from the soda shop where I got thrown out for looking scruffy, annoying the paying customers and reading their magazines but never buying any?”
    â€œSam, please. No one remembers these things but you. Or if they do, they’re willing to forgive and forget.”
    â€œMattie doesn’t look as if she’s forgotten or forgiven.”
    â€œThat’s Mattie,” she said.
    â€œMaybe I don’t give a damn about being forgiven, as long as I can be forgotten,” he suggested.
    Forgotten. As if she’d ever forgotten that last night in this examining room. The blinds were drawn. The blood was running down Sam’s face. Mattie was holding the syringe. She thought she was going to faint when her grandfather laid him on the table, picked up a needle and shot him full of anesthetic. Her heart pounded as the memories came rushing back. She glanced over at Sam, wondering if he was thinking of that night, wishing it hadn’t ended the way it had. Wishing she could have prevented what happened, but she couldn’t.
    She tore her gaze away and led the way into the examining room, nervously adjusting the height of the blinds at the windows, not knowing what to say. Afraid to say anything that would set him off. That would make him