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had been wondering that herself, but it wasn’t a subject she had broached aloud, not with Lisa and certainly not with Milo. It seemed as though talking about what might happen if shewon could bring her bad luck, sort of like stepping on a crack and breaking your mother’s back.
    She laughed. “Nobody’s indispensable, Mr. Patterson. I’m sure Milo and Lisa would get along without me just fine.”
    â€œWell,” Harold Patterson said, “they may just have to.”
    When he finally limped out of her office, Joanna followed him as far as the office window. His mud-splattered Scout was parked out front in the place usually reserved for one of Milo Davis’ several Buicks. To Joanna’s surprise, the old man by-passed the Scout. And instead of utilizing the crosswalk, he marched across Arizona Street on a long, jaywalking diagonal, making straight for the bank.
    â€œThat poor man,” Lisa said, as she and Joanna watched him cross the street.
    â€œYou mean because of his daughters?” Joanna asked.
    Lisa nodded. “What a mess. How old is he?”
    â€œEighty-four?”
    â€œJeez. And here he is with his whole life blowing up in public before his very eyes. How can he stand what they’re doing? How could anybody?”
    Lisa was twenty-three years old. Recently engaged, she and her financé were busy planning a big, spare-no-expense wedding that was scheduled for sometime the following summer. Both of Lisa’s parents were still alive and well. Listening to her, Joanna was startled by how young Lisa seemed—how young and inexperienced.
    â€œMost of the time,” Joanna said quietly, “youdo it because you have to, because God doesn’t give you a choice.”
    And, she added silently to herself, because you never know how much the people you love are going to hurt you until it’s far too late.

Five
    A LL HIS life, Harold Patterson had been the kind of man who, when faced with a particularly onerous task, would lay out the entire job in a very orderly fashion. Then he would set about doing each separate part of the chore, carrying each one through to completion before going on to the next.
    Today was like that. He had mentally organized each separate part of his scheme before ever coming to town. Having gathered insurance forms, he headed straight for the bank.
    When Sandra Rose Henning had graduated from high school, her scholastic standing should have made her a shoo-in to receive scholarship help. She was offered some, but not enough to make a difference. Faced with the grim reality of two disabled parents to support, she had chucked the idea of going on to college. In June, while her classmates were busily planning their fall school wardrobes, Sandy hustled down to the local First Merchant’s Bank and wangled herself a job as a teller.
    Thirty-two years and fifty-five pounds later, she was still there, only now she was the manager of the Warren Branch. First Merchant’s had changedsome over the years, and rumor had it that the bank was about to be gobbled up by an out-of-state conglomerate.
    Local scuttlebutt said that all of Bisbee’s neighborhood branches, strung like so many pop-beads along what had formerly been a ten-mile bus route, would soon be consolidated into a single large branch at the new shopping center in Don Luis. That rundown area, once a primarily Mexican enclave, was now the unlikely location of a new shopping area that boasted the town’s only Safeway, and soon, perhaps, the town’s only bank.
    Sandy Henning wasn’t particularly worried about the coming merger. Regardless of what happened, she was sure she would still have a job. If it meant being demoted to “personal banker” or even going back on the teller line, that hardly mattered. Sandy liked people, and people liked her.
    She was seated at her desk when Harold Patterson marched into the bank. She had been Harold’s “personal