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sitting up on the examining table, shook his head. “Feeling fine, just like always. Then this morning the thing started acting up on me.” He watched as Phillips prepared a hypodermic, then stretched out and rolled over on his side. “Last thing I need right now is a bum hip. Ted’s coming home and—” He winced as the needle slid into his hip, then rubbed at the sore spot when Phillips pulled the needle out a moment later. “Jesus. That felt like it went right into the bone.”
    Phillips grinned. “It almost did. Cortisone. The hip should be fine in a day or so. Now, what’s this about Ted coming home? I thought Mary hated this place.”
    Briefly, Carl explained what had happened. Phillips shook his head sadly. “I don’t know what goes on with kids these days.”
    “Well, if you ask me, it’s not too hard to figure out,” Carl replied as he pulled his pants up and fastened his belt. “The whole world’s just gotten too complicated, and the kids get scared. But there’s nowhere to run away to anymore, so they kill themselves.”
    Phillips looked doubtful. “You think that’s what happened to your granddaughter? She got scared?”
    Carl chuckled darkly. “Oh, I s’pose the doctors in Atlanta have a lot of fancy names for it, but when you get right down to it, I think she’ll be just fine once she gets down here.”
    Phillips’s frown deepened. “I wish I agreed with you.”
    Now it was Carl Anderson who looked uncertain.
    “You think I shouldn’t have told Ted to bring her down here?”
    The doctor shrugged. “It’s hardly for me to say what Ted should or shouldn’t do. But it seems to me that there’s not much for Kelly to do around here.”
    “Maybe she’s had too damned much to do in Atlanta,” Carl growled. “You don’t notice any of our kids killing themselves.”
    Phillips sighed. “There aren’t that many around at all anymore, are there?” he countered. “This whole town’s turning into a retirement center.”
    “Well, you can’t blame the young folks for moving away. What were they supposed to do? The whole place was dying.” He glanced at his watch, then grinned. “Well, not anymore. Can you believe me living my life by my wristwatch? Ten years ago, I was lucky to have anything to do at all. Now there’s barely enough time to keep up. Speaking of which,” he added, “I’m due for my regular shot tomorrow. Any reason not to have it right now?”
    Phillips shrugged. “None at all.” He turned back to his cabinet, picked up a small vial, and filled a second needle. A moment later he slipped it under the skin of Carl’s forearm and pressed the plunger. “That’s it,” he said as he pulled the needle out and dropped it into the wastebasket. “That should keep you on schedule for a while.”
    As he left the clinic a few minutes later, the pain in his hip was already beginning to recede, and the vitamin shot—the one he’d been taking regularly for years now—was making him feel ten years younger.
    Still, the fact that he felt as though he were going to live forever didn’t make him change his mind about what he’d decided to do today. He pulled the truck back out onto Ponce Avenue and turned left, heading out toward the house he’d built for Craig Sheffield three years ago. As of this afternoon, his son would be a full partner in Anderson Construction Co.
    In fact, he just might have the lawyer change thename of the company. Carl Anderson & Son. Sounded good to him. No, there was something even better.
    Anderson & Anderson.
    That was it—equal billing.
    All in all, he decided, this was turning out to be a pretty good day. He was feeling great again, and his son was coming home.
    Then he remembered Kelly, and his mood faltered. But that was going to be all right, too, he decided. Once she got away from Atlanta and onto the right track, whatever problems she had would simply disappear. Besides, he thought, his mind racing, there was even something he could do for