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I’ll be there early in the morning before I go down the mountain to my hospital rounds.”
    “Thanks, Doctor Darby. I don’t know what the Lancaster household would’ve done all these years. You’ve been a blessing.”
    “My pleasure, Janet,” he said and hung up.
    Her appetite had vanished, so returning to the table simply to shove the food around on her plate made no sense. Again she climbed the stairs. She paused outside her grandmother’s door. From inside, she could hear Lettie’s soothing ministrations and her grandmother’s muffled replies. The voices were low and unintelligible, but Janet knew that her grandmother was in capable hands. Realizing she could do nothing further, Janet continued on her way to the familiar bedroom on the third floor.

 
     
     
     
THREE
     
    W ithout undressing, Janet stretched crosswise on the bed. Sleep came only in snatches of minutes as she twisted and turned on the hobnail bedspread. Great concern for the health of her only living relative moved like a mournful specter, floating around the room, lurking under the bed and behind the drapes. Even the childhood comforts of Ken and Barbie from elementary days, high school pennants and pom-poms, or the life-sized poster of Jon Bon Jovi during his long-haired reign, all of it here just as she had left it, gave her little solace.
    Following the death of her parents, Janet had been installed in this very room and raised with loving, but rigid standards, by the same lady who now lay weak and frail in her bed on the floor below. From the earliest times Janet was taught that the Lancasters do not retreat from life; rather, they meet it head-on and on their own terms. Elizabeth and Lionel Lancaster had been bound and determined that she learn the lesson well, and they would not let even the death of her parents distort her vision of the future.
    Janet’s childhood had not been one of pampering and privilege. She attended public school and was expected to bring home A’s, or at the very least an occasional B-plus. And she had worked hard, determined not to disappointment them. She remembered the chunky little Volkswagen doodle-bug her grandparents had given her the spring she graduated from high school. She always had the feeling that the car had been her grandmother’s idea. Lionel Lancaster was never prone to generosity. The car was bright orange and probably the last one on the lot to be sold—who else would want such a color? But Janet loved the car and considered it her magic pumpkin that would someday turn into a golden carriage and carry her to Prince Charming. After handing her the keys, her grandparents insisted she take them for a spin, but Janet simply refused to drive that particular stretch of highway on Laurel Mountain where her parents had been killed.
    Her grandmother had seized Janet’s chin between lean, hard fingers. “Listen to me, young lady,” she said, the strength of her voice matching that of her fingers. “You must not let the past dictate your future and how you will live the rest of your life. I will not allow you to do that. It’s cheap and it’s common, and you’re neither of those things. Now, drive.”
    Janet had driven.
    Now that strong and determined figure was no longer the pillar of strength Janet had always assumed her to be. She was old and mortal and quite possibly near death. Janet flipped over on her back and scrunched the pillow beneath her head. She watched the ceiling and concentrated hard, trying to will some of her energy and power of her youth to her grandmother. Not that she believed in such nonsense. Janet was much too practical to believe in transference hocus-pocus. But she did believe in the power of love .
    At long last, night faded and cracks of pale gray began to seep in around the edges of the drawn drapes. By now the ground floor would be up and stirring with morning preparations. Eager for news, Janet jumped out of bed and headed for the adjoining bathroom.
    The house