“Yes, dear. Leave them here. Mrs. Baker is only authorized to have family visitors. You aren't family, are you? Oh, here comes her sister. She might want to take them in for you.”

Grace Axton, looking very tired, had just come out of a room down the hallway. "Oh, how lovely of you," she said, when she saw them standing there with their flowers. "I'll just take them to her room. She's sleeping right now. She'll be so pleased.”

Jane and Shelley waited patiently for Grace to return. "You look exhausted," Shelley said when Grace rejoined them. "Let us buy you some lunch. I'll bet you didn't get any.”

Grace smiled. "I don't think I have eaten, come to think of it. But not here. The food in this place makes me think of that old movie Soylent Green. There's a pizza place across the street."

“You'd eat pizza?" Jane said in amazement. "On purpose?”

When they'd walked across the street and were seated on remarkably uncomfortable rigid plastic chairs, Jane asked, "How is your sister doing?”

Grace lifted her shoulders. "Still sedated. The doctor thinks it was just exhaustion, topped off by that awful man dying in the storeroom. He says a couple days of enforced rest ought to put her right."

“Meanwhile you're doing her work and yours," Shelley said.

“The work's not bad. I'm not much of a cook and Conrad found someone to help him from a restaurant that's shut down for renovations. It'll really screw up our budget, but mainly I'm concerned with Sarah.”

Jane said, "Is there anything we can do for her? Bring her magazines or newspapers or some kind of craft project to occupy her?"

“I can't think what," Grace said. "Certainly not newspapers. Conrad would flip. He won't even allow that little local rag in the house because he didn't want her to know about the zoning battle.”