The light was fading between the Venetian blinds. A nurse smelling of cigarettes and stale talcum powder came in to change the IV drip and to take a pulse. The intercom in the hall continued to make loud, imperative announcements, but it was difficult to understand them through the growing haze of pain. Dr. Singh arrived about six P.M. and spoke to her softly, but Gail’s attention was riveted on the doorway where the nurse with the blessed needle would arrive. The cotton swab on her arm was a delightful preliminary to the promised surcease of pain. Gail knew to the second how many minutes before the morphine would begin to work in earnest. The doctor was saying something.

“… your husband? I thought he would be staying the night.”

“Right here, doctor,” said Gail. She patted the blanket and the sand.

Bremen pulled on his nylon windbreaker against the chill of coming night. The stars were occluded by a high cloud layer that allowed only a bit of sky to show through. Far out to sea, an improbably long oil tanker moved along the horizon. Windows of the beach homes behind Bremen cast yellow rectangles on the dunes.

The smell of steak being grilled came to him on the breeze. Bremen tried to remember whether he had eaten that day or not. His stomach twisted in a mild shadow of the pain that still filled Gail even now that the medication was working. Bremen considered going back to the convenience store near the lighthouse to get a sandwich, but remembered an old Payday candy bar he had purchased from the vending machine in the hospital corridor during the previous week’s vigil. It was still in his jacket pocket. Bremen contented himself with chewing on the rock-hard wedge of peanuts while he watched the evening settle in.

Footsteps continued to echo in the hall. It sounded as if entire armies were on the march. The rush of footsteps, clatter of trays, and vague chatter of aides bringing dinner to the other patients reminded Gail of lying in bed as a child and listening to one of her parents’ parties downstairs.