“That’s what I used to do, and look what happened,” she said. She turned back to the sink and picked up the sponge. And then, “Be back in time for church.”

She seemed calm when she said it, but on my way out the door, I heard her rummaging frantically around the kitchen.

I drove past the strip of town with the pizzeria and found Troy’s work easily. I didn’t even need directions. I just followed the pull, the gentle tug past the pizza shop and the movie theater and the bank around the curve to Glencreek Assisted Living. I parked along the curb across the street, right in front of a small graveyard. I looked back and forth across the street. Assisted living, graveyard, assisted living, graveyard. Well, that was convenient. Trees curved inward over Glencreek. The tips of the branches stretched downward, reaching toward me, trying to scratch my surface. I ducked lower even though I knew they were well out of reach.

A chunky woman with dark hair sat behind the front desk, scribbling determinedly on multiple charts. One earbud dangled by her side, blaring jazz music, while her head nodded along to the beat from the one lodged in her ear. She pulled the other earbud out when she saw me.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m here to see Troy Varga.”

She looked me over. “Of course you are. He should be finishing up his rounds. You can wait in the lobby at the end of the hall.” I strode down the main hall, a trail of slush left in my wake. I felt the tug at each closed door as I walked down the hall. Some were faint, just a suggestion, some were stronger. This place was full of dying people. But my fingers were steady. My brain was clear. No one was dying right now.

The pull was strongest at the last door. I mustered up my willpower to bypass it, but I paused anyway at the open door. An old woman was propped up, coughing into a beige, kidney-shaped basin, while a man in blue scrubs rubbed her back. She looked up at me briefly and started hacking again.

Blue scrubs turned around. Troy. He looked like he was in as much pain as the old woman. He continued to rub the woman’s back until her coughing subsided, then he eased her back and placed a thin oxygen tube under her nose. “I’ll be back after lunch.” She closed her eyes.

He walked out the door and shut it behind him. “Come with me,” he said by way of greeting. He walked across the hall and pulled us into a supply closet. Pitch darkness washed over us until he pulled a cord over our heads, illuminating a dim yellow lightbulb.

He looked through the contents on the metal wire shelves while I pressed myself against the other wall, which wasn’t very far away at all. “Okay, let’s see.”

I rolled up my long sleeve, which I’d let dangle down to my fingertips. He untied the cloth and took my hand in his. “Not too bad,” he said, even though it looked worse than yesterday, blistery and puffy and angry. He dabbed some prescription-strength cream on my hand. I looked away, thinking it would hurt less if I didn’t see it.

Then he placed some loose gauze over it and taped it to the back of my hand. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Troy.” I looked right at him and spoke in a whisper. “Did you ever tell a doctor about this?”

He frowned and straightened the already uniform boxes on the shelves. “Why would I do that?”

“I’ve been thinking that it’s neurological.”

Troy laughed, still not looking at me. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, you were in a coma and I was in a coma and there was brain damage, right?”

He spun around. “Been checking up on me, I see.”

“No,” I said, flustered. “It’s just . . .”

“Delaney,” he said, “I don’t do doctors. Not anymore.”

Didn’t he get it? Neurological could be diagnosed. Neurological could be researched. Neurological could be cured. This didn’t have to be permanent. I continued, “There was this cat in a nursing home that could tell who was going to die. They think it could smell something in the urine.”

“You think we can smell their urine?”

I ignored him. “And there was a dog that could detect cancer.”

“Humans can’t smell that wide a range.”

“Well, maybe not normally. But there are always people outside the normal range.” Like anomalies. “There are even people whose brains misinterpret senses and see sounds and feel smells. Maybe, after our comas . . .”

Troy clenched his fists and a dark wave of anger flashed over his face. Then he relaxed his hands, and his face looked normal, friendly again.