“I’m in a terrible hurry,” Dabney said. She indiscriminately stuck two final ears of corn into her recyclable shopping bag.

But Elizabeth either didn’t hear Dabney or she chose to ignore her. She said, “You’re friends with Clendenin Hughes, right?”

Dabney froze. Her insides contorted. Lovesick.

Elizabeth said, “When we had dinner a few weeks ago, he told me the two of you have known each other since high school. So sweet!” Elizabeth smiled, showing off her capped teeth. She was wearing a turquoise-and-white dress with matching turquoise sandals, and her toenails, Dabney noticed, were painted the same shade of turquoise. Was it possible that Elizabeth Jennings had her pedicure done each day to match her outfit? It wasn’t impossible. What else did Elizabeth Jennings have to do all day except gossip and chase after Clendenin? She wasn’t even at the corn crib to pick out corn, Dabney realized. She had come only to torment Dabney!

“I have to go,” Dabney said. She turned to her cart and loaded in her ears.

“I went to Clen’s house to drop off a pie I made,” Elizabeth said.

Involuntarily, Dabney shook her head. There was no way Elizabeth had made a pie.

“And there was a young woman pulling out of his driveway as I was pulling in. A very beautiful young woman. I think Clendenin has a girlfriend!”

Dabney barely made it to the Impala before the pain became unbearable. Elizabeth Jennings had been jealous, spiteful even, and possibly suspicious of Dabney’s relationship with Clen. Either she had wanted Dabney to tell her who this young mystery woman was or she wanted Dabney to commiserate. Men always chose younger women. Life was unfair in many aspects, but this, perhaps, was the most unfair.

At the very least, Dabney knew that Elizabeth Jennings hadn’t been the guest at five o’clock. Someone else had been.

Dabney called Clen from the parking lot.

She said, “Who were your plans with the other day? When I wanted to come over at five o’clock and you said you were busy?”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Cupe. I can’t tell you.”

“Clen!” she shouted. She was in so much pain, and now this. “A young woman? A beautiful young woman?”

“Dabney,” he said. “I can’t tell you.”

The sharp, shining knives piercing her gut.…She moaned. Her insides were being gnawed on by millions of tiny razor teeth.

I think Clendenin has a girlfriend!

I’m sorry, Cupe. I can’t tell you.

Lovesick.

No, she thought.

In the morning, she called Genevieve at Dr. Field’s office. “I need to talk to Ted,” she said. “Please, I think it’s an emergency.”

“Like, an emergency-room emergency?” Genevieve said.

“Please, Genevieve,” Dabney said. “I need to talk to Ted. Can you make that happen?”

“For you, I can make anything happen.”

Ted Field set it all up. He sent Dabney’s blood work to the correct person at Mass General, and they scheduled a CT scan for Thursday morning.

“You do realize,” Ted Field said, “that you have to go to Boston.”

“Yes,” Dabney said. It had long been her mantra that she would leave the island only if her life depended on it. Now, she was suddenly certain, her life depended on it.

She told Box first.

“I spoke to Ted Field,” she said. “I’m going to Boston for a CT scan.”

“That sounds serious,” he said. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” Dabney said. “I’m going alone.”

“It’s my city and it’s been aeons since you’ve been there, or anywhere else, by yourself. Let me go with you. We can end the day with dinner at Harvest, spend the night in my apartment, and come back in the morning.”

“That sounds like your idea of a lovely time,” Dabney said. “I want to go and come back, and I am going alone.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Box said.

“First flight to Boston on Thursday,” she said. “Last flight back Thursday.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe that you’re going alone,” he said.

“I’m going alone,” she said.

She told Clen next.

“Boston on Thursday,” she said. “I have to have some tests.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds,” he said. “Let me go with you.”

“You can’t,” she said.

“Wanna bet?”

“Clen.”

He frowned. “Is the economist going with you?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going alone.”

She told Agnes, and then Nina. Boston on Thursday for tests. Before either of them could open her mouth, she said, “I’m going alone.”

At the airline counter, she accepted her boarding pass and thought, Am I really doing this? It would have been far easier with Box or Clen or Agnes or Nina there to prop her up. But she felt it was important that she go alone, self-motivated, powered by her own two feet.

At the very moment the airplane lifted off the ground, something fell back down to earth. Her spirit, her soul, her self. She was nothing but a shell.

Taxi, Ted Williams Tunnel, Cambridge Street, Mass General. She had seen the Prudential Building and the Hancock Tower as she flew in. Skyscrapers, the wider world. It was just Boston, she reminded herself, only ninety miles from home. She had gone to college across the river, she had made it through four years of higher education; she would make it through today.