Sometimes it bothered Patricia how much time they spent telling each other how good they looked, how wonderful they seemed, how fantastic they were. Three years ago she would have suspected Carter had called ahead and told everyone to make sure they kept Patricia’s spirits up, but now she realized that all of them did it, all the time.

But what was wrong with enjoying their blessings? They had so many good things in their lives. Why not celebrate?

“Hey, man!” a loud voice said, and Patricia saw Horse’s red face rising up over Marjorie’s shoulder. “Is that husband of yours around?”

He leaned in unsteadily to peck Patricia on the cheek. He hadn’t shaved, and a yeasty cloud of beer hovered around his head.

“A horse is a horse, of course, of course,” Carter said, coming up behind Patricia.

“You won’t believe it, but we’re rich again,” Horse said, putting one hand on Carter’s shoulder to steady himself. “Next time we go to the club, drinks are on me.”

“Don’t forget, we’ve got four more who want to go to college,” Kitty said, stepping into the circle and giving Patricia a one-armed hug.

“Don’t be cheap, woman!” Horse bellowed.

“We signed the papers today,” Kitty explained.

“When I see Jimmy H. I’m gonna kiss him,” Horse said. “Right on the lips!”

Patricia smiled. James Harris had totally transformed Kitty and Horse’s lives. He’d straightened out the management of Seewee Farms, hired them a young man to run things, and convinced Horse to sell 110 acres to a developer. That was what had finally come through today.

It wasn’t just them. All of them, including Patricia and Carter, had invested more and more money in Gracious Cay, and as outside investors kept coming in they’d all taken out credit lines against their shares. It felt like money just kept falling out of the sky.

“You got to come with me Saturday,” Horse told Carter. “Do some boat shopping.”

“How are the children?” Patricia asked Kitty, because that was the kind of thing you said.

“We finally convinced Pony to look at the Citadel,” Kitty said. “I can’t stand the idea of him up at Carolina or Wake Forest. He’d be so far away.”

“It’s better when they stay local,” Marjorie nodded.

“And Horse wants another Citadel man in the family,” Kitty said.

“That class ring opens doors,” Marjorie said. “It really does.”

As Marjorie and Kitty talked, the room began to close in around Patricia. She didn’t know why everyone’s voices sounded so loud, or why the small of her back felt cold and greasy with sweat, or why her underarms itched. Then she smelled the Swedish meatballs bubbling away in the silver chafing dish on the buffet table beside her.

Carter and Horse laughed uproariously over something and Horse put his beer down on the buffet table and he already had another one in his hand and Kitty said something about Korey, and the familiar reek of boiling ketchup filled Patricia’s skull and coated her throat.

She forced herself to stop thinking about it. It was better not to think about it. Her life was back to normal now. Her life was better than normal.

“Did you see on the news about that school in New York?” Kitty asked. “The children have to get there at five a.m. because it takes them two and a half hours to go through the metal detectors.”

“But you can’t put a price on safety,” Marjorie said.

“Excuse me,” Patricia said.

She pushed her way past shoulders and backs, needing to get away from that smell, twisting her hips to the side, terrified she’d knock someone’s drink out of their hands, forcing her way through scraps of conversation.

“…taking him up to tour the campus…”

“…have you lost weight…”

“…divest into Netscape…”

“…the president’s just a Bubba, it’s his wife…”

Kitty hadn’t visited her in the hospital.

She didn’t want to keep score like this but for the first time in years it just popped into her mind.

“You were in and out so quickly,” Kitty had told Patricia over the phone. “I was going to come just as soon as I got organized but by the time that happened, you were already home.”

She remembered Kitty begging for reassurance. “With all those pills, you just mixed up your prescription, didn’t you?”

That was what had happened, she agreed, and Kitty had been so grateful it didn’t have to go any further or get any messier and she had been so grateful that everyone had let it drop and never talked about it again that she hadn’t realized how much it hurt that none of them came by the hospital. At the time, she was just grateful. She was grateful no one called her a suicide and treated her different. She was grateful it had been so easy to slip back into her old life. She was grateful for the new dock and the trip to London and the surgery to fix her ear and the backyard cookouts and the new car. She was grateful for so many things.

“Ice water, please,” she said to the black man in white gloves behind the bar.

The only one who came to the hospital had been Slick. She showed up at seven in the morning and knocked gently on the open door and came in and sat down next to Patricia. She didn’t say much. She didn’t have any advice or insight, no ideas or opinions. She didn’t need to be convinced it had all been an accident. She just sat there, holding Patricia’s hand in a kind of silent prayer, and around seven forty-five she said, “We all need you to get better,” and left.

She was the only one of them Patricia cared about anymore. She didn’t hold anything too much against Kitty and Maryellen and they saw each other socially, but the only time she came near Grace now was at book club. When she saw Grace she thought about things she’d said that she didn’t want to remember.

She turned, cold glass in one hand, grateful she couldn’t smell the meatballs anymore, and saw Grace and Bennett standing behind her.

“Hello, Grace,” she said. “Bennett.”

Grace didn’t move; Bennett stood motionless. No one leaned forward for a hug. Bennett had an iced tea in his hand instead of a beer. Grace had lost weight.

“It’s quite a turnout,” Grace said, surveying the room.

“Did you enjoy this month’s book?” Patricia asked.

“I’ve certainly learned a lot about the war on drugs,” Grace said.

I hated it, Patricia wanted to say. Everyone talked in the same terse, manly sentences you’d expect from an insurance salesman fantasizing about war. Every sentence dripped with DDOs and DDIs and LPIs and E-2s and F-15s and MH-53Js and C-141s. She didn’t understand half of what she read, there were no women in it except fools and prostitutes, it had nothing to say about their lives, and it felt like a recruitment ad for the army.

“It was very illuminating,” she agreed.

James Harris had turned their book club into this. He’d started getting the husbands to attend, and they’d started reading more and more books by Pat Conroy (“He’s a local author”) and Michael Crichton (“Fascinating concepts”), and The Horse Whisperer and All the Pretty Horses and Bravo Two Zero, and sometimes Patricia despaired over what were they going to read next—The Celestine Prophecy? Chicken Soup for the Soul?—but mostly she marveled at how many people came.

It was better not to dwell on it. Everything changes, and was it really so bad that more people wanted to discuss books?

“We need to find seats,” Grace said. “Excuse us.”

Patricia watched them retreat into the crowd. The track lighting got brighter as the sky outside got darker, and she made her way back to her group. As she got nearer she smelled sandalwood and leather. People parted and she saw Carter talking excitedly to someone, and then she passed the last person blocking her view and saw James Harris, dressed in a blue oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled up just so, and his khakis pressed exactly right, his hair tousled by experts, and his skin glowing with health.

“You wouldn’t believe the schedule they have me on this fall,” Carter was telling him. “Six talks before January. You’ll have to keep an eye on the old homestead.”

“You know you love it,” James Harris said, and they both laughed.

Patricia’s steps faltered and she cursed herself for not wanting to see James Harris, who had done so much for all of them, and she forced herself to walk toward him with a big smile. James Harris was Leland’s business advisor these days. He called himself a consultant. He made up for not being able to go outside during the day by working through the night. He pored over the plans for Gracious Cay, he wooed outside investors at catered dinners he hosted at his home, and sometimes when Patricia walked down Middle Street early in the morning she could still smell cigar smoke lingering in the street outside his house. He worked the phones, he encouraged people to get outside their comfort zones, he convinced Leland to grow a ponytail. He carried them into the future.

“We’re going to have to get you married so you can know what it’s like to be tied down,” Carter said to James Harris.