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there’s Toss needing help, and a puppy he wants he can’t take care of, plus Jack Freeman to worry about.”
    â€œWhat’ve you got against dogs?”
    â€œNothing. I love dogs. I want one again, just not right now.”
    â€œI can help with Jack some, but not much with Emmy. I’m gone all day long.”
    â€œYou don’t even know me. Why should you go out of your way at all?”
    Alan laughed and said, “Aren’t we supposed to?”
    â€œWhat do you mean by that?”
    â€œI also know you better than you think. I told you Tom talked about you. I could even retell some entertaining anecdotes from your earliest youth. Like the time he jumped out from behind a tree when you were riding—”
    â€œDon’t. Please.” Jo didn’t laugh the way she usually would have. She just walked on in silence.
    â€œSo what else is it? You’re put out about something.”
    â€œI’m tired of being everybody’s nurse! I nursed my old horse for ten months, hours everyday. That was fine, I wanted to. I loved him more than I can explain to anyone who hasn’t had a horse like Jed. But I was taking care of Mom as well, part of that time. She was a great mother, and father too, for a lot of years, and my best friend by the time I was in college. But she wasn’t herself, and she was sick for two years. Then Tommy died, and I was still reeling, and Jack appeared with pneumonia. I feel like I’m a hundred years old, and I’ve never gotten to live my own life!”
    Alan said, “It must’ve been hard when—”
    â€œI want to educate myself better than I can with architecture books, and then do work that’s worth doing!”
    â€œYou
should
want to do work you care about. It’d be a waste if you didn’t.”
    â€œI ought to be thinking about Toss, I know that, and I will do everything that needs to be done, but I really wanted to get out of here and do something
I
want to do!”
    Alan looked at her sideways for a minute as though he were considering how much to say. “There’ve been times in my life when I had very definite plans for the future. For something that was really important to me that I thought was worth doing, and one thing after another kept me from doing it. But when I’ve been able to look back on those times, I’ve seen that what came out of that was what should’ve happened. That for some good reason, it was worth it. That real good came out of it that
I
think was intended.”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œIs that the lesson for the day?” Jo was hurrying faster than she had been, and Emmy had to run to keep up. But then Jo sighed, and looked at Alan, as she switched on the barn lights from just inside the door. “That was a snotty thing for me to say, when you—”
    â€œNo, don’t worry about it.
There
he is! Even I can recognize Sam.”
    Sam was blinking, trying to adjust his eyes to the light, looking from Jo to Alan – until he saw sugar cubes on Alan’s palm and picked them up, one at a time, carefully, between his lips. He crunched the cubes quietly, with a far away look in his eyes, while Alan stroked his neck and talked to him about Tom.
    Emmy was in her box in the pantry, whining pathetically, when Jo finally got into bed. Emmy settled down in five or ten minutes, but Jo couldn’t shut her brain off and make herself sleep. She got up at two, took Emmy outside to avoid accidents, made herself a large cup of cocoa, then sat at the kitchen table and turned on Tommy’s tape.
    â€œâ€¦Then we were sent to an abandoned boys’ camp outside of D.C., where we did extensive training. It was called Area B then. Today it’s known as Camp David. That was where I first got to know Alan Munro.
    â€œAlan was a chemical engineer, and they attached him to the Research And Development branch that invented gadgets and