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for all you’ve done for me.”
    “I haven’t done anything.”
    “Are you kidding? You gave me the best place in the whole wide world to live, you cooked me dinner, you made me feel welcome. You even took care of me when I got sick. I owe you big time, Terry Painter.”
    “You don’t owe me anything but the rent,” I said, struggling to keep my distance, feeling myself sway reluctantly back into her orbit, falling under her spell.
You gave me the best place in the whole wide world to live
. Who says things like that? How could you not be charmed?
    Besides, what was I so worried about? What could I possibly have to fear, especially from someone like Alison? Even assuming the worst, that she was some sort of clever con artist, what could she possibly be after? I had little in the way of material goods—my small house, its tiny adjacent cottage, negligible savings, my mother’s silly collection of ladies’ head vases. So what? Small potatoes, all of it. This was Florida, for heaven’s sake. Forty minutes north were the oceanside mansions of Palm Beach and Hobe Sound; forty minutes south were the palatial homes of Miami’s infamous South Beach. Florida was synonymous with money, with wealthy old men just waiting to be taken advantage of by beautiful young girls. Hell, it’s what was keeping them alive. It didn’t make sense that Alison would waste her time with me.
    I realize now that there are times when our brains will simply not allow us to accept the evidence our own eyespresent, that the desire for self-delusion outweighs the instinct for self-preservation, that no matter how old we are or how wise we think we’ve become, we are never really convinced of our own mortality. Besides, since when do things have to make sense?
    “So, are we on?” Alison’s big, loopy grin widened with expectation.
    “We’re on,” I heard myself reply.
    “Great.” She spun around in a full circle, the skirt of her sundress swirling around her knees. “Anywhere in particular you’d like to go?”
    I shook my head. “Surprise me.”
    She rubbed the gold heart at her throat. “I love surprises.”
    As if on cue, the fire alarm sounded. It turned out to be a false alarm, but in the few minutes it took to make sure everything was okay, chaos reigned. When I returned to the nurses’ station after reassuring several panicky patients that the hospital was not about to become a blazing inferno, Alison was gone.
    “Everybody okay?” Margot asked.
    “Mr. Austin said, fire or no fire, he wasn’t going anywhere without his teeth.” I laughed, picturing the feisty old man in room 411.
    “Pretty girl you were talking to earlier,” Margot remarked.
    “My new tenant.”
    “Really? Well, I hope you have better luck this time around.”
    * * *
    T HE NEXT HOUR PASSED IN RELATIVE CALM . There were no more fire alarms, no unexpected visitors. After a brief lunch in the cafeteria, I kept busy checking pulses, delivering pain medication, helping patients to and from the bathroom, comforting them as they railed against their fate. At some point I found myself at the door to Sheena O’Connor’s room. I hesitated briefly, then pushed the door open and stepped inside.
    The teenager lay in the middle of her bed, staring at the ceiling with eyes wide with terror. Was she seeing the man who’d raped and beaten her senseless, then left her for dead? I approached the bed, reached out, and touched her hand, but if she felt my touch at all, she gave no sign. “It’s okay,” I whispered. “You’re safe now.”
    I pulled up a chair, sat down beside her, the words to an old Irish lullaby suddenly dancing inside my head. It took a few seconds for me to find the tune, and next thing I knew I was singing—softly, gently, as one sings to a newborn baby—
“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ra … too-ra-loo-ra-lie …”
    I don’t know what made me think of that particular song. I couldn’t remember my mother ever singing it to me. Maybe it was the