Frequently Asked Questions

By Kelly Mason

Robin Dormer is looking for expanded career opportunities when she accepts a job as Assistant for Special Projects for Daniel Fenwick, the deputy director of the Camden State Hospital. Through a period of growth, Robin copes with her new job at the mental-health facility in her Midwestern college town, a new romantic relationship, and a new understanding of her place in the world.

Meanwhile, her sister Jennie, settled into marriage and motherhood, also begins to see herself and her family differently. She starts reading a journal written by Anna Fielding, an English clergymans wife during the nineteenth century. The volumes, dating from 1853 to 1888, show how womens lives and relationships have changed, and have stayed the same, from generation to generation.

Frequently Asked Questions blends Anne Tyler and Anthony Trollope, modern women and Victorian ladies, to offer an absorbing story about the choices we face as we navigate social life and relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Dec 22, 2015
• ISBN: 9781480825352

Kelly Mason

Kelly Mason holds a PhD in English literature, specializing in the Victorian novel. She has two children and lives in Kansas.

Book preview

Copyright © 2015 Kelly Mason.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2534-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-2535-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015920458

Archway Publishing rev. date: 12/22/2015

W as it a

good day or a bad day? Neither, Daniel said later. Just a normal day with its normal share of problems and satisfactions. A day in the life of a bureaucrat. His reason for remembering it came only at the end.

He arrived at work at 7:40, ten minutes after his usual time. Benny Moss was already there. He stood leaning against the main building’s outer door, next to the plaque that read CAMDEN STATE HOSPITAL ESTABLISHED 1873. His arms were folded across his chest. He might be conveying displeasure, or he might simply be trying to keep himself warm in the cold October air. His jacket was a thin windbreaker. Like his sister, he tended to dress too lightly for the weather.

Hello, Benny, Daniel said, making a gesture toward shaking the other man’s hand before he remembered that his own hands were full, with his briefcase and his breakfast apple.

How you doin’, Benny said. He followed Daniel into the building and down the hallway to a door with Deputy Director written in white on a frosted glass pane. Daniel clenched the apple in his teeth, dragged his keys out of his pocket, and unlocked the door.

Come on in, he said, but Benny had already slouched into a chair. Daniel put down his briefcase and then his apple, not liking to eat in front of his visitor, and sat down, smoothing his tie. He found himself glancing toward the window, as if hoping that someone else would come along to prevent the ensuing conversation from taking place. The arrangement made him uneasy: white man in a jacket and tie behind the desk, a black man across from him, dressed in a denim shirt and old brown trousers, in the chair reserved for people asking questions or favors.

Dahlia’s doing bad, said Benny. Not taking her meds. Wanders around the house, or sits in a chair all day. Hasn’t been outside for two weeks.

That does sound bad.

She needs to come in for a while.

Daniel leaned back in his chair and gazed at Benny, who gazed back. Benny gave an impression of permanence; he looked monolithic, perhaps because his hair and eyes and skin were all the same shade of deep brown. He looked as if he could sit in that chair all day. But in fact Daniel knew that Benny had to be at work by eight.

She has an outpatient treatment order, doesn’t she?

Ran out last month. She wasn’t going anyway.

Has she tried to hurt herself?

Benny glanced away for the first time. Not that I know of. She’s going to, though. Why do I have to wait for that?

Daniel said nothing. They had had this conversation so often before that words seemed to flicker in the air between them in the silence. She needs to come in, she needs help. We can’t make her come in. Why not? Because it’s not legal. She won’t listen to me, but she needs help.

Finally Daniel said, We can’t do anything unless she’s a threat to herself or to someone else.

Yeah. Yeah.

Another silence. Benny rubbed his hand slowly across his face. That’s not going to make anyone feel better when she finally gets around to killing herself. Too late then. I guess you’d rather cover your ass than prevent a suicide.

Daniel didn’t reply. There was nothing new about this part of the conversation, either. He sometimes thought, seeing Benny again after an interval of a few months, that Benny would be the one to give up—to commit suicide, or come to the hospital asking to be admitted. His suffering must be almost as acute as Dahlia’s. The dreariness, the awfulness, of living with her was draining his strength day by day, and he had no escape.

Benny heaved himself to his feet, nodded twice, and left.

Daniel turned on his computer and began reading his e-mail, replying, deleting, filing, until his in-box held only fifteen messages—fifteen little pieces of unfinished business. He disliked having too many messages in his in-box to see them all on the same screen. Messages that dropped below the edge of the screen were too easily forgotten.

At eight, Merle arrived and put her head in at Daniel’s door to say good morning. At 8:05 she came in with her little notebook and settled herself in the same chair where Benny had sat. How was your weekend? she asked him.

Oh, fine, nothing too exciting. How was yours?

It was all right, but Fred had a little trouble. I just don’t know sometimes, has it really been worth it? All the sleepless nights and the pain he’s been in, and his quality of life, maybe it would really be better if he just slipped away, but then I think, oh, what would my life be without him? And he depends on me and I just cannot let him down.

That’s tough, said Daniel.

When his back got so bad, I kind of thought his will to live would go, but no—he just adjusted and went right on, and so did I, and now I don’t even remember how things were when he was able to get around.

You can get used to almost anything, said Daniel. Like people who live next to the train tracks. After the first night or two, they sleep right through the whistles and all the other noises.

Merle looked as if she didn’t exactly appreciate his analogy, but she didn’t answer him on that point and instead began talking about the week’s schedule. I wanted to remind you that Dr. Rowley will be appearing next week in front of the state senate committee on health. Mindy called just now and wanted to know if you could go over his briefing book with him.

Sure. Um…tomorrow at…no, I’ll be…Friday? The thought flickered through his mind that, by delaying the appointment until the end of the week, he was increasing the likelihood that Dr. Rowley might actually read the briefing book before they went over it.

Mindy says he’ll be out of the office on Friday.

Thursday at three?

I’ll ask her if that’ll work. She wrote it down.

What else?

Brenda wants to see you today.

Okay, around one or so. I’ll be here.

And Steve has your new printer. Seth will come by and install it.

Oh, that. Well, I’ve been thinking about it, and I think that printer ought to go down to Admissions instead. Theirs is at least three or four years old. I had forgotten all about it until I was down there the other day.

"Yours is five years old. Remember, we bought it around the time they were doing all that networking?"

I don’t print all that much. Seth can swap it out and bring theirs up here to me.

Merle bowed her head and wrote something in her notebook, crossed a T with great emphasis, and said, Well, that’s it, for now, making an ominous pause before the last two words.

The director of clinical services, Emmett Harding, came in for their daily conversation at 9:00. They sat at the round table in the corner of Daniel’s office and talked about case management and about a research study the university wanted to begin, and then Daniel said, I wonder if you could go and see Dahlia Moss.

Has Benny come to see you?

Yes. This morning. She’s doing badly, he wants her to come in, and she won’t.

I’ll see if I can go over tomorrow. No, the next day. I’ll call first.

After that, more e-mail. Then Daniel went on his daily walk around the grounds, visiting each ward in turn. His progress had a thoughtful rhythm: stop at each door, unlock it, open it and look around for any patients lingering nearby, go through, close it, lock it. Each of the main wings, Acute and Chronic, enclosed a grassy courtyard, in which a few patients paced or smoked. Maryann Holmes asked him for a cigarette. Billy Myers complained about breakfast—no syrup for the pancakes, he said. "Can’t eat no pancakes without syrup. I’ll talk to the cook," said Daniel. He noticed an overturned white plastic chair under a tree, went to set it upright, and paused there a few moments, watching a group of mental health workers near the corner door. He thought they had a disgruntled, secretive look. But then one of them finished speaking, the others laughed, and he realized he had witnessed the telling of a joke. The laughter bounced off the brick walls. A patient on the opposite side of the courtyard glared at the MHWs suspiciously and then returned to his previous activities: swaying from side to side and muttering. Daniel crossed to the edge of the courtyard and unlocked the next door.

In the infirmary one of the nurses told him their trash had not been emptied for three days in a row. They had called Custodial Services and still no one had come for it. The nurse wore an aggrieved expression, her large nostrils flaring above her pinched mouth. I’ll look into it, Daniel said. The nurse gave him a satisfied nod.

He dropped by to see the director and to remind his assistant that they had an interview at 3:00. Dr. Rowley’s on the phone, she said apologetically, but I’ll tell him you stopped by. But just then Dr. Rowley hung up, and Daniel had to go in to his office and listen to a litany of complaints about the state senate hearing schedule. In reality, these were not complaints but boasts; there was nothing Dr. Rowley liked better than traveling to the capitol to give long answers to the questions posed by legislators.

I would be glad to go instead, Daniel said.

Oh—no, no, they expect to see the director, you know, and I can’t ask you to…

Shortly after this, Daniel said he had a meeting and made his escape, taking a detour through Geriatrics on the way to the volunteer coordinator’s office. At the door to the Geriatrics common room he was stopped by Jimmy Karpinski. Behind Jimmy’s large, stooping body he saw dim figures, placed in random relationship to each other, some making repetitive, strenuous gestures and others utterly still. A smell of urine and disinfectant wafted out.

Jimmy held out his hand. How do you do? How do you do? And what might your name be?

Daniel.

Daniel who?

Daniel Fenwick.

Daniel Fenwick? Daniel Fenwick! Pleased to meet you, Daniel Fenwick! All the while Jimmy was shaking his hand firmly, the deep dent on the top of his head showing through the strands of gray hair. They had had this conversation, word for word, nearly every day for twelve years, ever since Jimmy was admitted to the hospital with a severe head injury caused by a bat wielded by his half-brother. Jimmy remembered nothing about the injury or his half-brother, which in Daniel’s opinion was a good thing. He was in excellent general health and would probably be asking everyone’s name, over and over, for another twenty years or so.

The volunteer coordinator, Milly Garfield, had two volunteers with her, women from a local church who had come to talk about activities for Thanksgiving. "I thought last year’s event went very well, Milly said. The food was so delicious, and the patients really enjoyed the chance to have a nice meal and a chance to socialize. I thought it was such a good idea—wasn’t it your idea, Serena?—to keep it simple."

Serena nodded doubtfully. The other volunteer said, "Our pastor would be happy to preside over a service beforehand. You know, to give thanks."

That’s a fine idea, Milly said brightly. Certainly all the patients who would like to attend the service can visit the chapel beforehand, and then go straight to the cafeteria.

I meant, a brief service before the meal, in the cafeteria.

Well, Deedee, that’s not quite—hospital policy— Milly said, glancing at Daniel.

Religious services are always in the chapel, or in the chaplain’s office, he said.

Deedee launched into a long catalog of reasons why this policy was unfair, unreasonable, and altogether absurd, and this led into another list of policies that she considered equally unjust: the restrictions on proselytizing to the patients, for example, and the inclusion in the hospital’s library of a biography of Charles Darwin. Daniel was often tempted to tell her that he had been an atheist since the age of twelve, but as this would accomplish nothing except to give her another grievance, he refrained. Finally she came to the end of her speech, Milly repeated what Daniel had said about the policy, and after further discussion they all agreed that Thanksgiving this year would be exactly like Thanksgiving last year. Then Daniel walked with the volunteers out of the building. Serena said, Oh, I want to give you this book… and began rooting in her car trunk. Daniel waited, his thoughts wandering back to Dr. Rowley’s briefing book while Deedee began telling a story about a patient she had been talking to the week before, who in the middle of their conversation took off his shoes and threw them at the MHW, kept saying he was thirsty, and finally collapsed in hysterical tears on the floor of the common area.

"And then I said, I just told him, you know, I said, ‘Sir, that behavior is completely inappropriate,’ and he looked straight at me and said, ‘Oh, is it? Well, what would you do in my situation?’ So I answered right back and said, ‘Sir, I think I can safely say I’ll never be in your situation.’"

Daniel’s full attention came back to her. Serena was having no luck finding the book and she was still out of earshot. You’re lucky, I guess, he said.

"Yes, I’m certainly blessed. There’s never been any mental illness in my family."

Are you sure about that?

Yes, I’m sure.

And you’re sure your family will never have any mental illness in the future.

Well— She hesitated.

If you’re not absolutely sure—if you don’t know for a fact that you can keep bad things from happening to you—then you shouldn’t say things like that to the patients. They’re unlucky. That’s all.

Well— she said again.

He waited, but she said nothing more, so he gave her a nod, thanked Serena for the book she handed him, and went to find the head of Custodial Services, who told him that two of his workers had been sick in the past week but were now back on the job. And not a minute too soon, said the lead custodian. The place was falling apart. Dirt on the windowpanes and the trash not picked up. Well, we’ll take care of all that today.

The place was always falling apart, Daniel thought on his way back to his office. It was always making progress, too. In his mind he held a four-dimensional diagram of the hospital: patients and staff circulating among the various buildings, food cooked and served in the cafeteria, supplies arriving and trash being carried away, interviews and therapy groups and classes in rooms all over the grounds, medicine dispensed, discipline administered to employees who were chronically late or prone to disregard regulations, paperwork for every event, every person, every admission and discharge, and all of it accumulating and dovetailing in intricate patterns.

The rest of the day was more of the same, more meetings and conversations and words on the computer screen that he had to read and respond to. With part of his mind he attended to all of it. With another part he was considering the possibility of replacing the roof on the old main building during the next fiscal year. With still another part he was watching himself unlocking doors and walking down corridors, eating his lunchtime sandwich and catching his heel on the scuffed rug under his desk, moving about inside his perpetually changing diagram of the hospital. One of the questions Dr. Rowley always asked at interviews was Where do you see yourself in five years? To Daniel this seemed absurd. No one knows what is going to happen five years from now. Everything is temporary and contingent—look at his own career. His first job at the hospital had been as a clerk, a summer job during college, which he had taken with the idea that he would be able to see more of his girlfriend—Nina? Tina?—he couldn’t even remember her name—who was working in the infirmary as a nurse’s aide. As it turned out, he worked third shift and she worked first shift, so they hardly ever saw each other and broke up at the end of the summer. She went back home to Minnesota, telling him it was his fault she wasn’t going to graduate. He stayed at the hospital, moving from job to job as he finished his undergraduate degree and then a Master’s in Public Administration. He hadn’t planned any of this. Nor did he plan to stay at the hospital forever, but, he thought, you never know. The observing part of his mind made no predictions and harbored no regrets; it looked at the world around him and noted down the details.

At 2:30 he went for another quick round of the wards, talked to two or three patients, and circled back by way of the kitchen to see what they were serving for dinner. He came back just before 3:00, to find three people in the little reception area in front of Merle’s desk: Merle herself, standing by the file cabinet with a folder in her hand which she was either taking out or putting back; Seth, from Information Systems, sitting on the arm of the couch, and a young woman, a stranger, who sat at the far end of the room. Merle was telling a story: …and the doctor said that he would have to increase his prescription—oh, Daniel, here’s your three o’clock. Robin Dormer. The young woman stood up. She had on a dark-blue jacket and skirt and shiny black pumps. Daniel went over and shook her hand.

Daniel Fenwick. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too. Her voice was surprisingly husky, even a little creaky, and he wondered whether she was a smoker.

Uh … we’re not quite ready for you yet … He looked over at Merle, who shook her head. Dr. Rowley had not arrived.

That’s fine, said Robin. I’ll just read my magazine. She held it up: Hospital Administrator.

Very educational, Daniel said. Well, we should be able to start whenever Dr. Rowley gets here.

Robin nodded and sat back down, and Daniel was going toward his own office when Merle stopped him. Becky wants to know, can you sign these before you go into the interview. She has to have them back before five. She waved her hand at a stack of folders on her desk, and Daniel sat down and began to work his way through the pile. Merle went on with her story. "Of course, the prescription isn’t a problem, if it makes him more comfortable, I’m just afraid that it will mix badly with all his other prescriptions. You know, he takes painkillers for his feet and something to keep his blood pressure down. I’m just not sure about all the interactions. Daniel lost track of the story at this point, because he was examining a packet of timesheets that had been roughly stapled together. It seemed that the person doing the stapling, adding papers by twos and threes over a period of weeks, had never bothered to pull out the original staples but had merely tacked on a new one each time. Apparently there was no task too small or too simple to be performed badly. Daniel hunted on Merle’s desk for a staple remover, and as he did so glanced across the room at Robin. She had put down the magazine and was listening to Merle. … So we’re going in to see a specialist next Tuesday, and we’ll find out then whether his spine is going to deteriorate further or whether he’s going to make a full recovery."

Seth murmured something sympathetic, and Merle said, I worry about him, you know, but he never seems to get much worse or much better. Poor thing, he doesn’t complain, but I know he suffers and I just don’t know sometimes, is it worth it? But I can’t imagine what I would do if something were to happen to him, so …

Seth pulled on his blonde forelock, a sign that he was trying to think of something to say, but they were all spared the necessity of answering Merle by Dr. Rowley, who came through the door just then. Ah, there you are, Daniel, he said, as if Daniel was the one who was late. Is our candidate here?

Yes … I’ll just finish signing these …

Dr. Rowley swam up to Robin and introduced himself, and then Merle ushered the three of them into the conference room. Dr. Rowley hung back in the doorway. Merle, might I trouble you for a cup of coffee? As he was standing there, waiting for her to bring it to him, Robin leaned forward and said to Daniel: Excuse me. Can I ask you a question?

Sure.

Fred. Merle’s Fred, I mean. Is he her husband, her son, or what? …

Daniel smiled. Her dog.

Ah. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Dr. Rowley set his coffee cup down with elaborate care, settled himself in his chair, and looked at Robin over his spectacles. "Let me just start off by saying—let me just tell you a little bit about the job and the—the situation, so to speak—and then we’ll—after you’ve had a chance to—after you’ve heard all that, then we’ll proceed to the interview. The main event, so to speak. Mr. Fenwick, here, and myself—we’ll have questions for you—and then—after we’ve asked our questions, you’ll have a chance to ask—to tell us anything else you might want to—anything you think we missed, so to speak, and then we’ll—then we’ll answer any questions you may have."

He stopped. Robin opened her mouth to answer him, but before she could say anything, he started again. Now, we’d like this interview to be very much in the spirit—very much a discussion, so to speak, not an interrogation. We’d like to—we’d like to approach things in a friendly spirit. We’re interested in finding out a little bit about you and telling you a little bit about us. That way, we can both be sure we’ve made the right decision. So do you understand all that?

Oh, yes, Robin said. Yes, I see.

Good, said Dr. Rowley, smiling suddenly. He looked at Daniel as if expecting some sort of acclamation for his fine work thus far, or else additional clarification of the points he had made. Then he cleared his throat again. I believe our Human Resources office sent you some materials about the hospital, and about the state mental health system?

Yes, said Robin, nodding again.

Very good. Did you—I want to make sure you—this is the state’s main mental hospital, and as such we absorb a large and extremely demanding population. Some people find it—find the environment—a little—so to speak—uncomfortable. In this position, you wouldn’t be working directly with the patients, but that’s still a—still a consideration, so to speak.

I see, Robin said, and then added: I think I would be okay with the environment. I mean, I wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

Good, Dr. Rowley said, giving her another of his abrupt, brief smiles.And you understand what kind of work we do here, the services we offer and so on.

I think so, yes, Robin answered.

Dr. Rowley continued: Well, here’s what we—here’s the situation. Daniel here—Mr. Fenwick—the hospital’s deputy director, has a high level of responsibility and many, many duties. More duties than he can attend to, in fact. He paused as if to let Robin absorb this idea. She glanced at Daniel and then away. For a couple of years now, we’ve been requesting an additional—we’ve been requesting an assistant for him. Now we’ve finally acquired the position and so you see—well, in fact, here you are. Since this is a totally new position, the duties may evolve somewhat, but certainly—it’s important that you—certainly this person, the person filling this position, will certainly have many important duties—many important functions—in support of the deputy director.

Robin nodded, and Dr. Rowley went on: It’s extremely important—essential, in fact—that this person can learn fast and communicate well, and can organize things effectively. This is a—a position with many kinds of—this person will have to have many different kinds of skills.

At this point Daniel leaned forward, and she gave him her full attention for the first time. The formal title for this position, he said, is Assistant for Special Projects. We settled on that because we felt it was important to give it a certain flexibility. The idea is to provide us with another resource when things come along that don’t fit into the normal routine.

What kinds of things? she asked.

Well, here’s an example. A couple of years ago we acquired ten new beds in the children and adolescents treatment ward. That took a lot of coordination between the clinical staff and the operations staff, and a lot of discussion about logistics and so on. That was when I started thinking I needed someone who could take on that sort of thing—things that aren’t assigned to any particular area or department.

At any rate, said Dr. Rowley, you get the idea, don’t you, Ms. Dormer? This person will need to have a diverse—a wide variety of skills and should be able to work effectively with a wide variety of people. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about yourself and what you could bring to the job.

Robin paused for a moment, and then she said, Well, I’ve been lucky enough to work in jobs in a variety of areas, where I’ve learned a lot of different skills. I have good communication skills—both written and spoken—and I’ve learned how to organize my time well. At the law office where I work now, they’ve really encouraged me to learn a lot of computer skills.

Daniel translated this silently: she had graduated from college with few marketable skills, had gone from job to job acquiring them, and had yet to find a career that suited her well enough to stick with it for more than a year or so.

Ah, the law office, said Dr. Rowley. Tell us a little bit about that.

Um … she said. I started out there as a secretary, and now I’m kind of a general legal assistant—I do things like research and drafting legal documents and helping the lawyers get ready for litigation. She paused, but no one said anything, so she went on: I like the fact that no two days there are alike. I do something different every day and I help out in a lot of different areas.

But I take it you don’t want to stay there, said Daniel.

No, because I’ve learned almost everything they have to teach me, and I won’t have a real opportunity for advancement unless I go to law school. It’s a small place.

Whereas the hospital is very large, said Dr. Rowley thoughtfully.

Robin’s eyes met Daniel’s, and he saw that she wanted to laugh. She smiled at Dr. Rowley and said, Exactly.

Dr. Rowley asked her whether she could work as part of a team, and whether she could work well under pressure, and before each of her replies Daniel saw the same little flicker of amusement on her face, along with a determined attempt to look as if she didn’t know there was only one possible answer to each of these questions. Then Dr. Rowley said, frowning, We ask these questions because we’re concerned—we have quite a problem—an issue, rather—we have an issue here with burnout.

Robin nodded, and Daniel leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. For example, he said, the mental health workers here turn over at a rate of about twenty percent a year. The patients tend to come and go pretty fast, too, so one of our major problems is establishing some stability in the midst of all this—some sense of continuity. One of the things I’d like this new person to do is to help create a kind of history of the hospital, a handbook that we can give to patients and new staff and visitors, so they can get oriented to the place faster.

Sort of an introduction, Robin said. An overview of the services—that kind of thing?

Yes, but more—more in depth, more than just where to find the infirmary or what are visiting hours. I want people to get a better sense of where we came from and why things are the way they are. Certain questions get asked a lot, so maybe there could be a list of those, with their answers.

We would certainly need to include the hospital’s mission and vision statements, said Dr. Rowley.

Of course, said Daniel.

It would be hard to organize, wouldn’t it? said Robin. I mean, some people will want just basic information, and others will want something more detailed, and you would have to arrange everything in an order that made sense…

Right. It’s harder than you would think.

The mission and vision statements are extremely important, said Dr. Rowley, so they should come first.

Of course, said Daniel again. Anyway, it would take some research, talking to people and learning the system and so on.

And you—this person, rather—the person in this position would have many other duties on top of that, said Dr. Rowley.

I see, said Robin, and this time she continued gazing at Dr. Rowley demurely, hands folded, face composed, as if she thought he had told her something worth hearing.

That was what he remembered later: the surface of the interview bubbling along, with Dr. Rowley asking pointless questions and Robin answering them with a straight face, while beneath it there was a current of understanding between her and Daniel. He didn’t say the exact words to himself, but he knew. When the interview was over and Robin was on her way out, he shook her hand and said, We’ll be in touch with your references this week.

At the time of its founding, the hospital had been about a mile from the north edge of Camden, but the town had since grown and now surrounded the hospital’s campus on all sides. From the front steps of the old main building, it was possible on clear days to see the top of the university’s campanile, which stood near the top of a hill. From the university, on the other hand, the hospital was not visible—hidden as it was by trees and by the shape of the terrain.

The relationship between the town and the university was close and grudgingly affectionate, like that between an aging parent and his or her thriving grown-up offspring. It was even more complicated than that, however, because so many of the townspeople worked for the university, which was the state’s largest, and they constituted its institutional memory and permanent presence. The students, by contrast, made up a transient population that ebbed and flowed with the seasons and was renewed every autumn by the arrival of the freshman class. When the seniors graduated, they left behind a residual group who stayed to attend graduate school or else stayed just to stay, having grown so attached to the town—in spite of or perhaps because of its attitude toward them, which alternated between bemusement and irritation—that they had decided they could not sustain themselves elsewhere. Their determination to live in Camden led many of them to work in jobs which had no relation to the degrees they had received (or had pursued without receiving) at the university. It was common for one’s carpenter, say, to mention his work in linguistics, or for the lawn man to regale himself during his lunch break with Heidegger or Kant.

The number of people for whom living in Camden was an end in itself was small, but its influence was disproportionately large, making itself felt in the town’s atmosphere of quiet eccentricity, its sleepy calm interrupted by occasional protests, demonstrations, and other events whose real purpose, whatever their organizers might say, seemed to be to give people something to do and something to talk about. They were part of the town’s traditions, so in a self-contradictory way, these calls for change and rebellions against the status quo were themselves inherent in the status quo, and as such, they were part of what the students loved about the town. They loved this persistence in remembering and replicating the past. On their side, the townspeople enjoyed the constant flow of new young faces arriving every year, passing through only to be replaced by others.

The hospital occupied a different place in the town’s life and thoughts. In spite of being surrounded by the town’s recent growth, it still seemed isolated, its buildings crouching in scrubby grass and shaded by tired-looking trees. Camden’s citizens prided themselves on their tolerance and inclusiveness, and many of the hospital’s regular patients were regarded as harmless local characters. Descriptions of their habitual clothes and mannerisms and routines were passed on as local lore to incoming university freshmen, who whiled away many a spring or fall afternoon in philosophical conversations with them, sitting on park benches or strolling down the main street. But other patients, suffering from more severe or less picturesque illnesses, were likely to be found in the Salvation Army shelter, or in jail, or panhandling downtown, and these were regarded as problems—or, rather, challenges or issues, agenda items at the city commission meetings. It was felt that these homeless individuals made nuisances of themselves in various ways, and it was sometimes suggested that the hospital should revise its admission and discharge procedures so as to keep disturbed or disorderly people off the streets for longer periods; but as no additional resources were forthcoming from the state to enable the hospital to acquire more beds or staff, this revision never took place. The hospital’s presence was experienced as a reminder of intractable suffering, and yet the town was proud of it, and its citizens would point it out to visitors as part of Camden’s history and traditions.

After the interview, Robin drove south and crossed the river, and made her way across Camden to her own apartment, detouring around the university. Then she called her sister Jennie, who as usual invited her over for dinner. I’ll run right over, said Robin, meaning it literally. Jennie lived about three miles from her, on the opposite edge of the university, and Robin was in the habit of changing into shorts or sweats and running there. Sometimes, when the visit was over, she ran back home; other times, Jennie took her back in the car; still other times, she took a shower at her sister’s house and then walked downtown to meet her friends. Jennie’s house was in so-called Old Camden, and Robin would sometimes tease her brother-in-law, Alan, by threatening to move in with them so she could live in the most desirable part of town. He in turn would tease her by threatening to make her sleep in the attic, like a Victorian scullery maid. Jennie had once asked him if he minded that Robin was at their house so frequently.

No, he said, after a short pause for thought. I don’t. She always makes herself useful and she always has something interesting to say.

"I suppose we need someone around here who’s interesting," said Jennie, laughing.

You know what I mean. She doesn’t bore me. And you like having her here, which is the important thing.

In Old Camden, on the east side of the university, the streets running north and south were named after presidents, in order of succession: Washington Street was on the farthest eastern edge of the old part of town, and Jefferson, the main commercial street, lay two blocks west of it. The presidential scheme had proved rather difficult to carry out; there were two presidents named Adams, for instance, and two Johnsons, two Harrisons, and two Roosevelts. John Quincy Adams’ street had been named Quincy, a solution which the town authorities considered so clever that they named Franklin Roosevelt’s street Delano and Lyndon Johnson’s street Baines. Using this method, the plan might have been continued into perpetuity. But by the time Eisenhower Street had been laid out, in the straggling western part of Camden, the townspeople had grown tired of presidents, and around the time of Watergate they began naming new streets after trees or nonexistent topographical features or the baby daughters of developers.

The presidential scheme still served as a convenient set of markers. Old Camden consisted of the presidential streets from Washington to Lincoln, between the east-west streets from First to Tenth. College students occupied most of the houses in the blocks between Johnson and Cleveland. Then the university itself interrupted the regular streets, and on its west side Benjamin Street (the street named after the second Harrison) appeared. Houses west of Taft were considered less desirable than those on its east. Robin’s apartment building was on Taft itself, in a neighborhood of duplexes and tiny houses built after World War II for returning GIs and their families.

Sitting across the dinner table from her sister that evening, Robin said, I think they’re going to hire me.

Oh? Jennie said, preoccupied with cutting up her son Matthew’s chicken. She was seven months pregnant, and the effort of leaning over was making her pink in the face. Would you like working there?

Yes, it just seems so…I don’t know, so different from everywhere else. The director seems kind of dim-witted, but I wouldn’t be working for him.

Looking at the two women from the side, you would have seen a family resemblance in their profiles and in a certain way of holding their mouths. But from the front they didn’t resemble each other at all. Jennie’s hair was long and straight, with a color somewhere between brown and blonde; she wore it pulled back in a ponytail, and she had large, almond-shaped brown eyes and straight dark eyebrows. Her cheeks were fuller than usual, because of her pregnancy, and you might have guessed that she was younger than her sister. But Jennie was twenty-nine years old, four years older than Robin.

Robin’s eyes were the same shape and size as her sister’s, but they had a murky color, part blue, part green, part gray, varying with her mood and the lighting. Her hair fell to her shoulders in rough reddish-brown waves, and now and then she brushed her straggling bangs off her forehead. She had a sharp, asymmetrical face, one eyebrow slightly higher than the other and one side of her mouth curving upwards; but these irregularities were so slight, and her expression changed so continually and vividly in reaction to her surroundings, that it was hard to sort out what was a permanent part of her appearance and what arose from her momentary thought or emotion. Their mother had had the same sharp features and mercurial expressions; she had died three years before, of cancer, and sometimes Jennie felt that Robin had grown to look even more like her since her death—or else, not seeing their mother any more, Jennie had gradually changed her remembered face into Robin’s.

Well, I hope you get it, Jennie said.

Yes, good luck, Alan said.

Thanks.

There was a pause, and then Robin turned to Matthew. What did you do in kindergarten today? she asked him.

Nothing.

What did Mrs. Bremerton say about the alphabet you wrote?

Nothing.

What did you have for snack?

Nothing.

What would you like for your birthday?

Legos and a bike.

All right then.

After dinner the two women started on the dishes while Alan took Matthew upstairs for his bath. Robin said to her sister: You’ll never guess who I ran into the other day. Virginia Mauer.

Virginia … ?

Remember, she was a friend of Marlene’s? She used to wear those sleeveless cowl-neck sweaters all the time. Made her look like she was wearing a neck brace.

Oh, Virginia. What’s she doing these days?

You have no idea who I’m talking about, do you? But I’ll tell you anyway. She’s managing that clothing store on Jeff—Martha’s Room, you know the one I’m talking about? It turns out she got married not long after we all stopped hanging out together.

So who did she marry?

Rick somebody-or-other—no one I had ever heard of. He’s a financial manager, I think. She told me the whole story. They met and got engaged in the space of about three months, and they had this big, elaborate wedding—to which I wasn’t invited, but never mind—and bought a couple of shih tzus.

What are those?

Dogs. Little dogs with lots of hair. And they moved into this house out in West Camden, and according to her they were blissfully happy with their two cars and their two dogs and all their wedding china. So then one day she takes the shih tzus out for a walk, and she comes back to the house, and what do you suppose she finds?

Her husband in bed with another woman?

Her husband in bed with another man.

You’re kidding.

I’m not. So now she’s divorced and kind of bitter about the whole thing. They had to split up the shih tzus and she thinks that’s a tragedy, and they sold the house and she moved into one of those condos right next to the hospital.

That’s not so bad.

No, it could be worse, but obviously she has all kinds of trust issues now, and she’s torn between her hatred of men and her desire to get remarried as fast as possible.

Why does she want to get remarried?

So she can have kids. She used to talk about babies all the time. Her sisters all have kids, her cousins all have kids, so she wants kids too.

So the man is just a means to an end. Couldn’t she adopt, or go to the sperm bank instead?

No, she really wants the whole thing—the big house and the husband coming home from work and so on—the traditional thing. Sort of like you have.

Why do people always want what they don’t have? Jennie said.

There was a long pause, and then Robin said, I didn’t think of this at the time, but it’s a little strange that her husband would let himself get caught that way. You know, if you take the dogs for a walk, you’re not going to be out for hours and hours, are you? He must have known when she was coming back. So I think he must have wanted her to walk in on them.

That’s almost worse than cheating on her in the first place.

Maybe he wanted to escape and this was the only way he could think of.

Why did he marry her to begin with?

I don’t know—and I couldn’t exactly ask her.

Do you ever see any of those people any more, I mean besides Marlene?

No, not really. Which is strange, because we were all such great friends that one summer. People moved away or had kids or whatever. And I hardly ever think about them these days, except for one or two.

Which one or two?

Well … there was a guy I had a crush on. But he was always dating someone else, or else I was, so we never got together. Story of my life.

Jennie laughed. Story of your life? I’ve never known you to want something you didn’t get.

I’ve always thought it’s really you who’s like that. Like with Alan—you were just floating along like a little boat on a river, not paying attention, and you bumped into him: tall, handsome, intelligent, and all the rest.

He’s not perfect, you know.

Oh, I know, but still.

Matthew went to bed, Alan drove Robin home, and Jennie wandered around the house, picking up toys and closing blinds. Upstairs, in the room Alan was using as a study until the new baby’s arrival, she picked up the uppermost book from a stack on a chair. The book was bound in a plain red cover, and the text looked as if it had been typed on an electric typewriter and photocopied. She read:

William declares he has never seen such people for hospitality—everywhere he goes he is expected to stay for ‘a cup or two’, and the cup is inevitably accompanied by a cake, or a rasher or two of bacon, or even a mutton-chop; and of course he cannot offend his parishioners by declining their food, and so he comes home every night with no appetite for his supper. But he sits and talks to me while I eat, telling me of the various people he saw and what they said to him, and in return I tell him of the little incidents of the day, how Polly cried when she found a dead baby rabbit in a corner of the garden, how Cook gave the butcher’s boy the rough side of her tongue because he came with the wrong order, how I was gratified by the sight of a bluebird on the apple tree and by the receipt of a letter from dear Mamma in the morning post.

Jennie looked at the book’s title: Journal of Anna Fielding. Volume I: 1853-1860. What was Alan doing with it? It didn’t seem to have much to do with the topic of his book, which was something about labor unrest in the Midlands. She carried it with her out of the room, pausing in the doorway to look back at the welter of books and papers covering the computer desk and at the boxes of baby clothes waiting to be unpacked and put away. They probably ought to get started clearing out this room quite soon, but where would all of Alan’s things go?

In bed later on, she sat propped up against the headboard, grading papers written by the undergraduates in her English literature class.

I think Emma thinks very highly of herself. Low self-esteem is definitely not one of her problems! Maybe it’s because everyone keeps telling her how great she is. But then Mr. Knightley tells her she did a bad thing when she teased Miss Bates when they were on the picnic. Sometimes your best friend is the one that tells you the truth even when it’s not so pleasant.

Jennie paused, feeling she ought to comment in some way on this paragraph, but doubting her ability to say anything helpful or even clear. Was it possible, with a few marginal notations, to encourage a student to think more critically, to make more connections, to go beyond the statement about best friends and onward into the nuances of that scene at Box Hill? Was it even fair to assume that this student had not already grasped at least part of that meaning, and was only prevented from saying so by the torturous difficulty of forcing ideas into words and words onto paper?

Alan climbed onto the bed and moved close to her so he could rest his head on her belly. You awake in there, little one?

It’s been a quiet night. I haven’t felt anything for a while.

They both held still, waiting, and then Alan said, Ah, well. But he didn’t move. Jennie ran her fingers through his hair, noticing gray in a few places.

I’m having coffee with James tomorrow, she said.

Ah, James. How is James?

Fine. Same as usual, I guess. His committee is giving him trouble again.

Ha. Matthew will be finished with his Ph.D. before James is.

Alan, that’s not nice. She gave his hair a little tug.

"I’m not criticizing. I suppose if he really