The Sparrow Sisters by Ellen Herrick Page A

off. And back in Boston, when he tried to live his old life, he remembered how he was usually the last doctor to reach an ambulance, his limp forcing him into a silly skip to keep up with the gurneys.
    â€œBen, give me some names. Sally and I will set up a rota of men to bait and pull your traps.”
    â€œNow why would any of the guys give up their day to help me?”
    â€œBecause it’s the right thing,” Henry said. “You’d do it for them.”
    Ben nodded. “I would,” he said.
    Henry took out his prescription pad and wrote down the names Ben gave him. As he did, he found himself excited by his new task. He considered going out on the boats with one of lobstermen. He pictured himself hauling the traps out of the clear cold water, measuring and weighing the lobsters, shoveling ice down the hatch. Pretty nigh impossible, he knew. When Ben sighed, Henry’s own good cheer embarrassed him.
    â€œYou look happy,” Ben said.
    â€œI think I am,” Henry said.
    â€œGlad one of us is.”
    T HE STARS WERE out by the time Henry got back to Granite Point. When he turned onto Baker’s Way, the house looked forlorn, dark and unoccupied. He went around to the back to let himself in and found Patience Sparrow sitting on his little porch steps.
    â€œHoly . . .” Henry said.
    â€œDon’t finish that,” Patience warned. She had the bag from the liquor store in her lap. “I owe you a drink.”
    â€œYou do?” Henry asked. He helped her up and couldn’t let go of her hand.
    â€œWell, I offered earlier and since you’re all done with Ben . . . how is Ben?”
    â€œHe’s worried about money. He won’t be able to run the boat most of the summer.”
    â€œThat’s bad,” Patience said. She reclaimed her hand and opened the bag. “Although, there are some guys who know him, and the firemen. We can put together enough to see Ben through.”
    â€œThat’s what I said,” Henry reached for the lime. “I’ll just go cut this up.”
    Patience sat back down and leaned until her vertebrae bumped the step. She’d felt like a teenager when she snuck out of the house while Nettie was cooking and hurried toward Henry’s house. It was just that she thought she’d left things uneven at the nursery.
    Henry came back with the lime wedges in one palm and glasses of ice in the other. He hipped the screen door open and put the glasses on the porch rail.
    â€œHere,” he said beckoning Patience over. “You know what?” he asked.
    Patience shook her head.
    â€œThis is exactly what I wanted; a gin and tonic.” And you, he thought.
    â€œI aim to please,” Patience said. What is with me? she thought.
    â€œNo you don’t, that’s the last thing you aim to do.”
    â€œWell, I aim to end your day with a proper cocktail then.”
    They stood for a minute, and Henry kept his glass close to his mouth, feeling the snap and fizz of the tonic against his lips.
    â€œWhy are you here, Henry?” Patience asked, and Henry then knew why she was on his porch.
    â€œAh, you’re curious about the new doctor too.”
    â€œI told you my story,” Patience said.
    â€œI think not much of it.” Henry took a sip of his drink.
    â€œHow about you tell me as much of yours as I did of mine.”
    â€œThat seems fair.” Henry gestured to the chairs. “I am thirty-three and before I came here I was in the army and before and after that I was an ER doc and before all that I went to Yale.”
    â€œAnd I could have gotten that from anyone in town.” In fact, she had, from the bank teller over a month before.
    â€œI graduated at twenty, was Phi Beta Kappa, and got my first match out of med school.”
    â€œAgain, not what I’m looking for.” Patience pulled her legs up, and Henry followed their long line over the rim of his glass.
    â€œYou want to know