“Should have brought some bread,” Noah remarked.

“Next time we will,” I agreed in a perfunctory way.

When I visited two days later, I was surprised not to find Noah in his room. The nurse told me where he was. At the pond, I found him seated on the bench. Beside him was a single piece of Wonder Bread. When I approached, the swan seemed to watch me, but even then it showed no fear.

“It looks like you’ve made yourself a friend,” I commented.

“Looks that way,” he said.

“Wonder Bread?” I asked.

“She seems to like it the best.”

“How do you know it’s a she?”

Noah smiled. “I just know,” he said, and that was how it began.

Since then he has fed the swan regularly, visiting the pond in all kinds of weather. He has sat in the rain and the sweltering heat, and as the years passed, he began spending more and more time on the bench, watching and whispering to the swan. Now, full days can pass when he never leaves the bench at all.

A few months after his first encounter with the swan, I asked him why he spent so much time at the pond. I assumed he found it peaceful or that he enjoyed talking to someone—or something—without expecting a response.

“I come here because she wants me to.”

“The swan?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Allie.”

My insides tightened at the sound of her name, but I didn’t know what he meant. “Allie wants you feed the swan?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

With a sigh, he looked up at me. “It’s her,” he said.

“Who?”

“The swan,” he said.

I shook my head uncertainly. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”

“Allie,” he repeated. “She found a way to come back to me, just like she promised she would. All I had to do was find her.”

This is what the doctors mean when they say Noah is delusional.

We stayed at the hospital another thirty minutes. Dr. Barnwell promised to call us with an update after he made his rounds the following morning. He was close to our family, looking after Noah as he would his own father. We trusted him completely. As I’d promised, I suggested to the family that Noah seemed to be getting tired and that it might be best for him to rest. On our way out, we arranged to visit him in shifts, then hugged and kissed in the parking lot. A moment later, Jane and I were alone, watching the others leave.

I could see the weariness in Jane’s unfocused gaze and sagging posture and felt it myself.

“You doing okay?” I asked.

“I think so.” She sighed. “I know he seems to be fine, but he doesn’t seem to understand that he’s almost ninety. He’s not going to be up and around as fast as he thinks he will.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and I guessed that she was worrying about the wedding plans as well.

“You’re not thinking of asking Anna to postpone the wedding, are you? After what Noah said?”

Jane shook her head. “I would have tried, but he was so adamant. I just hope that he’s not insisting on it because he knows . . .”

She trailed off. I knew exactly what she was going to say.

“Because he knows he doesn’t have much longer,” she went on. “And that this is going to be his last big event, you know?”

“He doesn’t believe that. He still has more than a few years left.”

“You sound so sure of that.”

“I am sure. For his age, he’s actually doing well. Especially compared to the others his age at Creekside. They barely leave their rooms, and all they do is watch television.”

“Yeah, and all he does is go to the pond to see that stupid swan. Like that’s any better.”

“It makes him happy,” I pointed out.

“But it’s wrong,” she said fiercely. “Can’t you see that? Mom’s gone. That swan has nothing to do with her.”

I didn’t know how to respond, so I stayed quiet.

“I mean, it’s crazy,” she continued. “Feeding it is one thing. But thinking that Mom’s spirit has somehow come back doesn’t make any sense.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve heard him talking to it, you know. When I go to see him. He’s having a regular conversation, as if he honestly believes the swan can understand him. Kate and David have caught him doing it, too. And I know you’ve heard him.”

She leveled an accusing stare.

“Yes,” I admitted, “I’ve heard him, too.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “I think,” I said carefully, “that right now, Noah needs to believe that it’s possible.”

“But why?”

“Because he loves her. He misses her.”

At my words, I saw her jaw quiver. “I do, too,” she said.

Even as she said the words, we both knew it wasn’t the same.

Despite our weariness, neither of us could face the prospect of going straight home after the ordeal at the hospital. When Jane declared suddenly that she was “starving,” we decided to stop at the Chelsea for a late dinner.

Even before we entered, I could hear the sounds of John Peterson at the piano inside. Back in town for a few weeks, he played each weekend; on weekdays, however, John sometimes showed up unexpectedly. Tonight was such a night, the tables surrounding the piano crowded, the bar packed with people.

We were seated upstairs, away from the music and the crowd, where only a few other tables were occupied. Jane surprised me by ordering a second glass of wine with her entrée, and it seemed to ease some of the tension of the past several hours.

“What did Daddy say to you when you two were alone?” Jane asked, carefully picking a bone out of her fish.

“Not much,” I answered. “I asked him how he was doing, what happened. For the most part, it wasn’t any different from what you heard later.”

She raised an eyebrow. “For the most part? What else did he say?”

“Do you really want to know?”

She laid her silverware down. “He asked you to feed the swan again, didn’t he.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to?”

“Yes,” I said, but seeing her expression, I went on quickly, “but before you get upset, remember that I’m not doing it because I think it’s Allie. I’m doing it because he asked, and because I don’t want the swan to starve to death. It’s probably forgotten how to forage on its own.”