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Show 87 get the house listed on Saturday, the rest of the stuff packed on Sunday." The girl who is waiting tables starts to leave, but Rod puts out his hand in a gesture to indicate that he is about to pay, and reaches into the pocket of his coat for his large flat wallet. He does not look at the girl. Evan sees her: it is Luel's kid, but he says nothing. "10:00 Monday," he says, "that's when the ambulance is coming." "Why an ambulance?" "With a sedative." Evan suddenly understands what Roderick means, and the picture comes to him: his soft, old mother, tied in the coarse white cotton of a straightjacket or immobilized by a hypodermic, taken off to a place from which she would not return. "I don't think we can do it, Rod," he says. The girl does not move; Rod is suddenly angry now; he leans foward across the table towards Evan, his hand fastened around the wallet. The girl still does not move. "It's all arranged," says Rod. "It's what she needs, maybe they'll cure her." "I'm not so sure she's ill," Evan says, and he looks again at the girl, Luel's kid. But Rod does not notice. He picks a bill out of his wallet; the girl still waits. , "Look, Evan," he finally says. "She's a sick old woman. If we don't put her in the hospital she'll kill herself." He places a second bill on top of |