Again the island assumed its travel-magazine glamour: pulsating blue sky, ostrich-feather palms, scarlet and salmon-red flowering hibiscus, bronzed and beaming tourists. Under this blue sky, rather slowly and painfully, Molly Hopkins descended her front steps and set out toward the restaurant where she had agreed to lunch. The fine warm weather had eased her arthritis, but she still walked with a limp. She would be a little late, as she often was nowadays. Probably she should have driven, though it was only six blocks, Molly thought unhappily. Probably she shouldn’t even be here in Key West, trying to manage alone. If she were home in Convers her cleaning lady, Sally Hutchins, would have taken care of everything during the last awful week. Sally, who had been working for Molly for over thirty years, would have come every morning, shopped for groceries, and gone to the drugstore, post office, and library. When Molly wasn’t up to getting out of bed Sally would have brought her lunch, straightened her unwieldy pillows, and refilled the pink velvet-covered hot water bottle.
