ABSTRACT
Elaine, the inquisitive one, noticed him first: a thin, elflike man squatting by the pier, reading a book. Unlike the rest of the crowd waiting to board the ferry to Provincetown on an unusually hot Boston day, the frail little man was covered from head to toe. A broad-brimmed Panama hat hid most of his face, followed by a khaki suit, and finally tan socks and handsome brown leather shoes. The shoes were so loose on his slender feet that they instantly conjured up the image of the much larger, stronger man he must have been before he met the illness that had left him with one, surely no more than two, months to live.
