Chapter 1 Summary

Henry Wiggen receives a phone call one morning from one of his baseball teammates, Bruce Pearson. Henry travels to Minnesota to see Bruce in the hospital, where he learns that Bruce has a deadly disease.

Henry Wiggen is lying in bed one morning with his wife, Holly. The phone rings, and Henry lies there, trying to think of a funny way to answer the phone. When he picks up, he learns that it is a collect call, but when someone calls him "Arthur," he knows that it is his old friend Bruce Pearson. Bruce is the only person who ever calls Henry "Arthur", and Henry assumes that Bruce must be in jail, calling him for bail. Instead, Bruce says that he is in the hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, but beyond that he will say nothing, except that Henry must come and see him...