If one more person asked Caroline Moore if she was all right, she was going to explode.  And Caroline never exploded.  She breathed deeply.  She meditated.  She looked beyond any given situation, considering every possible angle.  But she didn’t explode.

Seeing the last of the neighbors to the door, she closed her eyes, her hand going automatically to her throat.  The collar of her silk blouse was open, her necklace a fine gold chain from which hung a delicate charm that had been her mother’s.  There was nothing physically restrictive, yet she felt a constraint so tight it was difficult to breathe.

She joined him at the French doors, their shoulders close but not quite touching.  Neither seemed to have any desire to move closer. 

“It’s been a long few days for you,” he said.

Forty-two years old, Steven was of average height and build.  The silver in his hair gave him a wizened look clients trusted.  Looking at him, it occurred to her that he had something on his mind.  That made two of them.  “There’s something I need to talk to you about, Steven.”

One of the reasons he won so many lawsuits for his clients was that he was good at bluffing.  He wasn’t just good at it; he was stupendous at it, which made whatever she glimpsed in his eyes more alarming.  Instinctively, she proceeded with caution.  “Can you come to dinner at my apartment downtown tomorrow evening?” 

“I can’t make it tomorrow night, Caroline.” 

Normally, he was a talker.  She found it strange that he didn’t elaborate.  Fighting a bout of queasiness, she said, “Perhaps this shouldn’t wait until tomorrow anyway.” 

He glanced sharply at her.  “I was going to tell you.” 

He was going to tell her?  What was he talking about? 

Luckily, she was good at bluffing, too.  “When?” she asked.  “When were you planning to tell me?” 

A muscle worked in his jaw, and something clicked in her brain.  She’d handled enough divorce cases to recognize someone guilty of cheating.  “God, Steven.”

“It’s not like that.”  There was nothing quite like a lawyer jumping to his own defense.  “Brenda and I have been talking, and we’ve come to realize the divorce was a mistake.”

A mistake?  That was a good one.  “The woman you’re seeing behind my back is your ex-wife?”

He ran a finger between his neck and the starched collar of his white shirt.  “She’s the mother of my children.  Believe me, this is not sordid.”

The floor pitched.  Regaining her equilibrium, she said, “Then you haven’t been sleeping with both of us?”

His mouth thinned and his expression hardened.  “I know this is a shock, but frankly, I’m a little surprised you’re upset.”

Trying to think, Caroline fingered the charm on her necklace.  Her life was falling apart around her, but this wasn’t the surprise she’d had in mind. 

“I’m sorry,” Steven said.  “I know this is a difficult time for you.  That’s why we didn’t want to tell you until you’d had a chance to—”

We? 

“Brenda knows about me?  About us?”

“I didn’t want to begin our trial reconciliation with a lie between us.  I’ve never seen my boys this happy.  Think about them.” 

He wanted her to think about his children.  That was priceless.

“They’ve been in counseling since the divorce.  Brenda and I have been worried about them.  You and I have talked about that.”

A few months earlier, Caroline had spent an afternoon at the aquarium with Steven’s sons.  The outing had been awkward and difficult.  Caroline didn’t pretend to know much about children, but the boys’ dislike for her had been painfully obvious.   

“I’m sorry about your grandfather.  I know how you felt about Henry.  In fact, I’ve always gotten the impression he was the only man you needed in your life.”

She felt hollow, empty and bereft.  She wanted to tell him she had needs, too, but her pride kept her still.  “I think you should go, Steven.”

She hated him for looking relieved.

At the door he said, “It’s not as if you’ve ever mentioned the future, let alone one that included marriage or a family.” 

It was difficult to know whether to laugh or cry. 

He was watching her, his head turned at an unnatural angle, accentuating his long neck and prominent Adam’s apple. “I’ve fallen in love with my ex-wife all over again.  Haven’t you ever been in love?”

He let himself out without waiting for her answer. 

Caroline couldn’t seem to stop shaking.  She closed the French doors, then stared through the wavy glass, shivering.  Lake Michigan was as gray as the May sky.  Thunder rumbled in the distance.  Her grandfather’s favorite mesh patio furniture faced the great lake.  How many times had she found him sitting there, quietly looking out across the vast water? 

He’d been her only family since her parents’ deaths when she was eight.  It couldn’t have been easy for him, and yet he’d taken her in, and made a home for her.  He’d devoted his life to raising her. 

She shivered again.  For some reason, Steven’s question bothered her.  She’d thought she was in love once or twice a long time ago, but the sentiment had faded.  It was a well known fact that women had to work twice as hard as men in this field.  She’d worked three times as hard.  She’d set goals and systematically met each one.  In doing so, she’d made sacrifices along the way. And no, she’d never been in love.  Until recently, that hadn’t felt like a tragedy.  But Caroline had bigger problems.  One big problem, to be exact.

Caroline looked at the family photograph Maria kept on the windowsill.  Maria and her husband Miguel had three children:  Carmen, Dominic, and the baby.  He must have been four now.  His name escaped Caroline.  Maria had come to work for Henry O’Shaughnessey the same year Caroline left to study law at Columbia University in New York.  She’d always treated Caroline well, and vice versa, and yet in all the years they’d known one another and all the times they’d spoken, most of their conversations had been about Caroline’s grandfather or the weather or the news.  Now she regretted that they’d never shared more personal information. 

Finally, Maria said, “You’re busy, but you’re not cold.  You’re like your shoes.  Beautiful, supple, exquisitely crafted, but out of the average person’s league.”

In so many ways, Caroline and Maria were opposites.  Their common link had been their mutual love for Henry O’Shaughnessy.  Caroline’s grandfather had been stubborn and well-spoken, kind and opinionated until he’d died suddenly of a heart attack four days ago.  There was no question that he’d loved them, too.  His last will and testament had already been read, Maria’s dedication rewarded handsomely.  She’d agreed to stay on until Caroline decided what to do with the beautiful old house.  Although not a decadent amount, the inheritance gave Maria options she hadn’t expected.  Caroline knew the other woman would have managed without the monetary gift, for she was one of those women who knew how to be happy regardless of her situation. 

Antonio.  The baby’s name was Antonio.  But Maria wasn’t old.  She was five years younger than Caroline.  “Look at all you have.”

Laying a hand over Caroline’s, Maria said, “You’re just a late-bloomer.  Now you will catch up.  There’s nothing like having a baby.  You’ll see.”

Caroline’s mouth dropped open.  She hadn’t told a soul about this.  She’d thrown the home pregnancy kit in the trash downtown.  Until this week, she’d had no morning sickness, and that she’d attributed to shock and sadness.  According to her calculations, she was only two and a half months along.  “How did you know?”

“When you’ve been there three times,” Maria said sagely, “you recognize the signs.  Plus, it’s been several months since anything has been moved on the middle shelf in the bathroom you use when you stay here.  Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?”

Until that moment, Caroline hadn’t allowed herself to think in those terms.  When she was late the first month, she’d blamed it on stress.  Two weeks later she’d researched early menopause on the Internet.  By the second month she’d decided it was most likely cancer.  She couldn’t be pregnant.  She was on the pill.  Besides, single, forty-three-year-old crackerjack attorneys who worked their butts off to make partner did not have surprise pregnancies.

“What did Senor Phillips say?”

“He’s going back to his ex-wife and their two kids.”

“But how—what about—you didn’t tell him?” 

Shaking her head, Caroline watched for Maria’s reaction.

Maria took the information in stride the way she took everything in stride.  She took life exactly as it was.  She didn’t try to manipulate it, change it, or get around it.

Caroline envied her that, as well.

“Now,” Maria said, “If you’re lucky, the baby won’t have a skinny neck and big Adam’s apple.  Just to be safe, let’s hope it’s a girl.”

Why on earth that struck Caroline funny, she didn’t know.  A tight little laugh squeezed out of her.  Half-hiccup, half croak, another followed, and another, and another.  Maria joined her.  Soon, they were both laughing uncontrollably.  Maria was clutching her middle and slapping at Caroline to stop, and Caroline was wiping tears. 

Without warning, the sounds no longer came from Caroline’s belly, but from her chest, turning mournful, sorrowful.  Tears of laughter had fallen freely.  These tears burned her eyes, leaving hot trails down her face.  She cried and cried, for her grandfather, for her parents whom she’d lost so long ago, and for her life that was suddenly out of control.   

Her eyes wet, too, Maria placed a box of tissues on Caroline’s lap.  Standing beside her, she held Caroline’s face to her chest, rocking her as she would one of her children.  By the time the episode finally passed, Caroline felt depleted, wretched, spent. 

“Do you want me to stay for a while?” Maria asked after Caroline had blown her nose and dried her eyes. 

Caroline appreciated the offer.  “Your family is waiting for you at home.”

Removing her apron and hanging it on a hook inside the basement door, Maria said, “Now you’ll have a family, too.”

Maria hadn’t so much as considered the possibility that Caroline might choose one of her other options.  Perhaps it was Maria’s upbringing.  Or perhaps she sensed just how much Caroline wanted this child. 

She wondered if she was the only one who thought it was ironic that her closest confidant was the family housekeeper.  And until today, Caroline hadn’t even known the name of Maria’s youngest child.

“Something is seriously wrong with me and with my life, Maria.”

“Sometimes things must go wrong before you know what you need to fix.  Now you know.”

With that enormous vote of confidence, Maria left.  It was several minutes before Caroline realized something was different.

She could breathe.

           What had she done? 

            Most of her hair, her beautiful, long, lustrous hair, was gone.  What was left stuck out in four-and-five-inch tufts, as if she’d gotten caught in some cosmic blender.  She turned her head slightly.  It was no use.  It looked bad from every angle.

            What had she been thinking?

“A trim?” Rolf had asked when she’d arrived at the trendy hair salon located directly above Brynn’s, her clothing boutique in Portland’s waterfront district.

Surprise me?  Had she lost her mind? 

Mya loved new trends: clunky-heeled shoes and boots of all kinds, low slung pants and the latest jewelry.  But other than an occasional trim, she never changed her hairstyle.  Until today. 

“Whoa,” her after-school clerk exclaimed.

Joe, the kindly deliveryman said, “Don’t worry.  It’ll grow back.”

Looking at her reflection in the safety of her own living room, she pulled at the wayward tresses.  It was no use.  She turned her back on the baroque mirror.  Beseeching her two closest friends, she said, “What do you think?”

Suzette studied the uneven blond tendrils encircling Mya’s head.  Petite and at times just a little too perky, Suzette said, “It isn’t that bad.”

“Claire?” Mya asked the other woman. 

Suzette dropped into an overstuffed chair.  “I still can’t believe you’re engaged.”  Not many thirty-year-old women could pull off that whine.  “I’m the one who’s always dreamed of marrying a doctor.  It was my appendix that ruptured.”

 Pouting, Suzette said, “Fine.  It was my appendix that expanded violently, and who was just coming off duty in ER?  Only the best looking doctor in the English speaking world.”

“Where is the groom-to-be, anyway?” Suzette asked.

“The cavalry to the rescue,” Claire said under her breath.

What little hair was left on the back of Mya’s neck stood on end.  “This dice-job cost me eighty bucks.”

Mya had little choice but to succumb to the inspection that followed.  After much tongue clicking and head shaking, her mother rummaged through her big, red purse for a pair of red-tipped scissors.  Red was her mother’s favorite color.  She wore red nail polish, red lipstick, red blush on her cheeks, red shoes, red everything.  Even her ’95 Impala was red. 

“I think you paid too much.  I only charge my customers twenty dollars for a shampoo, cut and blow job.”

“That’s what I said.”

Of course, that was her mother’s dream.  “Let’s go to the kitchen.  I think I can fix this.”

And the thing was, Mya was sure she could.

Millicent Donahue owned a hair salon, aptly named Millie’s Hair Salon.  Despite the fact that the term had gone out of style in the eighties, she still called herself a beautician.  For years the salon had been a bone of contention between mother and daughter.  Eventually they’d called a truce of sorts.  Now, Mya needn’t feel obligated to have her hair trimmed at her mother’s salon, and her mother needn’t feel obligated to shop at Mya’s store.  Not that Mya carried red sweatshirts with glitter and sequins anyway.  

“I thought Jeffrey was going to be here,” Millicent said around the hair-clip in her mouth. 

“An ER doctor,” Suzette grumbled.  “Do you have any idea how many women aspire to marry a doctor?”

“I didn’t aspire to marry anyone.”

“I still say it isn’t fair,” Suzette said.

Pouring the wine, Claire said, “Don’t mind Suzette, Ms. Donahue.  She’s just bitter because Jeffrey saw her naked first and still chose Mya.”

Drolly, Mya said, “No goddess ever had this haircut.” 

For once, Mya wasn’t even tempted to argue.

Her mother said, “You haven’t had hair this short—” 

Their gazes locked. 

Mya should have known she needn’t have worried. 

Oblivious, Suzette said, “What do you say we move this party out to the dining room and away from any airborne hair?”  Taking a small tray in either hand, she headed for the door, disrupting Jeffrey’s three cats that had somehow wound up at Mya’s place.

Millie reached into the cabinet for the chips and into the refrigerator for the dip.  “Forget the health food.  I need all the preservatives I can get.”  When she was certain Suzette was out of hearing range, she lowered her raspy voice and said, “If that girl gets any perkier, I’m going to bite through my tongue.” 

It was quiet in the kitchen suddenly.  Too quiet.  Finding Claire watching her, Mya handed over the other tray.

“Serve red wine with cheese?  I’m living dangerously.” 

And Mya said, “Not you, too.”

“I’ll say my peace, and then forever hold it.  You’re going to get married.”

Another time Mya might have smiled.

Claire gaped.  “You chew up nice people for breakfast and spit them out before lunch.”

“Come on, Mya.  A woman like you hasn’t remained single this long for lack of opportunities.  Don’t even try to tell me Jeffrey’s marriage proposal was your first.”

Relieved, Mya said, “Jeffrey is attentive, intelligent, ardent and imperturbable.”

Leave it to a high school English teacher to notice that. 

The kitchen door opened, and Suzette stuck her head inside.  “Did you talk to her?”

With a flourish, Suzette took a sheaf of papers from her oversized purse.  “I put that question to my second graders this morning.  Claire, did you ask your class?”

Now Mya was curious.  “What did they say?”

New lease or not, Mya gave her the finger.

Mya smiled.

“Are you bringing more chips?” Millie called from the next room.

Suzette dashed toward the door with the bag of chips, practically tripping over one of Jeffrey’s cats.  When the door stopped swinging, Claire said, “And that’s another thing, Mya.  You’re a dog person.  You don’t even like cats.”

Claire looked worried, but she said, “Listen.  It sounds like Jeffrey’s here.  We’d better get out there and save him from Suzette.”

Right behind her, Mya said, “You mean from my mother.” 

Oh, sure.  Now Claire laughed.

                                            *    *    *

            “You’re positive you don’t want something to drink?”  Mya held up the bottle of wine.

Everyone had gone, and Mya was trying to put things away.  Uninterested in putting anything away, Jeff put his arms around her.  “I’d rather have a different kind of honey.”

Nuzzling her neck, Jeff said, “I have to be back at the hospital in thirty-eight minutes.  We can spend the next half hour doing anything you want, anywhere you want."

He turned her gently into his arms and kissed her again.  Holding her to him, molding and kneading until she groaned, he eased her backward toward the sofa, where they’d last made love.  She’d had a crick in her neck for two days. 

“I think what you have in mind is best suited to a bed, Doctor.”

There was no reason in the world to be thinking about this, especially when a virile, nearly naked man was undressing her, caressing her, kissing her.  Where was her blouse, anyway?  Jeff peeled away her bra and covered her breasts with his big hands.  Pleasure surged through her. 

Mya was five-four-and-a-half, and at times Jeff seemed as big as a house.  He was her safe place in the storm of life.  She’d discovered it that night in the emergency room.  It was the first time she’d set foot inside a hospital in years.  She wouldn’t have then if she’d had a choice.  She’d managed to remain stoic through the harrowing drive to the hospital, Suzette whimpering in the seat next to her.  And then she’d managed to get Suzette into a wheelchair and through the automatic doors.  She’d given the night-nurse all the pertinent information.  After they’d wheeled Suzette away, and Mya was alone in the cold, austere hospital, panic had set in.  She’d shaken with the effort to hold herself together.  And there was Jeffrey coming off duty, bringing her a cup of steaming coffee and the offer of a broad shoulder to cry on.

Jeffrey Anderson was just about the nicest, kindest man she’d ever met, and she’d found herself wondering if she’d been holding the wrong kind of man at bay.  He asked for her phone number.  And she gave it to him.  She was sure he wouldn’t call, even more sure she wouldn’t go out with him if he did.  She was wrong on both counts.

He’d called, and it had felt good to talk with him over dinner.  And later, it had felt good to kiss him.  After a few dates, it had felt good to make love with him.  What was so wrong with feeling good?  He didn’t curl her toes.  So what?

The wind howled and rain ran in sheets down her bedroom window.  The room was shadowy and drafty.  Goosebumps rose on her skin as he lowered her to the bed and eased down next to her.  Heat emanated from him, drawing her closer.  

The mattress shifted and their breaths mingled.  She was tangling her legs with his when she glanced at the foot of the bed.  Two cats sat nearby in the oblong patch of light spilling from the hall.  A third had stopped in the doorway.  All three were watching. 

“Jeffrey.  The cats.”

He groaned when she stopped doing what she’d been doing and removed her hand, but he heaved himself away from her and gathered up his cats.  “I swear you guys do this on purpose.”  Shooing them all into the hall, he closed the door.  “Now, where were you?”

She laughed, and it almost sounded wicked.  It had been a long time since she’d been wicked.  He returned to her, and he enjoyed it so much she couldn’t help laughing again.  He kissed her, stroked her, caressed her, until a deep feeling of peace entered her being.  She spoke his name on a whisper, and he came to her, the joining of man to woman pure and pleasurable.  Those first delightful tremors were just beginning when one of the cats yowled in the hall.  The other two took up the cry.

Feeling her stiffen, Jeff said, “Pretend we’re in the jungle.”

Mya laughed, and he smoothed one fingertip along her cheek, down the length of her neck, skimming the outer swell of her breast, her waist, until he found what he was after.  He was an ardent lover, mindful of her needs, and vocal about his.  And yet she was distracted.  Who wouldn’t be distracted with three cats yowling outside the closed bedroom door? 

A memory came, unbidden.  Hazy and as if from a great distance, she glimpsed, for but a moment, two lovers too young to know what they were doing, and a passion so consuming nothing could have kept them from doing it.  She stopped the thought, her mind suddenly blank, her body and soul empty.  

“I love your hair.”

Mya started.  “What?”

“Your hair.  I like it.  Very sassy.” 

He’d waited until it was pitch dark to tell her.  But it made her smile, and it brought her to him once again. 

She moaned softly.

“Do you like that?” he asked, his voice low.

“I think you should do it again, just so I can be sure.”

This time he chuckled, but he acquiesced, and yes, she liked it.  Maybe it wasn’t ecstasy.  Accepting the weight of him, and the warmth of him, it was enough. 

Ecstasy was overrated anyway.

                                                       *    *    *

“I love you,” Jeff said.  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”  He sauntered to the foyer, bending to pet each cat on his way.  He looked back at her from the door.  Giving her a smile, he was gone, sated and content. 

She envied him that contentment. 

Where had that thought come from?  Turning, she found all three cats staring at her, as if Jeff’s leaving was somehow her fault. 

“What?  He has his house.  I have mine.”

The white cat jumped onto the back of the sofa.  The yellow two continued to stare at her from the easy chair. 

“You heard him.  He’ll call tomorrow.”  And then, because she couldn’t be cold or cruel, even if she wasn’t a cat person, she added, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.”

No swish of their tails.  No meows.  No purring.  Nothing.   

Why anybody bothered talking to cats, she didn’t know.  Cinching the sash of her long silk robe, she padded to the kitchen.  The moment she started the electric can opener, all three cats came running.

She doled out the bribe, and watched them enjoy it.  The white one even let her pet him, and she had to admit, his fur was soft and warm.  Leaving them to their late night snack, she wandered through her little house.  It was nearing the bewitching hour, and it had been an eventful day.  Her hairstyle had been salvaged, she was learning to coexist with Jeff’s cats, and she’d avoided a blow-up with her mother.  Maybe she’d finally grown up—perish the thought, but she was thirty-six.

She did an about face.  Instead of brooding, she was going to leave this mess for tomorrow and go to bed.  She hadn’t taken three steps when a knock sounded on her door.  She paused at the lamp she’d just turned off.  Her neighbors never stayed up this late.  Jeff had a key, so it couldn’t be him.  Maybe Claire or Suzette had returned for some reason.  She doubted it was her mother. 

            The knock came again. 

Turning the lamp back on, she went to the door and peered through the peephole.  The room pitched, and one hand flew to her mouth.  

A girl wearing faded blue jeans and no jacket stood on the porch.  Mya felt frozen in time and in place, and yet she opened the door, a wild gust of wind hitting her in the face. 

After looking Mya up and down, eyes the same brown as her own narrowed.  “I would have knocked sooner but I was waiting for the minute man to leave.”  With a snide curl of her lip, the girl said, “Hey Mom.  Long time no see.”

     The kitchen in Eve’s little house didn’t have enough counter space.  Or measuring cups.  Or mixing bowls.

      It hadn’t kept Brooke from improvising.

She’d prepared a big breakfast for Sophie hours ago.  Although complaining about boredom, Sophie had talked, more like her old self, before retreating back to the spare room to write in her journal.  An elementary school teacher who had summers off, Eve preferred cold cereal for breakfast.  The last Brooke knew, her sister was compiling her wedding guest list at her home computer in the living room.

It was Wednesday, and Brooke had a lot on her mind.  She thought best when she was busy.  Consequently, every inch on every flat surface was covered with the fruits of her labors.  The best evidence was in the mouth-watering aromas wafting through the house. 

Carter was the first person to follow his nose to the source.  As he so often did, he sauntered into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and stood there as if he needed the cool air to wake up.  Not that he woke up here.  Brooke wasn’t sure where he slept, but she appreciated his and Eve’s efforts to set a good example for Sophie.  That didn’t mean Brooke hadn’t noticed fresh whisker burn on Eve’s cheek on a regular basis.  Evidently, Brooke wasn’t the only one good at improvising.

“Would you like me to fix you something for breakfast?” she asked.

He looked at the clock, scratched his chest through his faded tee shirt, and finally got out of the refrigerator.  “No, thanks.”  He snitched a lemon tart and popped it, whole, into his mouth.  Moaning in ecstasy, he said, “You are a wizard.”

 Carter McCall had grown up in a house full of men.  Jack had been a grade behind Brooke in school, Brian a grade behind that, and Carter a few grades behind him.  Somebody had made certain they all knew which fork to use.  Carter said please and thank you when it suited him.  It just didn’t always suit him.  Sophie found that aspect of his persona very interesting. 

 “Have you got me figured out yet?” he asked.

 He did that a lot, broaching a subject very close to what she was thinking.  “I’m not very adept at figuring people out, men especially.  My husband is a prime example.”

 “He’s a prime example of an asshole.”   

 “You haven’t met Colin.”  There she went again, defending him. 

 “I don’t have to meet him.”  Carter leaned against the counter, crossed his ankles, and ate another lemon tart.  “A man screws around on a woman, especially a woman like you, he’s an asshole.”

 She looked across the small kitchen at her future brother-in-law.  It was nice having people in her corner, but it didn’t change what was wrong with her life or her marriage.  She’d watched Carter this past week, paying close attention to the way he treated Eve.  He truly seemed to be sincere in his actions and feelings. 

 “I appreciate the vote of confidence, Carter, but I read somewhere that if someone betrays you once, it’s his fault.  If he betrays you twice, it’s your fault.”

 “Who’s fault is it that he’s an asshole?  Men are easy to categorize,” Carter said.  “Unlike you women, who are complicated.”   

 Brooke removed the first batch of espresso fudge cookies from the oven.  “Tell me about these categories all men supposedly fall into.”

 “You already know about the asshole category, having been married to one for—how many years, thirteen?”

 “Fourteen.”

 She appreciated the fact that he didn’t gloat.

 “The assholes are by and large the worst.  Then there are the dumbasses, the smartasses, the sorryasses, and last but not least the wiseasses.”

 She’d never heard anyone use that particular word so often in one sentence, and smiled in spite of herself.  “What category would you say you fall into?”

 He tucked his thumbs into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.  “I’m a wiseass, of course.  Sometimes the boundaries overlap, but for the most part, one of the asses pegs us all pretty accurately.”

 Brooke was grinning openly now.  “You’ve certainly cleared that up.  Tell me this.  Why do we women bother with you?”   

 “Because we’re irresistible.”  There was a long pause.  “This is the part of the conversation where you get to say what you’re thinking.”

 She slid the second cookie sheet into the oven.  “But isn’t the art of conversation not only saying the right thing at the right time, but leaving unsaid the wrong things at the most tempting moments?”

 “What fun is that?”

 She blinked.

 “If it ain’t fun, it ain’t art.”

 “Isn’t,” she said automatically.

 “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

 She stared at him.  “Does anybody get the last word with you?”

 He shrugged, and it reminded her of Sophie.  “Eve has her ways, but that’s something I’d be more apt to share with the guys at the pool hall than her sister.  Never let it be said that a McCall doesn’t know his etiquette.”

 Brooke closed her eyes and shook her head.  Eve wasn’t going to have a dull moment with this one.

 Fluffy padded into the room, going straight to her dish.  Finding it empty, she stared with obvious disdain until Brooke shook out the last of the dry cat food.  “Nice kitty.” 

 Ignoring Brooke and the cat food, Fluffy walked stiff-legged to Carter and rubbed her head on his ankle.  Carter leaned down to pet her.  Of course she let him.

  “How can a cat I rescued from the animal shelter on the very day time was running out hate me?”

 “You try too hard.”

 She looked at Carter, and then at the cat purring beneath the slow, smooth motion of his hand.  “Seriously?”

He nodded.  “If you want a cat to like you, ignore her.  Let her come to you.  Works like a charm every time.”

 “I’ll take it under advisement.”

 “Glad I could help.”

 “Men!”  She muttered into the sink.

 Carter chuckled on his way into the next room.  “I warned you I’m a wiseass.”

 He was gone before she realized that he’d had the last word.

                                            *    *    *

 The cookies were done when Eve joined Brooke in the kitchen.

“Wow.”  Eve looked around.  “I don’t know how you do it.”

 Brooke squirted dish soap into the sink.  Turning on the water, she said, “Baking isn’t difficult, but it is messy.”

 Eve helped herself to the last cup of coffee in the pot.  “Speaking of messes, how did your phone call to Colin go this morning?”

  “Not so good.”

 “That explains the baking marathon.  What did he say?”

 Scrubbing a pan with unnecessary force, Brooke said, “He’s deeply saddened that I’ve run away from our problems.  Apparently, he mistook me for a woman who had more depth and strength of character.”

 Eve started to open her mouth.

 Brooke held up a hand.  “Before you call me a wimp, you should know that I told him his speech would have had more oomph if I hadn’t heard a woman’s voice in the background when he first picked up the phone.”

 “You said oomph?”

 “It was the best I could do on the spot.”

 “There was a woman in your house?”

 “He insisted it was the television, but that wasn’t Katie Couric’s voice.”

  “Oh, Brooke, no.  He never deserved you.”  Eve motioned to the newspaper lying open to the classifieds.  “Are you looking for a job?”

 “Not exactly.”

 Coffee in hand, Eve walked to her table where she read the ad Brooke had circled.  “You’re interested in renting a house for the rest of the summer?”

 “I think it would be better for Sophie if we had our own place.  You’re not angry?”

 Eve wore her long straight hair pulled back on the sides and secured with two red clips that matched her simple knit dress.  The color made her face look pale and her gray eyes like liquid pewter.  “Angry that you’re staying in Alcott for the summer?  Are you kidding?”  She moved the newspaper aside and reached for an espresso fudge cookie.  “You know you’re welcome to stay with me as long as you’d like, but I’ll honor whatever you choose to do.  Carter’s on his way to his studio, and I have to run, too.  The Pilgrim Women’s Society is meeting in five minutes and I’m acting secretary.”

 “Wait.”  Brooke arranged a selection of cookies and tarts on a large plate and hurriedly wrapped it with cellophane.  “Take these with you.  We’ll be ill if we try to eat all this by ourselves.”

  Eve winked.  “Expect compliments from everyone.”

 Brooke wasn’t thinking about compliments when Sophie’s footsteps sounded near the doorway a few minutes later.  She was thinking about that voice she’d heard in the background in her own kitchen back home.  Had someone been there with Colin?  Should she have stayed and faced this?

 She’d been devastated when she’d discovered Colin’s affair two years ago, and had mourned as if something precious had died.  She tried to categorize what she felt this time.  Throughout the process of stirring up lemon tarts and three kinds of cookies, she’d come to the conclusion that she felt sad, disappointed, disillusioned and stupid.  And underlying it all, she felt strangely unsettled.  She was thankful it was summer, for it gave her time before Sophie had to return to school.

“Smells good in here.”  By now Sophie knew her way around Eve’s kitchen, evidenced by her economy of motion as she made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  “I talked to Makayla again.  Guess what?”  Sophe moved her tongue across her lips in the same direction she moved her knife across the bread.  “The Prescotts are going to Europe for three whole weeks as soon as Toby’s over the chicken pox.”

 “That’s nice, honey.”

 “They’re so lucky.”  She added the top to her sandwich, then stood near the stove to take her first bite.  Looking at the stack of baking tins and utensils waiting to be washed, she said, “I bet you miss having a dishwasher, huh?”

 Brooke rinsed a handful of measuring spoons.  “I suppose.”

 “And there’s no warming oven, either.”

 “Aunt Eve isn’t much of a gadget girl,” Brooke agreed.

 “Guess not,” Sophie said amicably.  “Our kitchen back home has the best gadgets.  I bet you miss it, huh?”

 It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what her daughter was doing.  Brooke washed another cookie sheet.   

 “Hey, Fluffy.”  The girl lowered gracefully to the floor near the door.  Sitting cross-legged, she pet the cat with one hand and held her sandwich with the other.  “And there’s not much room for Fluffy’s litter box here, is there?  I don’t know how many times I’ve seen somebody trip over her food dish.”

 “It is crowded here.  I want to talk to you about that.”   

 “You do?”   

 Brooke nodded.  “We don’t want to wear out our welcome, do we?”

 Sophie shook her head dramatically. 

 “Feel like taking a walk in a few minutes?”

 “A walk?”

 Brooke nodded.  “It’s a beautiful summer day.”

 “But shouldn’t we be packing?”

 “First we have to take a look at the summerhouse.”

 “What summerhouse?”  Sophie jumped up as if bracing for a fight.   

 “The one up on Captain’s Row.  I circled the ad.”  Brooke gestured to the local newspaper open on the table.  “It’s reasonably priced, and vacant.  I’m concerned about its condition, but it won’t hurt to take a look at it.”

 “You don’t expect me to stay in this bumfuck town, do you?”

            Brooke spun around.  Hands dripping, she stared at her child. Maybe the cat gave Brooke the cold shoulder because she tried too hard.  And maybe Colin cheated because she’d somehow enabled him to do it.  But Sophie was on the brink of her teen years, and Brooke knew that how she handled this situation would affect them both for a long time.  “You want to raise your voice, you go right ahead, let the pressure off.  Vent if you have to.  But that is not acceptable language.  I will not tolerate it.  And I hope you don’t, either.”

 Sophie took a sudden interest in the toe of her shoe. 

 “I understand how difficult this is for you, Sophe.  I know you miss your friends and your room and your father.  And maybe you would rather be going to Europe, but that doesn’t give you the right to be disrespectful to me and to use language far beneath your sensibilities, and mine.”

 Eyes downcast, Sophie mumbled, “Sorry.”

 Tears burned the back of Brooke’s throat.  Sophie was hurting, and Brooke’s first impulse was to rush to her child and hug her, the way she always had.  Brooke would have felt better.  But this wasn’t a mosquito bite or skinned knee or hurt feelings, and a hug wouldn’t fix it.  “It’s difficult, what you’re going through.”

 “It stinks.”

 “Yes, it does.  Things have happened, through no fault of your own, and you have no control over them.  You’re angry with me?  I don’t believe it’s warranted, but at least the emotion is honest.  And honesty is our purest and most precious resource.  Honesty is renewable.  Words are not.  Once uttered, we own them.  They can’t be taken back.  Do you want to own the word bumfuck?”

Sometime during the lecture, Sophie had raised her head and looked at her mother.  She wore a chambray shirt and shorts with embroidery around the hem.  The color matched her sad eyes.  “I guess not.”

 “Think about it.  I don’t want you guessing here.  I want you sure.”

 The girl sighed.  “I’m sure.  I don’t want to own that word.  Makayla says it to her mom.  Now Toby says it, too.  Guess their mom shouldn’t stand for it, huh?”

 Brooke dropped the towel on the counter.  She didn’t believe Priscilla Prescott was doing her children a favor by allowing disrespect, but Brooke had her own situation to deal with, her own family, and all the problems it entailed.  “Now are you ready for that walk?”

 “May I have a glass of milk first?”

 “Yes you may.”

 “And one of those cookies?”

 “Of course.”   

 “I love you Mom.”

 “And I love you.”  Now, she hugged her child.

 Soon she was closing Eve’s back door and pocketing the key.  Feeling that they might just be okay yet, Brooke walked into the late morning sunshine with her daughter. 

                                    *    *    *

 Mackenzie Elliot steepled his fingers beneath his chin, nodding at one of the five women who’d driven up together from Boston for today’s group therapy session.  All were wealthy and ranged in age from mid-thirties to mid-forty.  They’d been meeting as a group for nearly four years.  Even Mac’s unexpected and temporary move from Boston to Alcott hadn’t deterred their wish to continue. 

 Most of his patients were women.  A psychiatrist specializing in family and group counseling, Mac was good with women.  They loved him, and the truth was, women and all their nuances and layers and hidden agendas fascinated him.  Take Nadine, who sat near the credenza across the room.  She’d lost her daughter four years ago, and only recently had begun to lose the haunted, tortured look in her eyes.  Next to her was Rita, who at forty-five looked thirty-five, compliments of botox and her most recent Parisian peel.  She tolerated her husband’s infidelities in return for spending his money as she pleased.  Meredith, the graying woman sitting beside Rita, hated her father and most other men including her ex-husband, but trusted Mac implicitly.  By the end of the third session, he’d been fairly certain she was a lesbian.  She knew he knew, which was one of the reasons she trusted him.  After a few private sessions, she’d told him her reasons for remaining in the closet.  He honored her silence.  To Rita’s left was Tess, who used to talk at great length about the abortion her parents had forced her to have when she was sixteen.  She and Nadine had become very close these past four years.  Married the second time around, seemingly happily, Tess had two healthy children, and often spoke of parenting issues these days.  That left Georgeanne, who seemed to have no unusual skeletons in her closet, no nightmares, phobias or obsessions.  She was delightfully funny and supportive of the other four.  Besides boredom, her biggest problem was her penchant for trying to squeeze Mac’s ass whenever the situation presented itself.  He always made sure there were at least two people between him and Georgeanne.

 A year ago he’d expressed his belief that this group no longer needed him, telling them in all honesty that he’d felt as if he was taking their money for nothing.  All five had arrived at the next session with enough issues and tales of woe to last into the next decade.  On the way out the door that day, Rita had smiled at him and said, “Are you ready to cry uncle?  Because this is good for us.  Your insights are incredibly valuable to us.  It’s our choice to spend a hundred dollars to talk to our friends for an hour.  Last week Stanley spent more than that on flowers for his latest mistress.”

 So, Mac let them pay him.  Recently, Meredith had begun to talk about her sexual preference, and Georgeanne finally opened up about her own hidden past.  Mac did what he could to help them help themselves.  And if, when the session ended, he felt less fulfilled than when he met with the small group of battered women in the church basement over near Manchester, so be it.

 Deep inside this monstrosity of a house at 211 High Street, the phone rang.  His answering machine discreetly answered.  In another room on the main floor, his father was yelling for something cool to drink.  Mac had taken him something cool to drink five minutes ago.  His father enjoyed yelling almost as much as he enjoyed making Mac’s life a living hell.  Mac needed an assistant to answer the phone and a nurse to help with his father.  The agency was sending over candidates for both positions this afternoon.

 Three out of the last four nurses hadn’t lasted a day.  Mac didn’t blame them.  He wouldn’t put up with his old man either if he had a choice.

 His old man.  Mac didn’t have one clear memory of a time when his father had seemed young to him.  Not that Archibald Elliot had taken an active role in raising Mac.  Mac had been a year old when his parents divorced.  From then on, his mother had made certain he and his father knew each other’s whereabouts, but their paths had seldom crossed.  The arrangement had suited them both. 

 Until, out of the blue, Mac had been called to his estranged father’s deathbed nearly a month ago.  Mac had told his associate in Boston that he’d be back in a week.  He should have known the ornery old codger would be too stubborn to die.  He’d been too stubborn to come back to Boston with Mac, too.  So here Mac was in Alcott, New Hampshire, caring for his eighty-four-year-old father who disapproved of everything Mac said and did, listening with half an ear to Rita Delaney talk about the tummy tuck she planned to have next while Tess tried to talk her out of it. 

 “Damn it all to hell, Mac!” his father yelled.  “Are you going to let me die of thirst in here?”

 Rita stopped talking and looked at the clock.  “I believe our hour is up.”

 Actually, it had been up ten minutes ago. 

 Mac rose easily to his feet.  The women were in the process of sashaying en masse to the foyer when a knock sounded on his front door.  His patients opened it and rushed past him. 

 “Bye, doctor!”

 “See you next month, Meredith.  You, too, Rita.”

 “I look forward to it.”

 A slender woman and a girl stepped aside to miss the stampede.  He didn’t see a car, which accounted for the sheen of perspiration on their faces. 

 On her way past Mac, Tess said, “Nobody would fault you for putting the old bastard in a nursing home and leaving him there.”

 Nadine agreed.  “Better yet, the attic.”

 Mac smiled.  Where was Georgeanne?  He sidestepped her wandering hand in the nick of time.  While five pairs of feet clattered toward Rita’s Mercedes and five mouths ran at once about where to go for lunch, Mac turned his attention to the pair waiting on his stoop. 

 “Are you a doctor?” the girl asked.

 “A psychiatrist.”  He sized them up.  Pre-teen and mid-thirties, similar hair and eye-color.  The daughter had an air of curiosity about her, the mother an air of caution.  Both carried themselves regally, the girl on coltish legs, the woman in a pair of beige chinos and Prada loafers if he wasn’t mistaken. 

 And Mac was rarely mistaken.

 “I’m here about the ad.” 

 He had no idea why a woman would bring her daughter to a job interview, but he was desperate enough to overlook it.  “I asked the temp service not to send any candidates until after lunch, but as long as you’re here, please come in.”

 The mother and her daughter looked at one another.  “The temp service?” the woman asked.

 “You’re not here to apply for a temporary nursing or clerical position?”

 She shook her head.  “We’re here about the ad regarding a house to rent.”

 “Ah.”  He’d put that ad in the paper three weeks ago at his father’s insistence.  It hadn’t garnered a single response, and he’d forgotten about it.

 “You called it a summerhouse,” the girl said.  “Mom says you couldn’t possibly be from around here.”

 The woman’s eyes widened, and Mac knew she would have nudged her daughter if she could have done so discreetly.  He studied the woman’s face, feature by feature.  She had nice eyes, good skin, delicate bone-structure.  Her mouth was a little too wide for the rest of her face, but her lips were full enough to be interesting.

 The daughter looked a lot like her, and Mac smiled at her.  “I would love to hear your mother’s reasoning.”

 Like most females on the planet, the girl responded to his easy manner and slow grin.  “It’s because of the way your ad was worded.  Mom says people in Alcott don’t call these places summerhouses.” 

 The woman said, “Although the street signs say High Street, people here have always referred to this as Captain’s Row.” 

 She had a cultured voice he liked.  And a wedding ring and four-karat rock on her left hand. 

 “And why do they call it that?” he asked.

 The daughter said, “Because this is the only place in Alcott with a view of the ocean, so rich old sea captains built their big houses in a row up here before the turn of the last century.”

 The woman stepped forward.  “And that ends today’s little history lesson.  I’m Brooke Valentine, and this is my daughter, Sophie.”

 “Mackenzie Elliot.”  He shook both their hands, Brooke’s last.  Her fingers were long, her grip firm.  For an instant, her glance sharpened.  The handshake was over before he’d pinned down the reason.     

 “Damn it all to hell Mac, are you in there?” 

 Great.  His father.

 “Do you have a ghost?” Sophie asked.

 “I should be so lucky.  Please excuse me.  If you’d like to wait, I’ll only be a moment.”

 He left them in the foyer and strode toward the large living room that now contained a hospital bed and other medical paraphernalia.  From the doorway he saw victory on his father’s face. 

 “Maybe now that those women are done playing grab-ass with you, you’ll get your bony butt over here and get me something to drink!”

 Behind him, Sophie said, “We weren’t playing grab-ass with him.  Do you think the doctor has a bony butt?”

 Mac thought about that ring on the mother’s left hand, and knew better than to be disappointed because he didn’t hear Brooke Valentine’s reply.

                                        *    *    *

 Sophie’s question had caused Brooke to look, briefly, but she said nothing.  Many women noticed shoulders, others hair or smiles.  And there were those who noticed rear ends.  Brooke noticed eyes.

 Eyes first.

 All the rest followed, but eyes she remembered.  Mackenzie Elliot’s eyes were green and steady and intelligent.  Something in the pit of her stomach reminded her that she hadn’t come here to look at him.  She’d come to look at the house, and that was where she turned her attention.

 Captain’s Row followed a curved rim on the northern edge of town.  She hadn’t been up here since she was in her teens.  By then, many of the old captain’s houses had either been converted into apartments or abandoned.  This one was intact.  The ceilings were high, the floors and trim original, the light fixtures antiquated but seemingly in working order.  It was big and breezy, shadowy and secluded.  Brooke could imagine the house in its day when it was new and gleaming and opulent.  She couldn’t imagine living here for the rest of the summer. 

 Sophie’s outburst in Eve’s kitchen had driven home her daughter’s need to know that her mother was steady and stable.  Brooke vowed to pay close attention to her instincts and intuition, and her intuition was telling her that she and Sophie would be happier some place cozier and closer to Eve.

 She’d seen enough, and wondered how long they would have to wait for Dr. Elliot’s return.  She could hear more swearing coming from a room toward the back of the house.  Despite the verbal abuse, Mackenzie Elliot’s voice remained calm. 

 The other man’s didn’t.  “Get your lily-livered hands off me.  I can do this myself.”

 “Dad, you’re going to fall.”

 “Then I’ll fall.  Now get the hell out of my way.”

 “What do you think is going on?” Sophie whispered.

 “I don’t know.”

 Surely, it was curiosity that drew Brooke and Sophie deeper into the house toward those voices.  They moved furtively, the way Fluffy did when her better judgment was being overrun by pure nosiness. 

 “You know I’m not going to do that, Dad, so just knock it off and let me help.”

 A series of expletives rent the air with enough ferocity to make Sophie giggle.  The sound drew both men’s attention. 

 Brooke and Sophie had stopped just inside a room that appeared to be a living room but now also contained a hospital bed and wheelchair and adult walker.  A stooped, bone-thin old man was perched on the edge of the bed, hands gripping the metal side rails.  There was a broken drinking glass lying in a shallow puddle on the floor.  Beyond him was a window showcasing a large expanse of lawn, and then sky and ocean.  Sea birds glided on invisible currents of air, and sunlight glinted on water far in the distance.  The old man didn’t seem interested in the view.  He coughed and sputtered and swore, determined to do without his son’s help. 

 “Are you all right?” Brooke asked.

 Faded green eyes turned in her direction.  “Do I goddamn look all right?  I dropped the glass and need another and my no-good-no-account-son doesn’t give a crap.”

 “Maybe you should try asking nice,” Sophie said.

 He looked at Sophie, and in a raspy voice, said, “I call a spade a spade.”

 “A minute ago you called him an f’ing idiot.”

 “Sophie!” Brooke said.

 “Well, he did.”  She moved closer to the bed.  “Except he didn’t say f’ing.  He used the real word.  You know, mister, honesty is a renewable resource.  Words aren’t.  Once you say something, you can’t take it back.  You own it.  You want to own everything you just said?”

 Of all times for Sophie to have been paying attention.  “What my daughter means—”

 “She talked in my good ear.  I heard her.  Put it pretty well, too.”  He was shaking, but he’d stopped swearing and coughing.  “I’m dying.  If I want to grouse a little, I figure I’m entitled.”

 Sophie said, “If you’re dying, why aren’t you in the hospital?”

 Brooke was surprised when the old man answered politely.  “Hospitals are for sick people.”

 “Then you’re faking it?”

 Brooke turned to the old man.  “Please excuse my daughter, Mr., er, Elliot is it?”

 “Why?  She pass gas?”

 “You’d know it if I did.”

 Brooke was horrified.  It didn’t lessen when the old man cracked a smile.  She turned to the son for help.  He appeared to be studying the situation, his pose typical for a man in his field, one arm folded across his ribs, forming a shelf on which his elbow was propped, his chin resting lightly on his loose fist.  His hair was five shades of brown, his eyebrows straight and thick, his skin tan.  There were lines beside his eyes, from laughing or squinting in the sun, she didn’t know.  He transferred his gaze to her, seemingly as puzzled by the conversation between his father and her daughter as she was.  She took the nearly imperceptible shake of his head as a silent request to wait and see. 

 The old man’s grip had loosened on the stainless steel bed rails, and he no longer seemed intent upon getting up, unaided or otherwise.  “It’s about time I met somebody who doesn’t pussyfoot around me.  My name’s Archibald Elliot.  My friends call me Archie.  I’m sick, but mostly I’m just old.  There’s only one way over that.  In the meantime, you wouldn’t think it would be too much to ask my no-good son to bring me something cool to drink.”

 “Maybe he thinks if he waits long enough, you’ll die of thirst.”

 Brooke took Sophie’s hand and drew her out of the man’s reach.

 “Smart girl you’ve got there,” Archibald Elliot said.  “My bark’s worse than my bite.  Truth is, I couldn’t hurt her if I wanted to, and I sure as hell don’t want to.”

 He winked at Sophie. 

 Something unspoken passed between them, and she grinned at him.  “May I use your restroom, please?”

 “Sophie,” Brooke admonished.  “We’ll be going home soon.” 

 “When you’ve gotta go, you’ve gotta go.  Isn’t that right, young lady?”  Archie pointed with a shaking hand.  “Down that hall.  Second door on the right.”

 The instant Sophie left, Brooke became aware of the silence.  Attempting to fill it, she gestured to the tall windows.  “That’s a magnificent view you have there.”

 The old man leaned back on his pillows, sullen again. 

 Brooke glanced at the son.  He smiled easily, and she knew what had caused those lines beside his eyes. 

 “I take it you and your daughter are from Alcott?” he asked.

 “I grew up here, but Sophie and I are just visiting.”

 He gave her one of those swift but thorough glances only a man could pull off.  His gaze didn’t linger in any one place longer than was considered polite, and yet something came over her, settling deeper, slowly tugging on her insides.  She couldn’t think of anything else to say.  His gaze locked on hers, and it occurred to her that he was having trouble coming up with a topic, too.    

 It was a relief when Sophie returned, a glass of water in her hand.  Being careful not to step in the puddle on the floor, she shook the old man’s shoulder gently.  “Mr. Elliot?”

 He opened his eyes, blinked, and wet his dry lips.  “Finally, somebody around here who listens.”  Taking the glass in both hands to help with the shaking, he drank the water down.  Wiping his mouth on the back of one liver-spotted hand, he handed the glass back to her, empty. “You got a job young lady?”

 Brooke said, “Sophie is too young to have a job.”

 “How old are ya?”

 “I’ll be thirteen next month.” 

 “When I was thirteen, I worked from sun up to sun down.  Kids are spoiled today.  Parents wonder why our society’s going down the tubes.”

 “Dad, maybe you should show our guests all your father-of-the-year awards.” 

 The old man’s face turned red.  The son’s jaw was set.  Looking from one to the other, Brooke waited for the explosion. 

 Through the roaring silence came Sophie’s quavering voice.  “What would I have to do?  If I worked for you, I mean.”

 “Sophie,” Brooke said.

 “Dad,” Mackenzie said. 

 “What?” Sophie and Archie said at once.

 “I’m looking for someone with medical training,” Mackenzie said.

 “It’s my money that’ll be paying her.” 

 “Only because you refuse to accept any monetary help from me.”

 “Damn right I refuse.  I don’t need your money.  Got plenty of my own.  Plenty.”  Archie caught Sophie’s eye.  “You one of those spoiled little girls who’s biggest worry is getting in the right club?”

 “Mr. Elliot,” Brooke said more loudly than she’d intended.   “Whether my daughter is spoiled or not is not your concern.”

 Sophie said, “I didn’t think I was spoiled, but lately I’ve been acting it.  I’m pretty strong and sort of smart.  You want to pay me to do stuff?”

 “Might.”

 “What kind of stuff?” 

 “Sophie, I don’t think—”

 Sophie persisted.  “You don’t wear old-people diapers, do you?”

 Brooke was beyond horrified. 

 The old man’s face was so lined and his eyes so faded it was difficult to tell whether he was preparing to swear or laugh.  In the end, he simply said, “My plumbing still works most of the time, but that’s about all.”  He was tiring.  His breathing was labored and his eyes were drooping.  “There are a couple of letters I’d like to write, things I want to put in order.  Maybe you could help me with that.  My eyes aren’t worth a damn anymore.  Maybe you could read to me.  Do you play chess?”

 “Yes, but not real good yet.”

 “Then you need to practice.  I’ll let your mother and Mac work out the details.  Might as well put that fancy education of his to good use.”  He slumped deeper into his pillows.

 “We should be going,” Brooke said firmly.

 Sophie turned watery eyes to her mother.  “I want to do this.  He doesn’t even have to pay me.  We can just talk and stuff.”

 “We’ll discuss it at home.”

 “We’re not going home, remember?  Not for weeks and weeks.  You want me to make friends here.  I just made one.  Archie likes me.  But this is another one of those things I don’t have any control over, isn’t it?”

 “Sophe, he needs a nurse.”

 “I know, but he wants me, too.  I’ll bet he knows a lot of stories, and we could play games.”  The girl released a loud breath.  Handing the empty glass to the doctor, she said, “It was nice to meet you, Dr. Elliot.”  She looked at the old man.  “You, too, Archie.” 

 Archie grunted a reply.

 Raising her gaze and her chin, Sophie turned to her mother.  “I’d like to go back to Aunt Eve’s now.”

 The doctor said, “Did you want to see the summerhouse?”

 She shook her head.  “It doesn’t matter what I want.”  Looking at her mother, she said, “May I go, please?”

 Brooke handed her daughter the key.  When Sophie was out of sight, Brooke said, “I am so in trouble.”

 Mackenzie Elliot grinned, sending that peculiar feeling to the pit of her stomach again.  After saying goodbye to the Archie, Brooke followed the son from the room.  In the hall, she whispered, “It’s not funny, Dr. Elliot.”

 “Laughter is good medicine.  I counsel mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, sisters and friends and occasionally enemies.  You’ve probably noticed the one area in which I sadly lack any kind of insight is the relationship between my own father and me.  It looks as if you and your daughter are doing okay.  And call me Mac.  Would you like to take a quick look at the house next door?  My father owns them both, but that’s the one that’s vacant.”

 “I’ve decided I should be looking for something smaller and closer to my sister.”       

 He fell into step beside her in the wide central hallway.  “Your daughter gets on well with my father.  God knows she must be gifted.  I need a nurse to help with his care, but perhaps Sophie would like to sit with him for an hour or two a few days a week.  It might help pass his time, and perhaps she would feel as if she has a little control over her life this summer.” 

 He looked at her with his green eyes that saw God only knew what.  More than she wanted him to see, that was a given.  It made her wonder about him, and when a woman was wondering about a man, she was thinking about him.  Something told her he did that on purpose.  It was part of the persona, part of his charm.  He was confident, intelligent and well-spoken, something she was certain he knew very well.  And used very well.

 She came to her senses.  “Sophie is already going through a difficult time.”

 “Because you and her father are separated?” 

 Brooke didn’t want to talk about that, not now, not with him.  “Forgive me for being blunt, but I’m concerned that the first person Sophie has befriended in Alcott is so ill.  It’ll hurt her if she becomes attached to him.”

“Maybe it will hurt her more if she doesn’t.”

She had nothing to say to that.

Mac settled his hands on his hips.  “It’s been my experience that situations like these often work themselves out.”

His self-confidence was off-putting.  Again, it made her wonder about him.  Oh, he was good.

“Look, I don’t know you and you don’t know me.  Maybe I’m crazy and don’t need to say this.  I’ll say it anyway.  Smooth talk and beguiling grins might work on those women who nearly ran me over when I first arrived, but I’ve already been exposed and therefore am immune.”

“Why do I get the feeling I’ve been insulted?” 

He didn’t look insulted.  He looked as if he was enjoying this a great deal. 

“Good day, Dr. Elliot.”

He opened the front door for her.  Making certain not to touch him, she walked outside. 

“Brooke?”

She glanced over her shoulder.

         “If you want to take a look at the summerhouse, it’s open.  Feel free to go through it by yourself.  It would certainly be convenient to Sophie’s work.”

“You’re very funny.”

“Do you really think so?”

“You’re doing it again,” she said.  “Trying to charm me, which is just a glorified word for flirting.”

He stared into her eyes longer than she considered polite.  “If I’m doing anything,” he said quietly, “I’m flirting back.”

The door closed, and Brooke was left standing on the stoop in the sunshine, the scent of the ocean in the air, and one thought in her head. 

Carter McCall wasn’t the only wiseguy in town.

Other than Millie Prescott’s three cats watching from the windowsill next door, nothing stirred on the cul-de-sac at the end of Desert Moon Drive.  It was too early in the morning to be stirring.  It was too early in the morning to be up.  The sun was already blinding, the sky clear, but then it seemed the sky was always clear in Nevada.  It was the reason people moved here.

Liza Cassidy was leaving, this time for good. 

        “I’m not so sure this was a good idea, Liza.”  Denise Bailey, of Bailey Brokerage & Associates, gestured feebly with her right hand.  “Technically, it isn’t your house anymore.”

         Denise had been Liza’s friend since childhood, and more recently, her real estate agent.  Liza wasn’t ignoring her out of rudeness.  It was just that her thoughts had turned inward, her attention on the tiny yard surrounding the house where she and Laurel had grown up. 

 Plus, Denise was wrong.  Liza needed to be here today.  She needed to leave from here, because this was where it had all started.  Laurel had known it, and had put it in words in one of her letters. 

Sometimes, Lize, she’d written, What we think is the end is really just the end of the beginning.

The house on Desert Moon Drive was the beginning of the beginning for the Cassidys.  Built in the fifties, it was a modest, single story.  Like the others on this block, the exterior was stucco.  Most of the neighbors’ little yards were stone and gravel.  Liza’s mother had insisted on grass.  Never mind the fact that Nola Cassidy forgot to mow it half the time, and the other half it burned up in the scorching heat of the Nevada summer.  Kids needed grass, she’d said.  And this yard had grass.  It also had a fountain, which Liza’s mother had called a bubbler, like the one Nola had growing up in Madison, Wisconsin.  The plastic pink Flamingo next to it was as tacky as always.  Liza was of the opinion that her mother had stuck it near the front steps to serve as a warning of the bright colors visitors would inevitably encounter inside. 

They’d had a lot of visitors.  Nola had had a lot of friends, and every one of them was as non-traditional and unconventional as the interior of her house.  And as her daughters.

Shading her eyes against the glare of the June sun, Liza glanced all around.  The Cadillac parked in the driveway looked as out of place here in this neighborhood as the four karat rock on Denise’s ring finger.  How many times had she become exasperated with Liza throughout this process?  How many times had she said, “But it’s a good offer, Liza.  You can’t allow the buyers’ personality to enter into your decision.”

 As far as Liza was concerned, that was the only thing that should enter into her decision.  This house needed a new family.  Only someone who understood the personality of the house, itself, would live here.  She’d refused to sell to the highest bidder, a woman who’d looked at it with dollar signs in her eyes, as if all she saw was how a few upgrades would add to the market value when she turned around and sold it for a tidy profit.   

 This house was a home, not a tidy business deal.  The Bullards, a young couple who worked on the strip to support their rambunctious brood were moving in later today.  Their three urchins would surely mar every last inch of the newly buffed hardwood floors.  Those little boys with their adorable dimples and cowlicks were going to be so happy here, just as Nola and her precocious daughters had been happy here.

 They had been happy here. 

            No matter how right the Bullards were going to be for this house, everything would change with their arrival.  Of course, everything had already changed.  Liza stared at the house, her feet rooted to the sidewalk, her gaze glued to the place over the front door where her mother’s sign had hung. 

 Nola Red’s. 

 “You have a burning need to go through it one more time, don't you?" Denise asked.

 Denise was very astute.  She’d graduated from high school with Liza fifteen years ago.  Denise had married well.  She and her stuffy husband and their two well-behaved children lived in a big house with high ceilings and not much personality, if you asked Liza, in one of the new gated communities that were springing up around Las Vegas.  Not that Liza would ever say it out loud.  To each his own.  Besides, Denise had earned her commission on this house, and then some. 

 Liza took a deep breath.  “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

She let herself in through the front door.  Pocketing the key, she was suddenly uncertain which direction to go first.  She’d left some of the furniture for the new owners.  The belongings that didn’t fit in the back of Laurel’s old car had either been stored or sold.  The house smelled of floor polish and pine cleanser, foreign scents in a house that had once carried the aroma of her mother’s perfume, acrylic paints and whatever casserole happened to be bubbling in the oven.  All of Nola Cassidy’s casseroles had tasted the same, due largely to the fact that condensed cream of mushroom soup was the main ingredient in each of them.  Liza and Laurel had taken over the cooking as soon as they were old enough to work the stove.  Still, to this day, Liza’s favorite comfort food was tuna noodle casserole made from her mother’s simple recipe. 

 That was the first thing she would cook when she reached the Atlantic coast and found a place to stay.  For now, she strolled through the living room with its purple walls and stenciled ceiling, and on into a short hall.  Her mother’s room had been at the far end, Liza’s on the right, Laurel’s on the left. 

 She paused in the middle.  The girls had never had a canopy bed, nor had they wanted one, and nothing in either room, or in the entire house, had ever been pale pink or pale yellow or pale anything.  Nola Cassidy had been a self-taught, wonderfully gifted artist, and it was like she’d often said, artists simply didn’t do pastel.  At least not the red-haired, flamboyant artist who had, at barely eighteen years of age, fled the lush greenery of one of the prettiest towns in the Midwest to fulfill her passion to become a dancer.  She’d ended up a Showgirl in Vegas.

 Oh, and pregnant.

 The father—even thirty-three years later, Liza still thought of the man who’d sired her as the father, not her father--had been a dashing Frenchman.  To hear Nola tell it, he’d spoken barely a lick of English, but evidently was fluent in the language of love.  His name had been Pierre, and he’d moved on long before Nola had started her daily morning tête-à-tête with the toilet.

 The pregnancy had forced a temporary hiatus from Nola’s dancing career, but it had been the stretch marks and ruined stomach muscles, the result of carrying identical twin daughters with a combined birth weight of almost twelve pounds that had made her leave permanent.  Nola Cassidy may have been a little ditsy at times--she had stepped off a curb and had gotten run over by a bus, something many women thought might happen to them one day, but few actually experienced--but my, how she’d loved.  One thing she’d never been was bitter.  So, when her dancing career ended, she’d started helping with make-up and costumes.  Before long, she was designing and creating costumes that were works of art.  She’d been carrying one of her creations with her the day she’d died.  The bus driver thought he’d hit a woman and some sort of live exotic bird.  Liza had laughed about that.  It had been a welcome respite to the tears.   

 It hadn’t been uncommon for Nola to bring the headdresses home.  In the early days, she’d put them on the console table outside Laurel and Liza’s bedrooms to work on them.  Until the time Laurel let loose a blood-curdling scream in the middle of the night about monsters in the hall, that is.  After that, Nola kept her creations in her own room.  Laurel hadn’t been any more afraid of that costume than Liza was.  She’d simply been experimenting.  Oh, Laurel had been a stinker.  They'd both been.  They were Nola’s girls, after all.

 No, Laurel hadn’t been afraid of that headdress.  Until she’d gotten the diagnosis, she hadn’t been afraid of much of anything.  She’d rarely cried, either, not even when the headaches that had been plaguing her had gotten bad enough to send her to the doctor.  She’d cried when the diagnosis had come in.  All three of them had, for Nola and Liza had been with Laurel when the neurologist delivered the news.  The empathy in his deep voice hadn’t made his words any easier to grasp.  A slow-growing tumor was putting pressure deep inside Laurel’s brain.  Without surgery, she would die.  With surgery, she would most likely die.  There had been other options, trials, studies, treatments that offered a slight extension of life, along with horrible, grotesque side-effects that would have robbed her of her independence in the months she had left.

 There had been no question in Laurel’s mind which option she would choose.  She would live until she died.  Period.  That had been almost six years ago.  Laurel had been gone nearly five. 

 Finding herself standing in the middle of her old room, Liza knew she would have done the same thing.  Through the window she saw Denise head for her Cadillac and air conditioning.  She wasn’t rushing Liza.  That Denise was all right.

 Liza turned in a complete circle.  The walls in her old room were painted the colors of the ocean.  Dark blues and vivid greens and the murkier shades of deeper water.  There were schools of fish and even an old shipwreck, and on her ceiling a mermaid seemed to float in translucent water.  Leaving her bedroom behind, she strolled into Laurel’s. 

Every wall in this room was covered with murals in the lush greens that made up the tropical rain forest.  There were fronds and vines and birds and monkeys.  The ceiling was a canopy of trees.  Liza stood in the middle of it all, peering at the distance between the two rooms.  How many times had hairbrushes and hangers and the occasional shoe gone sailing between rooms during those heated, volatile moments of anger and angst?  The house had been noisy.  How could it have been anything else with three hormonal red-haired artists living and breathing and growing strong under its slate roof?

It had been Nola who had insisted the girls have their own rooms, Nola who had insisted that her identical daughters have their own identities.  No look-alike outfits for them; they’d grown up happy and close.  They’d started out at UNLV together, but had ended up transferring to colleges in different states.  Born first, and according to Nola, squalling, Laurel had begun to make a name for herself in the fast-paced world of newspaper journalism in Chicago.  Liza had been quieter and for a long time, weaker.  “Not weaker,” Nola would often say.  “Sickly.”  As if that was better. 

Liza had outgrown that, though, and had settled in wine country along the California coast where she sold her pottery and artwork from her tiny studio that doubled as her apartment.

No matter where she and Laurel lived, this house had always been home.  No more.

The Cassidy’s were down to one.  And Liza was moving on.

 Life without Laurel had been inconceivable.  At times it still was.  They’d all cried a lot those first months after the diagnosis.  They’d gotten a second opinion.  And then they’d cried some more.  A lot more.  One day, Laurel’s tears stopped.  She’d looked at Liza and said, “I’m dying.  But I’m not dead yet.”  She’d said it again, louder.  By the fourth time, Liza had joined in.  Nola had rushed in to see what the commotion was about.  Soon, all three of them were laughing and singing as they danced around the room.  It was amazing the way the saddest times had a way of transforming themselves into the most vibrant and vivid and poignantly beautiful memories.

 That day was a turning point for Laurel.  She’d taken stock of her life, and had set off to be the curator of her own contentment.  Those were her exact words.  Laurel had always had a way with words, which was why she’d insisted upon going out east to write the novel that was inside her.  Out east.  She couldn’t have come to California with Liza.  Oh, no.  Laurel had to seek her inspiration on the rocky Atlantic coast, with its unsullied landscapes and the constantly heaving ocean.  It was like Liza had said:  The Pacific Ocean heaved, too, all the time, in fact.  But Laurel had made up her mind, and when that happened, there was no changing it.  She was going east alone, and had used every feminine wile she possessed to extract a promise from Liza and Nola not to visit unless she invited them.  She needed to do this her way, and no amount of argument or pleading or bribing had budged her decision. 

 She’d come home, once at Thanksgiving, and again for Christmas.  She’d looked good, so good in fact that there had been something almost ethereal about her.  Although she slept a lot, she swore the headaches were no worse.  After that, they spoke on the phone.  And Laurel wrote letters, one nearly every week.  As far as Liza knew, that novel never did get written, but those letters were works of art unto themselves, the words lyrical.  Week after week Nola and Liza read about the spray of the ocean, the howl of the wind, the ever-changing salt marshes, and the people Laurel met.  Liza felt as if she knew Addie and Rose Lawson, two elderly sisters everyone in the small town of Alcott, New Hampshire called ‘The Aunts’, and Skip Hoxie, a former sea captain, and Matilda Kemper, an old woman who’d buried three husbands.  Laurel hadn’t befriended many young people.  Perhaps because she was dying, she’d felt a greater connection with other old souls.  She wrote about one young person, though.  His name was Jack McCall.  From nearly three thousand miles away, Liza and Nola saw Laurel falling in love with Alcott, and with Jack.  Late at night, Liza reread those letters, putting them to memory.

One week, no letter arrived.  Fear and dread-filled days passed, one, and then another, and another.  Laurel didn’t answer her phone.  Nola and Liza waited.  And then, after nearly three excruciating weeks, the final letters found their way to Nola’s and Liza’s mailboxes.  Liza had known it was the final letter before she’d opened hers.  It had been postmarked in Boston, not the tiny town of Alcott, but it was more than that.  Maybe there was something to the research about identical twins and a kind of telepathy that existed between them.  Regardless of how she’d known, her fingers had shaken as she’d opened the envelope and unfolded the crisp stationery, and stared at her sister’s loopy scrawl. 

My dearest Liza. 

 She’d crossed off the My dearest, so it read simply:

Liza.  No sense getting maudlin, right?  Aw, hell, if I don’t have a right to be a little maudlin, who does? 

            She’d started again.

 My dearest Liza,

Well.  This is it.  The end of my beginning.  What do I say to the sister who has understood me (most of the time), encouraged me, cheered me, angered me, and loved me?

Bless you.

And thank you for being in the other half of that egg.  And for letting me rant and dream.  And thank you for loaning me that little black dress before you’d even worn it, the one I never returned.  Thank you for lying to Mom for me.  And you’re welcome for all the times I returned the favor.  Thank you for granting my wish these past months.  Lord knows I probably wouldn’t have been able to keep such a promise if the situation were reversed. 

It’s been a truly amazing final year.  Do you know what I’ve learned, Lize?  No one, and I mean no one, stops exploring until they’re dead.  Maybe not even then.  I’ll have to get back to you on that.  Sorry.  It’s not funny, I know.  But I’m not sad.  Not like I thought I would be.  Back to what I discovered. 

I came here to explore my life.  And at the end of my quest, I find myself back where I started.  Somehow, I think it must be the same for everybody.  Everything I thought I knew is false, and it’s as if I’ve reached this place inside me for the first time only to discover that I’ve been here before.  I just didn’t know it.  Now, I know.  And what I know, what I recognize, what I am, is the very thing I’ve always been searching for, what we’re all searching for.  What I am, Liza, what we all are, is love.

I know, I know.  I could have left you anything, money, jewelry, a winning lottery ticket, and I leave you my puzzling philosophy about life.

I’m sorry for shutting you out.  I don’t know why, but I had to take this journey alone.  Or maybe I’m selfish, and wanted to hoard this blessing I call life to myself as long as possible.  I’ll leave you to your own conclusions after you sort everything out.  God knows you wouldn’t take my word for it anyway.

I need you to do me one last favor.  I need you to meet Jack.  Go to the lighthouse on the Isles of Shoals next Wednesday at noon.  You should be awake by then.  He’ll be waiting.  You’ll recognize him.  Tall, dark and brooding.  He’ll be angry.  That’s his MO.  Give him a kiss for me.  (Gracious, no one can kiss like Jack McCall.)  There are blanks he’ll fill in for you.  Once you’ve met him, you’ll understand why I love him so.  Even I don’t know why I couldn’t explain everything to him.  Do that for me, okay?

Oh, and my car?  It’s yours.  And Gran’s ruby ring.  I can’t give you back that little black dress, because I lost it.  But you already know the story, just like you know the story of how I lost my first tooth and my virginity.  You know all my stories, except for the ones I’ve left out these past eight months.  Jack will fill you in on those.

You’re going to love Alcott.  And I love you.

            Take care of Nola.  Tell Jack I tried.  And don’t forget, give him that kiss from me.

 She’d signed it with a flourish of loops and curves that spelled, simply, Laurel.

 That letter, along with all the others, were in a tin in the back of Laurel’s old car.  Liza was taking them to Alcott with her.  She had a long drive ahead of her, and probably should get started pretty soon.   

Dazedly, she strolled out to the hall.  She peeked inside her mother’s old room, but didn’t go any father.  Instead, she opened the door to the attic and climbed the steep steps.  It was stuffy and sweltering at the top.  She strolled around an old trunk she was leaving for the Bullards, her thoughts turning inward again.

 She’d gone to the island on that Wednesday at noon just as Laurel had instructed.  She’d waited at the lighthouse all afternoon.  The love of Laurel’s life hadn’t bothered to show up.  That evening, Liza had found his number in a phone book, and dialed it up from her hotel room.  A woman with a soft, sultry voice had answered.  “Hello?” she’d said, and then, “It’s okay, Jack-honey.  I’ve got it.” 

 Liza had frozen.

 The woman prodded her with another soft, sultry ‘hello’ before Liza lowered the phone.  Well, well, well.  Laurel’s ashes hadn’t even settled, and Jack-honey had already moved on. 

 That had been the end of it for more than four and a half years, and would have been for longer if her mother hadn’t been thinking about something else instead of looking out for approaching busses.  After the shock of losing Nola had dulled slightly, Liza had come back here to sort things out and decide what to do with the house on Desert Moon Drive. 

 She hadn’t been sleeping well.  The therapist she saw in Santa Rosa said it was perfectly understandable.  Neither of them knew what to make of the dreams she’d been having for six months, more particularly the fact that a red-haired little boy had been the star in each one.  The psychologist had suggested that perhaps subconsciously Liza wanted a baby because she was yearning for a strong physical and emotional bond, now that Laurel and Nola had died.  The explanation had made sense, until Liza had discovered Laurel’s autopsy report along with every important document, every letter of recognition and artistry award, every receipt, and every birthday card Nola had ever received.  It had taken Liza two weeks to go through everything in the attic.  It had taken only a matter of minutes to read the autopsy report the neurosurgeon evidently had sent after Laurel died.  Liza had no idea how it had ended up here in the attic, unopened.  Nola had probably had her reasons.  Perhaps it had been sadness, or forgetfulness.  The reasons weren’t important, not anymore. 

The autopsy report was. 

 Once again, Liza’s hands had shaken as she’d opened it.  According to the official report, Laurel had opted to have the surgery.  That was surprising, shocking, because she’d been adamant about NOT having it.  Twenty-eight year-old Laurel Cassidy had died during surgery.  All her organs were donated per her wishes, her body cremated.  Other than the brain tumor, she’d been extremely healthy.  In fact, the only other scar had been the result of her recent cesarean section.  

 Those last three words had staggered Liza. 

Laurel had given birth? 

When?

How?

And she hadn’t bothered to tell Liza?  Why the hell not?

 Liza had fumed.  She’d ranted.  She’d implored the heavens.  And every night, for two more months, she’d dreamed of a little boy with dark auburn hair, the exact color hers and Laurel’s had been when they were small. 

 Two months ago, the dreams stopped as abruptly as they’d started.  Liza had to find out why they’d started, why they’d stopped, and what it all meant.   

 She would have had her answers a long time ago if Jack McCall had bothered to show up that day.  Thinking about that, she descended the attic stairs and swept out of the house. 

Denise met her on the sidewalk.  Taking the key from Liza's outstretched hand, Denise said, “Now are you ready?”

Liza looked back toward the house.  Was she ready? 

           She had a sudden memory of the day Laurel left.  The hot Nevada sun had pummeled the burnt up grass in the yard much the way it was this morning. Liza had known what Laurel was doing when she’d looked all around at the sidewalk where the two of them had played jump rope, and tattled on the Walsh boys for burning ants with their grandmother’s magnifying glass.  That last morning, Laurel had taken it all in, putting it to memory, the house, the yard, the sign over the door.  She’d looked at Liza and their mother last, and with a hug, a wink, and an all encompassing grin—Laurel always had hated good-byes, she got in her car and drove away.  She hadn’t looked back.  

 On a similar morning nearly six years later, Liza, too, looked all around one last time.  There was the front walk, the inviting little house, the brown grass, the bubbler and pink flamingo. 

 Liza’s gaze returned to the front stoop.  Without stopping to analyze her actions, she rushed up the sidewalk and plucked the gaudy pink flamingo from its perch.  After stowing it in the back of Laurel’s old car, she rubbed the dust from her hands and climbed behind the wheel.  Now, she was ready.

         Waving to Denise, the last Cassidy drove away.  She didn’t look back, either.  She looked forward.  She was going to Alcott, New Hampshire with its heaving oceans and unsullied landscapes. 

Give Jack a kiss for me, Laurel had written.

            Liza didn’t know who she was more angry with, her darling, daring, deviant sister, or Jack-honey McCall.  “Give him a kiss?” she muttered to the dash.  No way in hell.  A punch in the nose, now that was a distinct possibility.

            It would take at least four days to drive to the east coast.  That should give her plenty of time to decide just how much she hated Jack McCall.