Love and loyalty made them sisters. Secrets could still destroy them.

As children in foster care, Cecilia and Robin vowed they would be the sisters each had never had. Now superstar singer-songwriter Cecilia lives life on the edge, but when Robin is nearly killed in an accident, Cecilia drops everything to be with her.

Robin set aside her career as a successful photojournalist to create the loving family she always yearned for. But gazing through a wide-angle lens at both past and future, she sees that her marriage is disintegrating. Her attorney husband is rarely home. She and the children need Kris’s love and attention, but does Kris need them?

When Cecilia asks Robin to be the still photographer for a documentary on foster care, Robin agrees, even though Kris will be forced to take charge for the months she’s away. She gambles that he’ll prove to them both that their children—and their marriage—are a priority in his life.

Cecilia herself needs more than time with her sister. A lifetime of lies has finally caught up with her. She wants a chance to tell the real story of their childhood and free herself from the nightmares that still haunt her.

As the documentary unfolds, memories will be tested and the meaning of family redefined, but the love two young girls forged into bonds of sisterhood will help them move forward as the women they were always meant to be.

Praise for the novels of Emilie Richards

“Richards creates a heart-wrenching atmosphere that slowly builds to the final pages, and continues to echo after the book is finished.”

—Publishers Weekly on One Mountain Away

“Emilie Richards is at the top of her game in this richly rewarding tale of love and family and the ties that bind us all. One Mountain Away is everything I want in a novel and more. A must-buy!”

—New York Times bestselling author Barbara Bretton

“This is emotional, suspenseful drama filled with hope and love.”

—Library Journal on No River Too Wide

“Portraying the uncomfortable subject of domestic abuse with unflinching thoroughness and tender understanding, Richards’s third installment in the Goddesses Anonymous series offers important insights into a far too prevalent social problem.”

—Booklist on No River Too Wide

“A juicy, sprawling beach read with a suspenseful twist.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fortunate Harbor

“A multi-layered plot, vivid descriptions and a keen sense of place and time.”

—Library Journal on Rising Tides

“Richards’s ability to portray compelling characters who grapple with challenging family issues is laudable, and this well-crafted tale should score well with fans of Luanne Rice and Kristin Hannah.”

—Publishers Weekly on Fox River, starred review

EMILIE RICHARDS is the author of over seventy novels which have been published in more than twenty-one countries and sixteen languages.

Emilie is a multiple finalist for the RITA® from Romance Writers of America, and a RITA® winner. Romantic Times magazine has given her multiple awards, including one for career achievement. She regularly appears on bestseller lists including the USA Today list and many of her books have been made into television movies in Germany.

Emilie divides her year between Chautauqua, NY and Sarasota, FL. She is an avid gardener, kayaker and quilter and the mother of four children and three grandchildren, whom she regards as her greatest creative endeavours.

When We Were Sisters

Emilie Richards

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To parents everywhere, birth, adopted and foster,

who make the welfare of everybody’s

children their highest priority.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Reader Questions for When We Were Sisters

Extract

Copyright

1

Robin

The stories of our lives can be told in so many ways, but no one account, no matter how carefully rendered, is completely true. Words are, at best, only an outline, something I discovered years ago whenever I was asked about my childhood. In the same way, I’m sure I’ll tell the story of last night’s accident differently every time I’m forced to recount it.

I hope that won’t be often.

Right up until the minute I slid into the backseat of Gretchen Wainwright’s Camry, I remember everything that happened yesterday. For better or worse I remember little that happened afterward. The neurologist on call at the hospital promised that wisps of amnesia are not unusual, that after even a minor brain injury, patients often recount “islands of memory,” when past events are viewed through fog. Sometimes the fog lifts, and, blessedly, sometimes it does not.

Here’s what I do recall.

Meadow Branch, a housing development just outside Leesburg, Virginia, is more than my home. This little patch of earth is my refuge and my center. The friends I’ve made here are more important to me than I am to them, which is not to say they don’t care. They do. But I treasure each of them in a way they’ll never understand. To my knowledge I am the only woman in our neighborhood who grew up without a real home or family. And before Meadow Branch I never had a friend who didn’t blow away on the winds of fortune. No friend except Cecilia, of course. Cecilia, my sister, and—of no real importance to me—a superstar singer-songwriter, is my anchor in a way that even Kris, my husband, will never be.

In the past year, as my neighbors have begun to drift into new chapters of their lives, I’ve been discouraged. Our house is strangely quiet. The small group of women on our street no longer see each other regularly, no longer huddle together at soccer games, passing communal white wine in GoCups up and down bleacher rows. These days, our sons and daughters travel to matches all over the state in jewel-tone polyester jerseys, like flocks of migrating parrots. At home they’re busy preparing for ever-increasing batteries of tests or studying karate, piano or ballet.

Most of my friends have jobs now, and we no longer sweat together in the Meadow Branch exercise room. Some work part-time so they can continue being the family chauffeur. Others send their children to after-school care or to a stranger who’s paid by the hour to make certain they arrive at scheduled activities on time. So many rituals have ended.

I miss the rituals and the women, so I’m particularly grateful that our monthly dinners have continued. Each time I get an email announcing time and place, I close my eyes for a quick prayer of thanksgiving. Every month I wait to learn that this, too, has quietly died away.

Last night as I put my children’s dinner on the kitchen table, I tried to remember when I’d last seen all my friends in the same place. When the telephone rang I was still going over the past month in my head. The moment I realized Kris was the caller, I considered not answering, but I knew nothing would prevent him from leaving a message.

I took the telephone into the living room and asked him to wait as I yelled up the stairs to tell Nik and Pet to come down and eat. At twelve Nik likes to ignore my summons, but ten-year-old Pet managed an “okay.” Then I took the phone out to the front porch and closed the door behind me.

“Are you calling from the car?” I asked.

A pause. I pictured a bleary-eyed Kris checking his surroundings to see if he was on the road home.

“I’m still at the office.”

I lowered myself to our porch swing, which was swaying in a breeze growing colder as the sun dropped toward the horizon. “Kris, I have to leave in a little while. I’m riding to the restaurant with Gretchen, and she’ll be picking me up right on time. She’s nothing if not punctual.”

“You need to find somebody else to watch the kids tonight. I’m sorry, but a potential client just showed up, and this is important.”

I watched a heavier gust of wind ruffle the chrysanthemums I’d planted in brass pots flanking our steps. I fill the pots according to season. This fall they’re particularly beautiful, the chrysanthemums in hues of bronze and deepest purple interlaced with silvery dusty miller and trailing sedum.

At one time in my life I didn’t speak at all. No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t push words out of my throat. Even now I sometimes fall mute when I feel strong emotion, but this time I managed a sentence.

“Kris, my plans are important, too.”

His sigh carried the necessary miles, and I pictured him sitting in his expansive Tysons Corner office with its coveted view of a nondescript street below. Without facial clues I couldn’t tell if Kris was upset that I hadn’t just snapped my heels and saluted, or if he was upset with himself for disappointing me. I didn’t want to guess.

He was speaking softly now, as if someone might overhear. “Listen, Robin, I know going out with your friends is important. I really do. But this guy flew in unexpectedly—”

“And Buff assumes you’ll drop everything and take him to dinner because you always do.” Buff is a senior partner at Kris’s law firm and the one with whom he most often works.

He fell silent.

I filled the gap, unusual in itself. “Pet and Nik will be fine alone for the time it takes you to drive home. Leave right now and tell Buff you’ll bring the client with you. Pick up pizza or Chinese. You can return him to his hotel once I’m back.”

“You always seem to be able to find a babysitter. Just call somebody. Promise you’ll pay them extra.”

“I’m supposed to leave in...” I looked at my watch. “Twenty-five minutes now. I can’t find a babysitter in twenty-five minutes.”

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you about that. But I am telling you I can’t come home. I’m sorry. If you can’t go out tonight, maybe you can arrange another dinner with your friends sometime soon.”

I closed my eyes. “Do what you have to, but please come home.”

“You should have arranged something ahead of time. Just in case.”

And there it was. I should have arranged for a babysitter, because I should have known Kris would disappoint me.

“I’m hanging up now.” I ended the call.

When the telephone rang again, I wondered foolishly if Kris was about to apologize. With the client, without the client, I didn’t care, but surely he wanted me to know he was on his way home to be a father to the children who rarely saw him.

Of course the person on the other end wasn’t Kris.

“Robin! Were you sitting on the telephone?”

I stared at the darkening sky and pictured Cecilia, auburn hair waving down her back, expressive, exquisitely pampered face scrunched up in question. I couldn’t picture the spot from which she was calling. She might be in a dressing room, getting ready to go onstage, or at her home in Pacific Palisades looking over the ocean.

“No,” I said, “I just hung up with Kris.”

When I didn’t go on she lowered her voice. “Is everything okay?”

“Not so much.” I blew out one breath before I gulped another. “In the scheme of things it’s nothing.”

“Tell me what it is.”

So I did. Cecilia doesn’t give up, and I had to leave time to call Talya and tell her that Gretchen wouldn’t need to stop at my house on the way to dinner. I wouldn’t be going.

After I finished, Cecilia was silent a moment. She doesn’t like Kris and never has, but she knows that criticizing him will drive a wedge between us. Cecilia would hate that worse than anything, even more than she hates the occasional scathing review of a concert or album.

“Call your next-door neighbor,” she said.

“Talya’s going to the dinner, too.”

“Her husband isn’t going, is he?”

“Michael?” Michael Weinberg is an anesthesiologist and never on call at night. “Ask Michael to babysit?”

“Why not? He’ll be babysitting their daughter anyway. What’s her name?”

“Channa. But Michael bores Nik to death. He’s always trying to get him interested in chemistry or astronomy, and Nik hides when the Weinbergs come over, just to avoid him.”

“Too bad for Nik, but who’s more important, you, a grown woman who needs to see her friends, or a twelve-year-old boy? Besides, Nik’s probably really hiding from Channa. The last time I saw her she was growing up and out, and I bet he doesn’t know what to say around her anymore.”

I carefully weigh advice from Cecilia, at least advice of a personal nature. Her life is larger than mine, larger than almost anybody’s. There’s not much room for simple matters, and other people, like Donny, her personal manager, handle those.

Still, she’s often surprisingly insightful, and this time she was right about Michael, and about Channa, who one day in the not so distant future would be as pretty and well-endowed as her mother. Cecilia has been behind me pushing hard since the day we met. And this time I needed the shove.

“You nailed it again. I’m going to hang up and call him.” I glanced at my watch. “Can we talk another time?”

“Okay, but don’t put me off. Something important’s come up, and we need to talk. So call when you’re free and I’ll drop everything.” She hung up.

I could probably put my children through college on what a tabloid would pay me for Cecilia’s private cell number.

Twenty-five minutes later, Talya and I climbed into Gretchen’s car, me in the front, Talya in the back next to another neighbor, Margaret. Our neighborhood is made up of young to middle-aged professionals, but the similarities stop there. We represent every religion and political outlook. Gretchen, a Reese Witherspoon look-alike, is a professional fund-raiser for the Republican Party. Brown-haired ordinary me assembled campaign literature during both Obama campaigns. Black-haired Talya is a Conservative Jew; red-haired Margaret planned to shut herself away with the Carmelites until she fell madly in love in her senior year of college. The other four women we were meeting at the restaurant are just as diverse, one from China, another who grew up on a farm in South Africa.

I wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with Kris when we both got home, but I was looking forward to conversation and a meal with my friends in the meantime.

Two hours later, as we stood up to leave the restaurant, I was sorry I had come.

On the way out the door Talya and Gretchen were still locked in the conversation that had consumed them throughout dinner. I had been sitting beside Talya, but we had hardly exchanged a sentence. She and Gretchen had discussed their jobs, volleying questions and responses back and forth across the table. Talya, who is now managing a small local theater, wanted Gretchen to give her tips for their next fund-raising drive.

On my other side Lynn, who had once been my favorite tennis partner, had chatted with another woman about camps their children might attend next summer. Margaret, across from me, spent a large portion of the evening texting a colleague, apologizing for texting and then texting some more.

Our lives are now separate. My neighbors are moving forward without looking back. The common ground we once shared is giving way under our feet.

Halfway through the meal I’d finally admitted to myself that I was the only one at the table with nothing new to say.

In the parking lot Gretchen unlocked the car, but instead of sitting in the front passenger seat, as I had on the trip there, I opened the rear door.

“Robin, I’ll be happy to sit there again,” Talya said.

“No, you sit up front with Gretchen. You two haven’t finished your conversation.”

Talya looked puzzled, as if she heard the undertone to my words. I felt her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you and I both sit back here so we can catch up? We hardly had a chance tonight, and I never see you anymore.”

How differently the evening would have ended if I’d said yes. But I didn’t. I remember smiling. I remember that the smile felt like aerobic exercise. I remember the seconds the exchange took, seconds that later might have made all the difference. Then I remember shaking my head and gesturing to the front. “We can talk another time. You go ahead.”

Talya and I had been friends for so long that she knew I was hurt. Recognition flashed across her face, but she smiled, too, as if to say, “We have a date,” and climbed into the passenger seat beside Gretchen.

Ten minutes later Talya took the brunt of the impact when a driver streaked through a stop sign and plowed into the right side of Gretchen’s car. I think I remember seeing the small SUV inexplicably heading for us. I do remember terror rising in my chest, like the bitterest bile.

I don’t remember the crash itself. When I came to in the hospital a doctor told me Talya was gone.

Talya died instantly, and I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what might have changed if she and I hadn’t traded seats.

2

Kris

After my conversation with Robin I turned off my cell phone. Turning it off was stupid, spiteful and weirdly satisfying, but after she hung up I figured we had nothing else to say to each other. And if I was wrong about that, I didn’t want to know.

Even though our call had ended, I know Robin well enough to imagine how she must look at that moment. Her round blue eyes would be shuttered, as if somebody had extinguished the light. Her lips wouldn’t be pursed, since that’s too obvious a signal, but tension would pull at the corners.

Robin hides emotion well, which only makes sense. If you know you’ll be challenged or punished for everything you feel, you soon learn to make sure those feelings are private. After thirteen years of marriage, most of the time I still have to guess what’s going on inside her.

This time, though, there would be no guessing. My wife asks for very little. Tonight I’d made certain even that was too much. But knowing this, I’m still powerless to fix the situation. I’m at a critical stage in my career, and nobody will benefit more than my family if things go well for me at work.

Lately Robin has seemed preoccupied, even distant. If I sometimes feel I’m on a treadmill that’s speeding up with every step, Robin seems to feel her own treadmill has slowed to a standstill. She has too much time to look at the view, and I don’t think she likes what she sees.

I worry. She may not think I notice, but her happiness is important to me. Still we planned our future together, and now we just have to weather this storm.

In the next hours I sat through a dinner I didn’t want to eat with a man I didn’t want to talk to. But increasingly that’s what my job at Singer, Jessup and Barnard has come down to.

I’m not one of those people surrounded by admirers at every party, and I can’t tell a joke or a funny story without mutilating the punch line. I’m not a glad-hander or a hand holder, but I do seem to inspire trust in potential clients. I make them feel our firm will do everything possible for them, and better than any other firm. I also seem to know how to get the best outcome from the time I spend marketing, and my contacts pay off. Consequently I’m getting a reputation for bringing in high-value clients, a rainmaker. Senior partners have noticed.

Singer, Jessup and Barnard is a large firm, with multiple offices in multiple countries. I specialize in complex civil litigation, and I work closely with our product liability practice group, one of those attorneys who makes sure defective or dangerous products are discontinued, or conversely, and much more often, makes sure they stay on the market and the makers escape liability for any resulting harm. It all depends on who’s paying us and how much.

Last night’s client falls into the latter category and will have to pay the firm big-time to win his case. Mervin Pedersen is the CEO of Pedersen Pharmacies, a small chain of compounding pharmacies that allegedly produced an injectable antibiotic that was so contaminated, six patients were hospitalized and one, as he put it, “succumbed.” When Pedersen Pharmacies refused to admit blame and recall their other so-called sterile products for FDA testing, the FDA warned doctors and hospitals to avoid everything they make.

Now Pedersen wants to sue the FDA.

According to good old Merv, the young woman died from complications of her original illness. And the contamination? That occurred after the drug was manufactured, thus placing all blame on the distributor. The problem is that the contaminant was also found in product samples at the company’s labs. Merv made sure I understood that those few bad samples had been set aside for destruction after undergoing stricter testing than they’re required to do by law. And hey, the contaminant was discovered in only that one small batch.

In Merv’s unbiased opinion no other product or sample was ever contaminated. The Pedersen facilities are pristine, sterile, unsullied.

Uh-huh.

I did my job. If Pedersen decides to go ahead with the lawsuit, I’m almost certain my firm will be chosen to represent his company. I just hope someone else is assigned to the case, because in my heart I know Merv Pedersen is scum. He’s the kind of guy who would piss on his factory floor if he could get away with it. I’ll do my best to convey my opinion when I report what was said at dinner, but how can I justify rejecting a lucrative client just because talking to him spoiled my appetite?

I dropped Merv off at his hotel downtown, and only then, still at curbside, did I remember to check my phone. I flicked it on and saw I had a call from, of all people, Cecilia, the diva with no last name—because, let’s be honest, a last name would make her an ordinary human being like the rest of us.

Cecilia never calls me. We only agree on three things. We are both Democrats. We both love Robin and my kids. We dislike each other.

Cecilia is the only human being who can reduce me to muttering under my breath, and tonight was no exception. “To what do I owe this honor?” The sentence emerged as one long word.

I scrolled through my recent calls, but there were none from my wife. I thought maybe Robin had called to provide clarification or warn me what was coming. I did see an unfamiliar number with a Virginia area code, and hoped Pedersen hadn’t gotten up to his room and remembered something else he wanted to discuss.

I considered ignoring Cecilia, but I know her too well. She’ll continue to call until we finally speak. Cloudy skies had just turned to rain, and I didn’t want a conversation on the road during a storm. For the most part I don’t think phones and cars belong together anyway. That makes me hopelessly old-fashioned, but I can live with it.

Cecilia answered immediately. “How is she?”

For a moment I wasn’t sure who she was talking about. “How is who?”

The pause was pregnant. “You don’t know, do you? What, Kris? You haven’t checked your phone all evening?”

I turned off the engine. “How is who?”

“Robin was in an accident tonight.”

For a split second the world went white. I wondered if I tossed my cell phone out the window, would everything immediately return to normal? I would drive home. Robin and I would probably argue, and I would go to sleep with her fuming safely beside me.

I pulled myself back into the moment. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“She’s at the Inova Loudon Hospital. Where you should be. I’ll be on my way there as soon as I make arrangements. But the doctor says she’s going to be all right. Moderate to severe concussion, dislocated shoulder, maybe mild whiplash. They want to keep her a night or maybe two to do more tests. As a precaution.”

I’m no expert but that didn’t sound too bad. My heart began to slow. “Do you know what happened?”

“She was in a car with three other women. She had that dinner—”

I wondered how Cecilia knew about Robin’s dinner. “Go on.”

“The police think the driver of the car that struck hers might have had a heart attack at the wheel. He ran a stop sign and hit the passenger side of Robin’s car. He died.”

“Robin was driving?”

“No, the car she was riding in. Somebody named Gretchen was driving, and she was injured, too, but not badly. So was a woman named Margaret. She was taken by helicopter to a trauma center.”

I knew these women, had known them for years. My heart began to speed again. “You said four?”

“Talya was in the car, too.” She paused. “I’m sorry, Kris, but Talya was killed. She was sitting in the death seat.”

“Death seat?”

“Passenger seat. That’s what Donny calls it.”

I don’t remember exactly what I thought next. Maybe that tonight Michael Weinberg was trying to deal with the worst news of his life. That the unidentified call on my phone was probably from the Loudon County Sheriff’s Office or the hospital where Robin had been taken. That my children were now at home with somebody—who?—and I needed to get to them immediately. That my telephone had been turned off while all this was happening because I’d had an argument with Robin.

And finally that my wife, who I have loved since the first time I saw her taking photographs across a crowded room, was in a hospital grieving the loss of our next-door neighbor. Talya, the young woman who had shared so many good times with our family, the young woman who Robin was closer to than any other woman in the world except Cecilia.

Cecilia had remained silent so I could absorb this. I made my way back to our call. “Why did they call you? How did they know who to call?”

“They checked Robin’s cell phone. I’m listed under her contacts as her sister.”

And then I said something supremely stupid. “You were foster sisters.”

She snorted. “I have a flight to arrange.”

“You don’t have to—” But Cecilia had already disconnected.

She didn’t have to fly in. Who knows what she was leaving and who would suffer, but Cecilia would come anyway. Because in her heart, and in my wife’s heart, too, even though they don’t share a single gene, they are honest-to-God sisters, right down to their bone marrow.

3

Cecilia

I’ve never liked hospitals. Three months ago I spent two weeks incarcerated in one, and now I like them even less. Sure, I still realize the occasional necessity, but I also realize how important it is to be freed as soon as possible. On that one point alone I agree with insurance companies.

For the majority of my childhood I escaped the notice of doctors. On the rare occasion when Maribeth—the woman who gave birth to me—focused long enough to realize I was sick, we sat in emergency rooms and waited. Once she left me alone for hours after telling me she was going to the bathroom. When it was my turn to be seen, the staff refused because Maribeth wasn’t present. Just as they were about to contact the police she showed up again with a good enough story to explain her absence.

Growing up, I heard so many of Maribeth’s good enough stories that I don’t remember the juicier details. I only know our wait began all over again. It was nearly morning before they diagnosed pneumonia and gave her a prescription and instructions for taking care of me. The only surprising thing? I think she actually filled the prescription. That was unusual enough to be memorable.

The smallish hospital where the paramedics took Robin two nights ago looks like hospitals in well-to-do suburbs everywhere. Tan facade of mixed materials, clever use of glass and soaring ceilings. Fresh, clean lobby to promote confidence. By the time I arrived in Leesburg, almost forty hours after the accident, visiting hours had already begun for the day. Traveling to Phoenix, then scheduling a flight to Dulles was surprisingly difficult, but I didn’t have enough time to wheedle anybody’s private jet.

Donny accompanied me, all personal manager and bodyguard, and now he was the liar who was taking care of the business of getting me to the right floor. “My wife Jennifer and I,” he said in introduction before he asked where we could find Robin. The receptionist didn’t even glance at me.

Donny has been my manager for close to five years, and he has a genius for handling difficult situations or spotting them before they erupt. Today I wasn’t dressed as a big star. One of Donny’s shirts streamed over my tank top and baggy jeans, and my hair was pinned underneath one of his ball caps. No makeup hid my infestation of freckles, but tinted Harry Potter spectacles shaded my eyes. If anyone had caught me on camera this would have been a “before” shot. “Your Favorite Celebrities and What They Really Look Like.”

Luckily no one had realized I was in Arizona, and apparently no airline or airport employees had reported us, either, so nobody had followed us to the airport or sent photographers to greet us when we landed.

When we were alone in the elevator on the way to Robin’s floor he asked how I was feeling.

I’m not sure how a genuine nice guy makes it in this business. Donny looks like a high school history teacher—a little too preoccupied to remember to get his hair cut regularly or clean his glasses. He’s easy to look at, brown hair and eyes, even features, but he never makes an effort to be more. He has some kind of advanced belt in karate, and he’s been known to sail a twenty-four-foot sloop through Pacific Ocean squalls on his own. So he’s muscular enough to keep fans at a distance, but by no means a bodybuilder. Unless he’s in high-level negotiations or in danger of being photographed with me, his uniform is a faded concert T-shirt and discount store jeans.

The casual facade fades when he’s concentrating on contract concessions or higher royalties. He’s focused, determined and unfailingly polite. Nobody tries to take advantage of him a second time. Despite that, everyone likes Donny. And me? I would trust him with my life, and do.

“I feel fine,” I told him. “I’m not fragile. I’m not falling apart.”

“Nothing I said implied you were.”

“Thanks to you.” I glanced at him. “You kept that whole mess in Sydney under wraps. Not a single headline about my suicide attempt, or my bipolar diagnosis, or the way I shaved my head to get attention in the hospital.”

“If that’s a wig, I think you should keep it.”

I sent him a tight smile. Unlike Britney Spears I’ve never been bald, nor have I ever tried to commit suicide. And I’m not bipolar, although quite possibly my mother was—but how would I know since she abandoned me when I was nine?

Still, three months ago I had spent two difficult weeks in an Australian hospital crying my eyes out, and somehow Donny had kept that a secret.

“I’m sorry I jumped down your throat,” I said.

“Robin’s going to be fine.”

“As fine as somebody can be after she nearly dies and her next-door neighbor actually does.”

“You think her husband will be here?”

I didn’t. Today is Wednesday, and since Robin isn’t terminal, cynical me is pretty sure Kris will be at work. Talya’s funeral is probably sometime this afternoon. Her family is Jewish, and by custom the service should take place immediately. How can Kris get away from his office without weeks of preparation?

“I’m hoping he’s somewhere getting ready to attend the funeral,” I said.

“You’re not thinking of going, are you?”

I understood Donny’s subtext. If I were recognized, the service would be all about me.

“I hardly knew her. I’ll stay with Robin.”

We got off the elevator and found the right hallway. I bypassed the nurses’ station and headed right for my sister’s room. At the door I paused to listen for voices, but the room was silent. I pushed the door wider and walked in. Donny leaned against the wall outside, arms folded over his chest.

Robin was alone lying in the bed with her face turned toward the window. Her shoulders were hunched, and I doubted she was asleep.

“Robin?”

She turned, and I saw she’d been crying. “CeCe! I told you not to come.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I crossed the room and perched on the bed beside her. “Since when have I listened to you? I’m just sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”

She sniffed, then she held out her arms for a hug. “How did you get here at all? Where were you?”

I hugged her gingerly, remembering the shoulder. “Arizona. Out in the middle of God knows where on a ranch. You saved me from having to get on a horse. You’re my hero.”

“You used to ride. You could have been a rodeo queen.”

“It’s been a long time since I made friends with a horse.”

Robin’s hair is a rich chocolaty brown, longish and straight, with bangs brushing her forehead. I touched a strand, swiping it off her cheek. I was thirteen when Robin and I became sisters, and I thought right away that her heart-shaped face needed bangs. She’s worn them ever since, and they highlight eyes as blue as her namesake’s eggs. Today she was pale, but normally she has the clear, rosy complexion of a milkmaid. The first word people use when they describe her is wholesome.

“I’m kind of surprised to find you here,” I said. “Donny checked this morning, but I thought maybe they sent you home after lunch.”

“The hospital has a special concussion program.” She made a face. “I have my own nurse navigator. She wants me to stay another night.”

“Why?”

“Just a precaution. I can’t seem to remember everything that happened when...” Her eyes filled.

“Thank God.”

“My thought, too.”

“So you’ll get out tomorrow?”

“Unless something else turns up.” The tears pooled, and she sniffed. “But I wanted to get out today. I want to be at Talya’s funeral.”

“When is it?”

“In an hour and a half. They’ll do it at the graveside.” Finally the tears spilled onto her cheeks, and she dabbed at them with her fingertips. “Kris said he would go and represent both of us, but just now when I called his office he was still in a meeting. He won’t make it in time.”

I swallowed everything I wanted to say. That took a while.

“He was here most of yesterday morning,” Robin said as I gulped. “But we didn’t talk much. I was in and out for tests. I’m not sure he realizes...”

I had to change the subject. “How’s the other woman... Margaret?”

“Holding her own. They think she’ll pull through.”

“That’s good.”

“It should have been me.”

I stared at her a long moment before I spoke. “Please don’t ever say something like that again, okay? You think you deserved to die more than she did?”

Words spilled out the way tears had a moment before. “I was the one sitting in the passenger seat on the way to the restaurant. When we were ready to leave Talya said I should sit there again, that she was happy in the backseat, but all through dinner I’d been feeling left out. I didn’t want to sit up front and listen to her and Gretchen talking over me. I wanted to sit in the back with Margaret, who was busy texting. I wanted to feel sorry for myself, like a sullen seventh grader.”

“And you feel guilty?”

“It should have been me in that seat. I should have been sitting next to Gretchen. Or maybe if I hadn’t debated seat arrangements with Talya, maybe those few seconds would have made all the difference. Maybe Gretchen wouldn’t have caught the red light on the way out of the parking lot, and we would have been well beyond the spot where that car ran the stop sign.”

“You know how self-defeating that kind of thinking is, don’t you? You didn’t look into the future and trade seats with Talya so you could stay safe. Reality is random. It was chance. And if it wasn’t, then God decided who would live and who wouldn’t.”

“You don’t believe that and neither do I.”

“Not the part about God, no. The part about random? Absolutely.”

Robin didn’t argue, but I could tell she wasn’t buying it. “I can’t even be at the funeral to say goodbye.”

I make decisions quickly. I’ve always had to. “Do you feel well enough to go?”

“I feel as well as I’m going to for a while.”

“Can you get up and wash your face? Comb your hair?”

“I had a shower earlier. I was fine.”

“Then do both. I have a dark skirt and blouse that will probably fit well enough in my suitcase. Or has Kris brought clothes for you to wear home?”

She shook her head, and the movement made her wince. For a moment I reconsidered. Maybe she really did need to stay here another night, more tests, more observation. Then I remembered the tears.

Robin so rarely cries.

“Donny’s here. He’ll go down and get my clothes for you. Meantime I’ll talk to the— What did you call her...?”

“Navigator. Nurse navigator.”

“That’s the one. If I can find her I’ll tell her we’re navigating you right out the door, and she can set up an appointment or whatever she’s supposed to do. But she’ll have to do it without you lying here.”

She bit her lip, considering. “Okay.”

That’s when I knew Robin really needed to go to the funeral. Because defying authority isn’t part of her emotional makeup. Or possibly whatever defiance she was born with was bled out of her one drop at a time by her sadistic grandmother. But this time? This time she was ready to do exactly what she needed to.

“Wash, brush. I’ll be back. Do you know where the cemetery is?”

“I think so.”

“I’ll have Donny find that out, too. We have a car and a driver. We’ll get you there in time.”

She was already swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “The hospital won’t be happy. They’ll try to stop me.”

I stood and leaned down to kiss her hair. “You’re kidding, right? I’ll make sure they’re thrilled beyond belief. You wait and see.”

4

Robin

Talya loved autumn, the changing colors, the smell of wood smoke and pumpkins piled high at farmer’s markets. So many October afternoons we sat in my garden sipping tea or home-brewed lattes, and admired borders of nodding sunflowers and the heavy perfume of sweet autumn clematis. I had a trunk of garden hats, and Talya always picked through them to find just the right one to match whatever she was wearing. Whenever I saw colorful or whimsical hats I bought them, just to delight her.

I loved Talya. We were just neighbors until she became pregnant with Channa and a month later I became pregnant with Nik. We used to joke there must have been something in the water at Meadow Branch, and our pregnancies brought us together. We shared morning sickness, traded maternity clothes, took bets on who would deliver first, since Nik was a big baby and showed signs of arriving early.

As our children grew so did our friendship, until recently when changes swept her in other directions. Now death had removed her from my life forever.

Cecilia reached over and covered my hand as the Town Car driver came around to open my door. Her long, perfectly shaped nails were painted the palest aqua. My nails were at best clean, my hand trembling.

“Channa will need you, Robin. Now and when she grows older. You’ll be able to tell her who her mother really was, what kind of woman and friend you knew her to be. Girls need to learn how to have and be a friend. It will help.”

I’m sure all over the world people think my sister is just an empty-headed publicity hound with big boobs and a bigger voice, but Cecilia hasn’t gotten where she is by chance. She understands the big picture. How else would she have gotten to the top?

“Michael will move away,” I said. The Weinbergs’ house would be filled with memories, and he and Channa would see Talya everywhere. They had never, as hoped, filled the house with children, and the stone and frame Colonial had always seemed too large for just the three of them. For two it would be impossible.

“If he does move, you’ll stay in touch. Talya would want you to.”

I squeezed her hand and dropped it. “You’re going to wait here?”

“We’ll park down the road to leave room for mourners. We’ll pull back around when it’s over.”

I didn’t ask her to come with me. Cecilia’s presence would be a distraction. When the door opened I stepped out into bright sunlight wearing her blouse and a skirt I had rolled three times at the waist. The glare gave me an immediate headache, and I fished in my purse for the sunglasses Cecilia had given me, nodded to the driver and started down a grassy slope to the graveside.

Channa and Michael, as well as his family and Talya’s, hadn’t yet arrived, but someone had set up a lectern with a guest book, and I signed my name and scribbled a quick condolence before I moved forward. Until I saw Gretchen sitting under a canopy in a row of chairs at the very back, I didn’t recognize anyone in the gathering of about sixty. Her black clothes didn’t suit her pale blond coloring, nor did the red-rimmed eyes or the narrow bandage across her forehead. I made my way around the crowd to sit beside her.

“This is my fault,” she said when I kissed her cheek in silent greeting.

“Of course it isn’t.”

“I should have seen him coming. I should have—”

I had an unwelcome glimpse of the SUV streaking toward us, a rocket about to launch. “There was absolutely nothing you could have done. He came out of nowhere.”

“Did you know there have been other accidents at that intersection? Other people have run that stop sign. Other people have died!”

It was like Gretchen, political to the bone, to focus on the civic problem instead of what was about to happen. But I nodded, because I understood. I wished I could be angry today instead of frightened and lonely.

Except, of course, I was angry. Angry at God, and angry at my husband who was supposed to be here to let the Weinbergs know how much Talya had meant to us.

“I didn’t expect you to come,” she said. “Not after... You’re...okay?”

“Okay enough. And you?”

“Just cuts and bruises. They let me out bright and early yesterday.”

“Thank God. And Margaret?”

“She’s out of the woods, but she’ll need rehabilitation. Lots of it.”

Her eyes had filled again. I looked away. “I repeat—this was not your fault.”

“You’ll tell me that for a while, won’t you? Because it’s not getting through.”

Nobody understood that better than I did.

A fleet of black limos pulled slowly into view. My heart beat faster, and I glanced at Gretchen. She had seen them, too, and she reached for my hand. We remained that way until the prayers were said, the eulogy given and it was time to line up to scoop dirt onto Talya’s coffin.

Afterward we didn’t approach Michael or any of Talya’s family, although almost a dozen neighbors I hadn’t noticed when I arrived joined us to flank the path as the family went back to their cars.

As she walked past, Channa saw the tears rolling down my cheeks and broke ranks. She darted over for a hug before she continued on with her father. Michael nodded to me, and I could see he was barely holding himself together. We would speak when we went to the house to sit shivah. If we could find words.

Only then, after I’d said goodbye to Gretchen and was walking up the road where I saw the Town Car in the distance, did I catch a glimpse of Kris alone in our silver Acura cruising slowly past, as if he were trying to find a parking space.

I kept walking.

* * *

Nik and Pet weren’t home when Cecilia and I arrived. Ideally Kris should have taken them out of class for the afternoon and let them accompany him to the funeral. I don’t believe in protecting children from death or from the necessity of goodbyes, and I would have brought them with me if I’d been in charge.

I don’t know if Kris chose not to include them because of conviction or logistics. And since he didn’t get to the service in time anyway, what did it matter?

“Get a drink and make yourself at home,” I told Cecilia. “I’m going to change. Then I’ll join you.”

She would pour herself a diet Dr Pepper, one of her few food vices. I always keep them for her, even if she hasn’t visited for months. It’s one of our little secrets. She never drinks any kind of soft drink in public. My sister is a vegan food crusader. Talya, who grew up in a kosher home, was less concerned about what she ate at my table than Cecilia is.

Upstairs I noted our bed wasn’t made, but the room was otherwise neat. I knew if I went into his closet Kris’s dirty clothes would be in his hamper and his shirts would be hanging according to sleeve length and color. He’s not obsessive, he’s just busy, and anything that saves him time in the morning is a bonus. I might find hair in the sink, or the toilet seat up, but his toiletries would be sitting in single file in the order he needed them each morning.

I wasn’t glad to be home, and I added that to my load of guilt. Views of the Weinbergs’ house would be a constant reminder of Talya. When would I stop expecting her to drop in with half a coffee cake her mother-in-law had baked or a handful of exotic herbs she wanted me to try?

I removed Cecilia’s skirt and blouse, dark brown designer pieces that had hung on my thinner frame like sackcloth, and folded them neatly. I pulled on leggings and an oversize T-shirt before I went downstairs again. I could see Cecilia outside on the deck. Blessedly it’s on the garden side of our property, and the Weinbergs’ home is barely visible through the trees.

There are no words to express how much I love this house and our garden, which I created myself and tend with only minimal help from a local landscaper. Meadow Branch is a newish development on what was formerly a horse farm. Our home was the original farmhouse, burgundy brick with a high peaked center gable and a ground level front porch that was probably tacked on as an afterthought.

The house was built in the late 1800s, when bathrooms weren’t recreational and bedrooms were mostly for sleeping, but it was so filled with character, so settled, that after one look, Kris and I knew it belonged to us. We didn’t allow the developer to tear it down to build two houses on our one-acre lot, as he could have. We bought it exactly the way it was, multiple flaws and all, and slowly renovated it without destroying its character. Eventually we added a master suite upstairs, and a combination family room and sunroom below, along with a compact studio for me and a dark room, which gets very little use since digital photography came to stay.

I’m not sure why the neighborhood children always found our house so appealing. But as Nik and Pet grew, we were usually the center of activity. We had no basement rec room, as all of them did, with built-in bars and home theaters. But the sunroom was open to our kitchen, and snacks and drinks were always in easy reach, along with games, both board and video, and pillows and blankets to make tunnels. And outside? Outside we’d splurged on climbing equipment and a wooden playhouse that could be a fort or a palace.

I miss the comings and goings, the slamming of doors, the chatter, but today I was glad for the silence.

I poured myself a glass of ice water, took two ibuprofen and went to join Cecilia outside. My head was pounding, but the nurse had warned me I might have headaches for the next few weeks. She had also warned me not to miss the appointments she would schedule for me, but she had agreed to let me leave the hospital. I don’t know what Cecilia said to her, but I won’t be shocked if my sister makes a surprise appearance at their next benefit.

“It’s so pretty out here.” Cecilia was staring at our glimpse of the distant Catoctin Mountain ridge. “And your garden is spectacular, as always.”

As a young teenager I had helped our sunken-cheeked foster mother grow vegetables on a Florida ranch. Those memories include insects, snakes, hot sun beating on the back of my neck and bare arms, so I never expected to like gardening. But when I arrived at this house, I knew immediately that Kris and I would create garden rooms, defined by shrubs and perennial borders. I’ve made this garden happen, and yes, now it surrounds the house and often stops traffic.

I lowered myself to the glider beside her. “I’m always a little relieved when winter heads this way. Then the only real gardening chore is leafing through seed catalogs.” I pointed to her glass. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“You don’t have to take care of me.”

“Good, I’m not sure what’s in the fridge. I’ve only been gone two days, but Kris and the kids might have filled it with doughnuts and lunch meat.” Although, of course, that would mean that my husband had gathered himself to visit the grocery store, and I’m not sure he even remembers how to find it.

“Do you know where the kids went after school?” Cecilia asked.

“Kris was hoping to find a neighbor who would watch them when they got home today. I gave him a couple of names.”

“They’ll be glad to see you’re out of the hospital.”

I hoped it was true, but it seemed like a long time since my children had been glad to see me. “They’re growing up, CeCe. Mom is no longer the center of their lives. They’re breaking away big-time.”

“That’s natural.”

“I’m not sure.” I sipped my water and considered. Cecilia knows I talk in spurts and it’s never easy.

“The thing is,” I said, putting the glass on the table in front of us, “it seems to be more about anger than breaking away. I have to be good guy and bad guy, helper and tormentor. I’m the one who tells them how great an A is and the one who has to let them know it’s not all right when they don’t do homework or study. It’s always something, and I’m always right here taking care of it. Nobody else is around to deliver bad news.”

It was as close to an indictment of Kris as I’d ever made in Cecilia’s presence. I was immediately sorry. She didn’t need more ammunition against him.

“Maybe they aren’t angry at you.”

“Angry at the world?” I shrugged.

“Angry at their father for not being around while they’re growing up.”

I started to protest but didn’t get far. Because I know that Nik, in particular, needs more time with Kris. He’s twelve, tall and gangly and, according to his pediatrician, already into puberty. We started the “birds and the bees” discussion years ago in this garden, where the birds and the bees are actual residents, but the last thing my son wants now is to talk about sexual feelings or his changing body with his mother. And when can he talk to his father? Not on the fly during the rare times when Kris drops him at school on his way into work. Not late at night when Kris stumbles home so exhausted he can hardly remember his own name.

“It’s a problem,” I said. “Kris is a hot commodity. We don’t see a lot of him.”

She wisely didn’t follow up on that, at least not exactly. “Remember the night of the accident, when we chatted and I told you I needed to talk to you about something?”

I thought back and was glad I could remember. “You told me not to put you off.”

“Do you remember when I was in Australia on tour?”

“You got the flu and laryngitis and had to cancel the last week or so of concerts, right? Every time I called, Donny said you were fine but resting your voice.”

“I had a...” She angled her body toward me so she could see my face. “I had what they used to call a nervous breakdown. Now whatever they call it comes down to long paragraphs of psychobabble. But in essence, I had about a month when I couldn’t function. I was in a hospital for two of those weeks.”

“CeCe...” I covered her hand with mine. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would you have done? Flown to Australia? Worried? Besides, I had to deal with my problems on my own. I needed time to cry and think. I did a lot of both.”

I didn’t know what to say. Cecilia is the strongest person I know, but even strong people can snap under the right pressure.

“A lot of it was exhaustion,” she said. “I chopped the old candle into a thousand pieces and burned every one of them at both ends. There was a doctor there I liked, a woman, Dr. Joan. She said that anybody who works as hard as I do is always avoiding something.”

“What were you avoiding?”

“You know better than anybody. Where I come from. Who I was. Who I am now. What I never had. The whole nine yards.”

“Most people would find even one of those topics intimidating.”

She laughed a little. “Devoted to making everything as momentous as possible. That’s me.”

Even without makeup, even wearing a man’s loose dress shirt, Cecilia is beautiful. She hasn’t always been. She grew slowly into her quirky, oversize features, but by the time she turned eighteen her carroty hair had darkened to a spectacular auburn and her figure had ripened into something astonishing. She’s lovely up close, but onstage? Onstage she’s a goddess.

“How are you now?” I asked, because to look at her, no one would know she’d ever experienced turmoil, much less recently.

“Determined.”

“You’re always determined. You’ve been determined since the day we met. You always have a plan.”

“This is a little different. Before I was determined to remake myself, to pretend I was somebody else. Now I’m determined to let the world know who I really am.”

I was puzzled. Mystique is a part of celebrity, and Cecilia already shares so much with her audiences. She’s loved for her energy and her ability to make her fans feel as if they know her. But, of course, they don’t know her at all.

She stood and went to the railing, turning to face me. “Almost two years ago a film producer named Mick Bollard contacted me. Do you know the name?”

“The same Mick Bollard who makes the award-winning documentaries?”

“I figured you would know.”

Once upon a time I was a professional photojournalist. But even if the path of my life veered away from the profession I once loved so well, I do keep up with my colleagues.

“I may not have seen everything, but I’ve seen most of his work,” I said.

“He told me he was doing a documentary on the foster care system, and he was looking for someone to narrate, someone famous to feature. He wanted a celebrity who had been a foster child, somebody to convey what the experience is like from a child’s point of view. He thought that would be a draw for the audience, but also a testament to how foster children can triumph.”

Cecilia has never flaunted her past, but neither has she hidden the basics, partly because it’s not easy to hide anything when hungry journalists are looking for a story. I’m always impressed by how well she feeds information to the press without whetting their appetites or lying outright.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I said no.”

That didn’t surprise me, and it probably hadn’t surprised Mick Bollard. “Did he refuse to take no for an answer?”

“Actually he was understanding. That was the end of it until I got home from my Australian adventure. I started thinking about confronting my demons, and I got back in touch with Mick. We got together. I told him my entire history.”

I whistled softly. That alone had to be a first.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “He was fascinated. He went back to his hotel, and the next time I saw him he had moved well beyond what he’d first asked for. Now he wants to focus a large portion of the documentary on my childhood. Since you know his films, you know how that will work. We’ll go back to the places that were important in my personal story. I’ll be on camera, telling the audience what I remember. He’ll intersperse those segments with footage he already has, historical photographs and videos, interviews with social workers and the directors of innovative programs, and then he’ll shoot more footage, closer looks at the child welfare system I grew up with and where it is now.”

I could picture it. And having Cecilia sharing her own life on camera? What it had been like to be an actual foster child, maybe even what her life had been like before the state took over? Done well, this could win awards. And nobody would do it as well as Mick Bollard.

“Will this help or hurt your career?” It was the next logical question.

“I don’t know.”

“What does Donny say?”

“Donny says what matters is whether I think it will help or hurt me.”

I’ve always liked Cecilia’s manager, who isn’t quite the shark his colleagues are. I liked him more now. “And what do you think?”

“I think I need to do this.” She leaned forward. “And Robin, I really think you need to do it with me.”

5

Kris

I’m the younger of two children; my sister, Lucie, is six years older, and we rarely fought. Lucie doted on me and thought it was hilarious when I tried to argue. I was the crash-test dummy for the parenting skills she would need later in life with her own four children. Consequently, when my children fight, I have no clue how to respond. My usual reaction is to respond badly.

“Cut it out,” I said when the shrieking in my car reached a painful pitch. “What’s wrong with you two? Can’t you just let go of this and move on?”

Pet, who looks enough like Robin to confirm that the hospital sent us home with the right baby, was close to sobbing. “But that’s my notebook, Daddy. Nik stole it from my desk.”

“I didn’t steal it. You took it out of the supply cupboard and hid it, and I had to go into your desk to find it. But it’s not really yours, because you aren’t even using it. I need it.”

“Put the damn notebook on the dashboard. Now!” I took a breath and lowered my voice. “Really? A spiral notebook is so important you’re screaming at each other? Put it on the dashboard right now, Nik.” Or else was clear.

“Whatever.”

My son’s voice is deepening. I hadn’t noticed this until yesterday, but he is moving from childhood to adolescence, and not gracefully if today is any example. He and Pet both realize they nearly lost their mother two nights ago, but neither has said a word about it to me. Instead their fighting has gotten worse, as if their mother’s brush with death was a hiccup.

The coveted notebook thumped against the dashboard, and Nik, in the seat beside me—the death seat, according to Cecilia—folded his arms. I glanced at the notebook and understood the fight. Rock Star was emblazoned across the front.

Cecilia again.

I sighed and glanced at my son. While Pet resembles her mother, Nik has my dark blond hair and greenish eyes. I’m not sure where his features come from, but even at twelve, they work together nicely.

“When we get home, we’ll flip a coin,” I said, adding when they began to protest, “Or I will dump the notebook in our recycling bin. Got it? You two decide.”

Stony silence ensued until we were just a couple of miles from home. I broke it. “What kind of pizza do you want tonight?”

“We had pizza last night.” These days Nik has turned sullen into an art form.

“We had pizza last night because your mother is in the hospital. Remember your mother? The woman who normally cooks for you? We had pizza because she wasn’t there to cook for you yesterday, nor is she there to cook for you today. And since we live too far out of town for any other kind of delivery, we will happily eat pizza again so we can leave early enough to visit her at the hospital. Since I couldn’t get you there last night.”

Now I was close to screeching. I let seconds pass before I spoke again. “Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a tough couple of days.”

“Sure. All that work and kids to take care of, too. Who could stand the pressure?”

“You’re such a turd, Nik,” Pet said from the backseat. “Leave everybody else alone, okay? Can’t you be miserable on your own?”

“Stop it, both of you.” I tried again. “Whether either of you has said a word about it or not, I’m sure you’re both worried about your mom.”

“She’s going to be fine. You said so,” Nik said, as if this was the most boring information in the universe.

“She is, but the whole thing is a shock. The accident. Mrs. Weinberg.” I didn’t know what else to say. Feelings are not my strong suit.

“Yeah, well, it’s all over and done with. Can’t we just move on?” he said in imitation of me.

I had an inkling, just an inkling, of why parents snap and hit their children. I tried again. “I know you were there when the police called Michael—Mr. Weinberg. It must have been hard.”

“Yeah, that’s what you said the night it happened. It was harder for Mr. Weinberg, don’t you think? And for Channa?”

“Hard for everyone, Nik, of course, but especially them.”

“Channa didn’t even cry,” Pet said.

“She was in shock, stupid,” Nick snapped back.

“Well, I was in shock and I cried anyway.”

I let the name-calling pass this once. “In a crisis everybody reacts in different ways. There’s no good or bad way.”

“What’s your way?” Nik said in a tone that made it clear he really didn’t care. “Staying away from funerals? Working harder?”

“You’re about one second away from a week without television.”

“Who cares?” Nik turned his head toward the window to watch the passing scenery.

Nik has never been an easy kid. As a baby he had colic, and by the time he grew out of it Robin swore she would never give birth again. We skated on smooth ice through age two, which is why Pet was conceived, but three was a nightmare. That’s been Nik’s pattern, a good year or two, followed by a dark period when nothing feels right to him. He’s a sensitive kid and notices everything. And he lives for justice. Robin says he’ll be a lawyer, too.

If he is, I hope he loves the work more than I do.

“We’ll go to shivah tomorrow.” I had already explained that Talya’s family would stay at home for seven days to receive guests and we would be expected to be among them. “I wish I hadn’t missed the funeral, but we’ll let Mr. Weinberg and the family know how sorry we are tomorrow night.”

“I don’t want to go,” Nik said.

“Me, either,” I said. “But this isn’t about us—it’s about them.”

For once he didn’t argue.

The rest of the trip was blessedly silent. I parked in the garage that Robin and I added when we extended the house. Those days, far behind us now, were golden. Redesigning with our architect, watching the future come together one expanse of cedar at a time, imagining the years in front of us. Robin was right on-site through the noise and confusion, but she made friends with our crew and insisted she didn’t mind. Sometimes when I came home in the evening I found the men still sitting around our temporarily relocated dining table, going over plans for the next day while they drank a well-deserved beer.

Robin seems shy at first, but she loves anybody who loves her back. That’s not hard to do.

“We can do wings with the pizza if you’d like,” I said as we got out of the car. Concessions can work wonders at home as well as the negotiating table.

“Maybe we should get a salad?” Pet asked.

Nik whistled. “Wow, Mom’s little helper. And she’s not even home to know how good you are.”

Only she was home. We opened the door, and Robin was right there, waiting for us. For a moment I didn’t know what to say.

“They let me out for the funeral,” she said, holding out her arms. “And here I am.”

Pet leaped forward for a hug. If I’d had any doubts my daughter cared what had happened, they were allayed immediately. She was sniffing back tears.

“Hey, I’m okay,” Robin said. “Really. How are you?”

Pet pulled away. “Mad at you!”

“I’m sure. And, Nik, you’re okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I stopped staring at my wife to glance at my son. His voice had cracked, just a little, and his expression wasn’t as steely as he probably hoped.

“Indeed,” Robin said lightly. She finally looked at me. “Cecilia’s here. She baked a file in a cake and sprung me.”

I really should have expected that, but I had been so busy absorbing everything else I hadn’t gotten around to processing details.

Cecilia. Of course.

I made what passed for a protest. “You were supposed to stay in the hospital until tomorrow.”

“Yes, and isn’t it nice I’m home instead?”

“If you’re actually well enough to be.”

“I’m standing here smiling at you, aren’t I?”

She was expecting something, and I realized it wasn’t an apology for missing the funeral. At least not yet. I moved forward to hug her, too. She felt like a bird in my arms, her robin namesake, fragile and ready to take flight.

“I’m just worried about you, that’s all,” I said, stroking her hair. “And who did Cecilia pay to get you out ahead of time?”

“I don’t even care. I’ll do the rest of the tests as an outpatient this week, but there’s no reason to worry. Everything looks fine.”

“We’re having pizza for dinner again,” Nik said. “And we even get to pick what kind.”

I was still holding Robin, but I could almost hear my son rolling his eyes.

“Actually we aren’t,” she said. “Donny’s been set loose to find and retrieve dinner. And he’ll pick up food to take to the Weinbergs’ while he’s at it.” She pushed away. “Were you planning to go next door tonight or tomorrow?”

Only then did I finally note the anger simmering behind her smile.

“I got held up in traffic, Robin. I tried to get to the funeral in time.”

“You got held up in a meeting first.”

“You were checking on me?”

“Oddly enough I needed reassurance that one of us would be there for the Weinbergs.”

“One of us was. Even though she shouldn’t have been.”

“One of us felt strongly enough to make it happen.” She closed her eyes a moment, as if to wipe out the anger. “Come say hello to Cecilia. She’s flying out tonight, so she’ll only be here for dinner.”

The kids had already galloped off to find her. They love my sister, Lucie, but Cecilia’s their favorite aunt and Pet’s godmother to boot. And why not? She never arrives without posters signed by the pop group of the month, CDs not yet released to the public, swag from her Grammy gift bag. One year she gave Nik glasses with a frame of blinking lights that she swore Elton John had worn on tour.

“I’m sorry,” I said, now that we were alone. “I’m dancing as fast as I can, but I should have walked out of my meeting sooner.”

“You’re going to have to learn how to, Kris. Because you’re going to be needed at home for the next few months.”

“I do my best.”

“Well, you’ll have to do even better. Because it’s possible I won’t be around for a while to take up your slack.”

Before I could ask what she meant, she disappeared, too.

6

Robin

I’m not sorry I can’t remember details of the crash that killed Talya, but I would be devastated if I couldn’t remember the day I met Cecilia.

I was nine, and Cecilia was thirteen. My grandmother had just died, and while therapists tell you that children mourn the loss of even the worst caretakers, I can tell you it’s not always true. Yes, I was frightened my new life might be even harder. I was so frightened, in fact, that once again I lost the power of speech. But I wasn’t sorry that Olive Swanson was gone from my life. I can’t remember my mother, who vanished before I was two, but I’ll never forget my grandmother.

Years after Olive’s death, when my case manager decided I needed to know about my past, I learned why my mother hadn’t wanted me. Details are sketchy, but it seems likely I was the child of date rape, not that the term was often used in 1978, when I was born. But from information a social worker gleaned as my grandmother lay dying, at fifteen my mother, Alice, sneaked out of the house to meet a boy, who reportedly refused to take no for an answer.

My mother was almost five months pregnant before my grandmother figured out why she was gaining weight. By then it was too late for an abortion, but Olive wouldn’t have allowed one anyway. Clearly Alice needed to suffer the full consequences of her disobedience, and Olive demanded she continue to attend school until I was born, even though the other kids probably made that hell.

Afterward, when Alice wanted to place me for adoption, Olive took custody instead, most likely so I would be a constant and visible reminder of her daughter’s sin.

I don’t think Olive believed my mother would have the courage to leave home, but immediately after graduation Alice disappeared for good. Olive transferred her disdain from her daughter to me.

The foster home where I was taken the day Cecilia and I met wasn’t the first I’d lived in. Olive was ill for almost two years before she died, and at the first sign of cancer she had surgery. Since there was no family to take care of me, I was placed in care until my grandmother was able to resume custody. Each subsequent time she was hospitalized I became a foster child again until she was well enough to claim me once more.

Prior to Olive’s illness, I slowly became mute. Normal speech, which my medical records claim I developed as quickly and normally as any child, almost disappeared. To combat this, my grandmother did her best to scare words out of me. I was sent to doctors and speech therapists, but any progress I made disappeared at home.

Of course the explanation is simple. Nothing I had to say was welcome or correct. Why speak when I would be instantly challenged or shamed? Selective mutism was a simpler solution.

To make matters worse I was painfully shy and terrified of new situations, even though I badly wanted to escape my daily life. I was frightened that everyone would treat me the way Olive did, so I rarely made eye contact and preferred escaping to places where nobody could judge me, often inside my head.

Olive was a great believer in diagnoses but not in therapy. She simply wanted an excuse for the way I behaved. One psychiatrist labeled me autistic, but once I began first grade I excelled at written work and scrupulously followed the most complicated directions, disproving that diagnosis, which was then traded in for the more generic “depression.” This one, with its finger pointed straight at my grandmother, surely pleased her less.

Rather than being traumatized during Olive’s hospitalization, I began to interact with other foster children and to slowly speak again. Not often or fluently, but well enough to get by. Each time my grandmother underwent more treatment, my speech temporarily improved. Each time I went home again I regressed.

My grandmother died when I was nine. I had been placed in emergency care two weeks earlier when she was rushed to the hospital. Just before she passed away I was taken there to say goodbye. I brought flowers the sympathetic foster mother and I had picked from her garden. Olive took one look at them and me, then turned toward the wall to block out the sight of such a common gift and useless child. My foster mother explained that my grandmother was too sick to know what she was doing. But I knew better.

None of the homes I had stayed in previously were available after Olive’s death. The county looked for mature, experienced parents committed to helping me and thought a therapeutic foster home with one other child would be helpful.

The right parents were Dick and Lillian Davis, and the other child was Cecilia Ceglinski, nearly thirteen. Within moments of our meeting Cecilia demanded that the speechless me call her CeCe. By then she had already decided that someday she would be famous enough to jettison her last name.

On the day I was taken to the two-bedroom concrete tract house in an older neighborhood of Tampa, Florida, social workers were still attempting to find my mother, whose rights hadn’t been formally terminated. I knew from conversations I overheard that my chances for adoption were slim to none. I was too shy, too withdrawn, and while authorities no longer believed I was autistic, that diagnosis remained as a question in my records and was guaranteed to give even the most enthusiastic adoptive parents pause.

I was all of nine, but the people in control believed it was enough at that moment that I was safe and well fed. After their own children left, Mr. and Mrs. Davis had welcomed more than a dozen children into their home. They were strict but fair, affectionate but not demanding, and they were happy to work with other professionals to provide the best for their kids.

Cecilia had already lived with the Davises for four months before I arrived to take the place of an eleven-year-old girl who had wreaked havoc. Cecilia claims that no matter what was wrong with me—and in her estimation there was plenty—she saw right away that she could finally sleep with both eyes shut. If I was too scared to get up and use the bathroom at night, I was unlikely to murder her in her sleep.

Cecilia isn’t prone to downplay anything in her life. In the retelling a casual date becomes a marriage proposal. Polite applause becomes a standing ovation. I’m one of the parts she doesn’t have to exaggerate. She saw something in me that convinced her I needed her. No one but Maribeth, her drugged-out mother, had ever needed her for anything.

Cecilia looked at me and saw a project that might have a happy ending. That was enough.

My grandmother had named me Roberta Ingrid after two maiden aunts who had raised and molded her into the woman I feared. Cecilia was the first to call me Robin. The day we met I was wearing a red sweater. With my pale brown hair and red breast she thought I looked exactly like one.

When I turned eighteen I petitioned the court to make Robin official. By then Cecilia had been there first to remove Ceglinski.

Kris claims I’ve always allowed Cecilia to make the important decisions in my life. If he knew how hard she lobbied me not to marry him, he might feel differently.

I thought about that now as the house grew quiet and I heard Kris turning out the lights downstairs before he came to bed. Earlier Donny came back from town with enough takeout to last for several days and casseroles to carry next door tomorrow. My children devoured rotisserie chicken and sides. Kris finished a beer and picked at whatever was in reach, and the rest of us enjoyed vegan dishes from an Indian restaurant. Then, after sisterly advice on how to take care of myself for the next few days, Cecilia and Donny left to fly back to Arizona.

I’m sure my husband is delighted they’re gone. Kris is always polite to Cecilia. Cecilia is always polite to Kris. Their pseudotolerance comes down to insecurity. Neither of them is sure who will win if I’m forced to choose.

I was carefully smoothing a nightgown over my hips when Kris came into our bedroom. His wheat-colored hair was standing on end, as if he’d run his fingers through it repeatedly, and he looked exhausted, which was no surprise.

“Did you tell Nik he could stay up and read?”

I had expected something a little warmer, but I wasn’t surprised by his question. Even when Kris arrives home early enough to see his kids, he’s usually on his computer or the phone and they’re already asleep by the time he comes upstairs.

“He’s always allowed to read if it’s a real book and he’s in bed.”

“I asked him what he was reading, and he said, and I quote, ‘A book. Can’t you tell?’”

“He jumped on the one Cecilia gave him tonight. He started reading the moment he got into bed.”

“Let me guess. A rock star biography.”

“Boy band. It’s a Horatio Alger story updated for the twenty-first century. Kids from a tough neighborhood who find their way out through talent and drive.”

“Well, he needs sleep more than he needs fairy tales.”

I didn’t remind him how close the book was to Cecilia’s life story. “I’m sure you made a hit if you called it a fairy tale.”

“I’ve already had more conversations with our son today than I needed.”

I tried to sound pleasant, although it was getting harder. “Is that how it works? We get to choose a number? Because some days one is too many.”

“He’s hostile and rude. Oh, and let’s not forget sarcastic. What’s come over him? Or do you even know?”

“I have some good ideas.”

“He seems to think he can get away with it.”

My head was starting to throb again. “I hear an indictment of my parenting skills.”

He didn’t answer directly. “What are you doing to change things?”

I swallowed a reminder that the decision to have these children had been mutual. “Truthfully, nothing seems to work. He’s never made transitions well, and becoming an adolescent’s a big one.”

“We need to set rules and stick to them.”

“We, Kris?” I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the jasmine-scented hand cream I use at night.

“We can figure them out together.”

“And I can enforce them.”

“Well, according to your little zinger earlier, you’re not going to be around. What was that about, anyway?”

“Do you really want to get into this now?”

“I have to leave early in the morning, and I won’t be home until it’s time for shivah. So now makes sense.”

He sounded angry, or rather, controlled, as if he were afraid the anger would erupt in unpleasant ways and he was working to contain it.

I capped the hand cream and lay down facing his side of the bed, propping myself up so I could see him better. I waited until he changed and got in beside me. All these years of marriage, and I still find my husband attractive. Kris has strong Slavic features that accent wide-set hazel eyes. Despite hours at a desk he usually finds time midday to go to the gym, and he watches his diet.

I would have preferred a more romantic homecoming, but the only fairy tale in our house tonight was the one Nik was reading down the hall.

“Cecilia is coproducing a documentary about foster care with a well-known filmmaker named Mick Bollard. We watched one he did on Ronald Reagan, remember?”

“No.”

In truth I had watched it, and Kris had walked in and out of the room with his BlackBerry. I wasn’t surprised he didn’t remember.

“Well, he’s amazing. For this one he wants a celebrity who actually was a foster child to be part of it. Cecilia’s...” I tried to figure out how best to explain this. “She’s come to realize she needs to tell her story. For herself as much as her audience. So they’ll be filming in places where she lived, and she’ll talk about what her life was like there. Of course it’ll all be interspersed with history and facts about child welfare. You know how that works. But she may do a lot of the narration, and her life will be the thread that’s woven all the way through.”

“Why does that have anything to do with you?”

“Cecilia wants me to be the production stills photographer. They’ll need photos for publicity, and Donny’s already spoken to publishers about a book on the making of the documentary. The right photograph can convey the point of an entire film. It’s an exciting challenge. She showed my work to Mick Bollard, and he’s enthusiastic.”

“There are a thousand photographers who could do that. A million.”

I tried not to let him see his words had hurt. “Of course. There may be that many, and, who knows, all of them may even be better than I am. Although if somebody like Mick Bollard thinks my work’s good enough, that’s a pretty good sign I have talent, wouldn’t you say?”

“You know I didn’t mean it that way.”

“How did you mean it?”

“There are other photographers who have the credentials besides you. And a lot of them would probably kill for this opportunity.”

“So why me?”

“Listen, it was rhetorical, okay? I know why you. Cecilia’s been trying to get you to work for her as long as I’ve known you. Longer, even.”

“And I have carefully not done so. Not because I’m not good enough, but because my life has gone in other directions.”

“And...”

I knew what else Kris was referring to. Years ago, during my college internship with famous celebrity photographer Max Filstein—an internship Cecilia had arranged for me—Max had given me some sage advice. In between critical tirades he’d admitted I had talent, yes, but he had insisted I should never focus it on my sister. Because even though I had a gift for exposing souls, when it came to Cecilia, I was clueless.

Max still calls regularly and rants about the way I’m wasting the skills he taught me. These days I take photos of my flowers and shrubs for gardening magazines, and sometimes I do photo shoots for local families or school fund-raisers. Once I opened an envelope to find magazine photos of my old roses torn to shreds with Max’s business card nestled among them.

“I think enough time has passed that I can do this and do it well,” I said, hoping it was true.

“How long is she talking about? A week? Two?”

“Live filming begins in a little more than three weeks and goes through January. Maybe a bit into February.”

He made a noise low in his throat, as if to say, you’re kidding.

“There will be times when I can fly home to visit. Thanksgiving for sure, and I told Cecilia we’re going to the Czech Republic to be with your parents for Christmas. I told her those ten days are nonnegotiable.”

I hoped Kris would see I was already thinking of him. His father, Gus, was teaching for a year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, a triumphant return after years of exile. It would be the family trip of a lifetime.

“Don’t you think that whether you’ll go to Prague is kind of beside the point, Robin?” Now he was unable to hide the anger in his voice. “In the meantime you’re talking about leaving the kids and me at home taking care of things for months while you trail your sister all over the country or wherever the hell you’ll be going.”

I was sorry Cecilia’s offer had come up now. I should have presented the whole thing with more tact, and I should have considered it carefully for more reasons than I was willing to go into with Kris. But I’d lashed out at him earlier, and this is what I got. Of course no matter how I phrased it, I was dropping a bombshell.

“I haven’t decided yet.” I hoped that would delay the discussion, but it was not to be.

“Then please decide not to go, okay? It was hard enough handling things while you were in the hospital.”

Suddenly he wasn’t the only angry person in our bed. “Really? I’m so sorry I inconvenienced you. Maybe I should have stopped the car that plowed into us with my superpowers. Or maybe I shouldn’t have gone to dinner at all, considering that I had to beg poor Michael to babysit because you had something more important to do.”

He stared at me, and I stared right back.

“Let’s face it,” I went on. “Everything is more important than spending time with your kids, Kris. Everything except me and what I need. You wonder why Nik is surly? Maybe it’s because he’s beginning to realize he won’t have a father to guide him through the difficult waters ahead. While you’re at it, take a look at your daughter. Girls develop so much faster these days, and when it comes to men, Pet will need help figuring out how to separate the wheat from the chaff. She’ll need a role model. And what kind of role model is a man who’s too busy to spend time with her?”

“Is that what this is about? You’re trying to force me to be a hands-on father? You couldn’t just ask?”

“I have asked until I’m blue in the face. But believe it or not, this decision is mostly about me. I willingly gave up my career when we had Nik. But I never said that would be permanent. Now I have an amazing opportunity—”

“To photograph Cecilia’s life—”

“It was my life, too! Cecilia’s life and mine intersected for years, remember? She says she needs to go back and confront her demons. I’m not sure I don’t, as well. This life with you and the kids isn’t the only one I’ve had. And even if I can’t remember the accident, I bet that life was flashing in front of my eyes as the SUV got closer.”

Regret transformed his face. For a moment he looked more like the man I married, the one who wasn’t too busy for conversations like this. “I’m sorry for everything that happened. More than you apparently believe. I’m so grateful we didn’t lose you. But my childhood wasn’t all milk and cookies, either. We didn’t know what a leftover was. Some months my family had to choose between electricity or heat. So you know why I work as hard as I do. I want us to be secure, not to worry about whether the kids will get scholarships to a good school, not to worry whether Pet can afford a nice wedding if she wants one.”

“Right now Pet needs a father, not a husband.”

“You’re determined not to understand, aren’t you?”

“I do understand. But you can’t see what your determination not to be like your father is doing to us. Gus is an idealist, an artist, a dreamer, and when you were growing up he didn’t always worry about paying your gas bill. But he was there for you, Kris. He adores you. Cecilia was there for me, and not only don’t I want our children to grow up with an empty space where their father ought to be, I want to do this for my sister. I want to be there for her.”

If he was moved, this time he didn’t show it. “You said you haven’t decided.”

“That’s what I said.” I hesitated before I shook my head. “But I want to do this. I need to. If I decide to go ahead I won’t simply walk out on you. I’ll find help, and I’ll come home whenever I can. I’ll call and text and email, and the kids will always know I’m there when they need me.”

“What good will that do if you’re a thousand miles away? They’re too young to be here alone.”

“I can hire somebody to be here when the kids come home from school. I’ll make sure she cleans and has dinner on the table by the time you get home to eat with them, too. But I need to do this. The night of the accident? Everybody at dinner had moved on with their lives, and they were all so excited, even if they were feeling overburdened. And me? I had nothing to contribute except the name of Nik’s orthodontist.”

“You could have dropped Cecilia’s name. That always gets attention.”

I just stared at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said stiffly before he rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling instead of me. “But you just don’t have a clue what this will do to my career. The only reason I’ve been able to get where I am is that I work harder than anybody else.”

“At the expense of your family.”

“For my family!”

“No.” I turned away and flipped off the bedside lamp. “I need a good night’s sleep. I couldn’t get one in the hospital.”

“You’ve pretty well guaranteed that neither of us will get one tonight.”

I heard him get up and leave our bedroom. I wondered where he planned to sleep, but I didn’t get up to look for him, to try to smooth things over so he would come back to bed. This couldn’t be smoothed over. Because even though I hadn’t said it in so many words, I had made my decision.

I fell asleep thinking not of Kris or Cecilia, but of Talya. My friend had been so excited about her new job, with so much to talk about. What would I talk about if our monthly neighborhood dinners reconvened?

My trip into the past with Cecilia, or my impending divorce?

7

Cecilia

I have four homes. That’s excessive, I know, but I figure I’m making up for all the ones I never had growing up. Real estate and art are the only investments that make sense to me, and I love to watch run-down properties come back to life under my loving care, along with the talent of architects and designers. But I never give any design professional carte blanche. These are homes, and I want them to reflect my taste. I don’t care how much time or money that takes.

My home in Manhattan is a neo-Georgian brownstone, and my condo in Nashville is at the top of a high-rise with a sweeping view of the city. I probably spend most of my time in the ecofriendly contemporary I designed and built in Pacific Palisades because I conduct more business in Southern California than anywhere else, not to mention that looking over that stretch of coastline—fondly known as the Queen’s Necklace—is a great way to rev my creative juices.

Each house is completely different, and I love them all. But my favorite sits directly on the Gulf of Mexico, on Sanibel Island in Southwest Florida. If I could only have one place to call my own, I would be happy forever at Casa del Corazón.

I’ve been in Sanibel a week, but I never tire of waking here. If I’m up early enough I can look left to watch the sun rise down the beach, and if I’m home early enough I can turn right and watch the sun set. When I bought this slice of paradise I knew I wouldn’t have to choose between them.

Donny flew in yesterday evening, and a few minutes ago he joined me on the screened porch off my great room to watch the show begin. I was surprised at his interest, since I never think of him as a morning person. But despite years of working closely together there are probably many things we don’t know about each other.

One thing I do know? We’ve kept it that way on purpose. Neither of us wants to ruin a great working relationship with a lousy personal one.

I do have a talent for lousy personal relationships. Married once and quickly divorced from a country singer—which is how I picked up the condo in Nashville—I’ve known a lot of men and slept with a few of them. The better I know them the less I like them. There’s a lesson there.

When the sun proved it could be counted on, I put my arms over my head and stretched. “Sometimes I go down to the beach and walk toward the sunrise and pick up shells along the way. No matter what time of year it is, there are always at least a few other people doing the same thing, and when the sun peeks over the horizon, they almost always applaud. It’s like a prayer.”

Donny was standing silently at the railing looking out over the water, a cup of cooling coffee in his hands. “My kind of prayer. Heartfelt and doctrine-lite.”

“Not a churchgoer?”

“No more than you.”

“I sneak in and out when I have the chance and sit in the back. I figure it can’t hurt and might help.”

“You’re nothing if not flexible.”

I laughed because that’s absolutely true. You can’t be rigid in the music business, not if you expect to get anywhere.

He stopped ogling the horizon and turned to me. “I’m heading for New York about noon. Can we carve out some time to talk now? We have a lot to go over.”

“Ginny cut up fruit and warmed muffins a while ago. Everything’s ready in the kitchen, and if you eat up here with me, that will save her from having to take a plate to the guesthouse.” Ginny is a local woman in her fifties, tanned and wiry, who takes perfect care of the house and cooks whenever I’m in residence.

“You ate already?”

I shook my head. “I’ll eat with you. We can talk over breakfast.”

In the kitchen I poured myself a cup of green tea and grabbed a muffin. Ginny’s struggling to become a vegan cook, which isn’t easy on an island where two small supermarkets stock limited options. Nevertheless she has learned to make delicious muffins because she knows how much I love them. The muffin today is pumpkin apple spice.

Donny poured a new cup of coffee from the pot Ginny had brewed just for him—I don’t drink the stuff. We filled bowls with cut fruit and berries, and took breakfast outside to the table on the porch where we had greeted the sun.

My house, gated and private, is flanked by porches overlooking the beach, and a stone and tile courtyard in the front. The guesthouse, where Donny stayed last night, is on the beach side, with its own shady patio off the pool and a well-stocked kitchen tucked on one end. Choosing a place to eat at Casa del Corazón is a joy.

We settled in and chatted about his plans for the rest of the week, and then about negotiations he was conducting with Cyclonic Entertainment for my next album. I love the music of Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, and I want to do my own adaptations of songs like “See See Rider,” and “Down Hearted Blues.” Lately I’ve been branching out from my standard sound, characterized by more than one reviewer as gospel rock. I’m carving personal niches in bluegrass and jazz, but the blues of the 1930s fit perfectly with the songs that made me famous, songs about strong women who don’t take shit from anybody and don’t need a man to be happy. If the right man arrives? Just something to think about.

Donny cradled a coffee mug in both hands against his chest, as if he needed protection. “If Cyclonic agrees to let you do a blues album, they’re talking about another tour to promote it.”

Donny and I work on the fly, so we find moments to confer whenever and wherever we can. But this quiet time with only waves and seagulls as accompaniment put a fresh spin on the conversation. I wasn’t in the mood to make lists or demands.

“I don’t need another tour. I need more of this.” I waved my hand in the direction of the gulf to make my point. “More sun and sand. More breathing.”

“Then you’ll need to think about what you can offer as a compromise. Limited cities. Smaller venues if that feels more comfortable.”

“How does limited and smaller equate with what I just said? I’ll repeat. I don’t need another tour.”

“Any tour at all? Or just the exhausting variety, like the last one?”

“Right now I need to get through the next few months. This documentary’s not going to be a piece of cake. I don’t know how I’ll feel when it’s over. I might need a straitjacket by the time I’ve spilled my guts and revisited all my nightmares.”

“You can pull back.” He reached over and rested his hand on mine, an unusual gesture from a guy who’s 90 percent business. “Mick told you that. He’s not expecting you to reveal anything you don’t want to. The minute things start to get tough you can stop. Mick can turn a conversation about your favorite shampoo into a masterpiece.”

I decided to keep things light. “Shampoo? Perfect, because I’m still a foster kid at heart. Most of the time I use whatever’s on sale or dip into my storehouse of hotel amenities. Try Rose 31, courtesy of the Fairmont. I think there’s some in the guesthouse.”

He lifted his hand to grip his mug again. “That’s the kind of thing Mick will relish. I guess I’m just saying that if you don’t want to reveal the worst moments, you don’t have to.”

“And to think you got your start as a promoter.”

“I’ll tell Cyclonic the tour is off the table for now, and we’ll see what they come back with.”

“I wonder if I’ll know when to stop touring or recording or even singing in the shower. Don’t you wonder if you’ll know when to let go for good?”

“Sometimes.” He sounded like he was trying to be agreeable.

“I’m serious, Donny. When will you have another chance to watch the sun rise with a cup of coffee in your hands and nowhere you have to be right away?”

“Could you be happy without performing? Because it jacks you up. Every time. You fly high for hours afterward.”

“But I don’t want this to become an addiction, you know? I already have a recurring nightmare. I’m in the audience at a stadium in some city or another, and I’m sitting in a wheelchair down at the front because I’m so old I’ve forgotten how to walk. But that doesn’t seem to matter because I’m still trying to find a way to get up on the stage and perform.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I wish.” I smiled a little. “Well, okay, maybe. But the scenario’s in my thoughts a lot. I’m forty-two, on my way to a facelift, and sure, lots of people older than me continue to do extravagant world tours. The Stones and the Beach Boys are going to die onstage, and maybe Cher. But I paid close attention last time, when we set out on that tour from hell. It took at least two days to set up for each concert. We had four container trucks loaded to the ceiling, six buses and seventy-two staff, if you include my cook and Andy. Remember Andy? The personal trainer who quit halfway through because the schedule was too grueling? And let’s not forget the musicians, dancers, backup singers, the stagehands and construction engineers.”

“So? You gave a lot of people jobs and made a lot of fans deliriously happy.”

“I made myself sick. I made myself crazy. And I can’t know for sure that if I don’t stop pushing so hard it won’t happen again. I’ve been warned.”

“I think about a different life, too. It’s almost impossible to imagine one when every second isn’t a competition or a negotiation or a pep talk.”

“I’ve had my share of your pep talks.”

“Here’s another in that long line. You already know the documentary can both help or hurt your career. You’ll seem more human—that’s the good part. On the other hand, you’ll seem more human and—”

“That’s also the bad part,” I finished for him.

“I know this is incredibly personal for you, that you want to share the realities of foster care with the world. That you want to change lives...”

I nodded, waiting, because I heard a “but” coming.

He hesitated, then he smiled. Donny doesn’t smile a lot, but the room warms when he does. This one was gentle, the way one good friend smiles at another when bad news is on the way.

“Whose life do you want to change, Cecilia?”

“Mine, of course, and the people who watch the film.”

“How about Robin’s?”

I pondered that. “Everything we do changes us, doesn’t it?” I asked at last.

“Nice save. So let me rephrase. Have you invited her to be part of this for herself or for you.”

“Are you questioning Robin’s credentials?”

“I could. She’s a talented photographer, but she’s never done anything quite like this.”

“Max Filstein says she can do anything she wants. She’s that good. I asked him specifically if she could handle this project, and he said of course.”

“Don’t forget I was at the party where you and Max had that conversation. What he said was that she would be perfect for the project if she can achieve the distance she needs.”

“Robin knows me better than anyone. She took off the rose-colored glasses a long time ago.”

“Last week I sensed tension between her and Kristoff.”

“I like the way you use his full name. So old-world.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

Changing the subject is something I’m particularly good at. This, too, I attribute to foster care. Deflecting unpleasant realities is a foster child specialty.

“There is tension,” I said. “She’s starting to realize what a shabby deal she’s getting. He earns the money. She does everything else. She can’t count on Kristoff for help or even for making good on his promises. He was supposed to come home the night of the accident and take care of their kids. He didn’t. He was supposed to go to the neighbor’s funeral to represent their family. He didn’t get there in time. When I first met her, all those years ago, Robin was so traumatized she couldn’t speak. These days she just has trouble speaking up.”

“Are you trying to pave the path to divorce?”

Apparently Donny had given up on the soft approach. “You’ve really picked up big-time on this little drama, haven’t you?”

“You and I have worked together for five years. I know what makes you tick. And I hear ticking.”

“If you really knew what made me tick you would have said goodbye a long time ago.”

“I may not know every detail, but I do know you. Nobody’s as hard on you as you are on yourself.”

I finished the last of my muffin. I wanted another, but they’re vegan, not low cal, so I sadly dusted my hands over the plate. “I don’t like Kris all that well. He sucks the joy out of every room. But I don’t want Robin to be unhappy, either. I just want her to have the time to figure out her life. And I want her to remember she’s more than a wife and mother.”

“You’ve decided that’s not enough? Because those are fighting words for a lot of women.”

“No! I’m a big fan of mothers, never having had one who did anything more domestic than open a vial of crack. Robin’s done the domestic thing and loved it. I don’t begrudge her that. But she’s also immensely talented, and she deserves more from life than to continue being Kris’s house elf.”

“For what it’s worth I don’t think Kris sucks the joy out of a room, and I don’t think he sees her that way. He’s not one of those guys who launches himself into every conversation or regales everyone with stories about how important he is. He’s thoughtful and serious, but I think he was shaken by the accident. He couldn’t take his eyes off Robin at the table the other night. And I think he’s the kind of guy who closes in on himself when he’s in turmoil. For that matter, she does the same thing.”

“When did you become a psychologist?”

“When I came on board as your manager.” He winked. “It’s a job requirement. A necessity for survival.”

Unwillingly I smiled. “What else do we need to talk about?”

“I’ve got a list, but let’s take a walk on the beach first. You game?”

I tried to remember if Donny and I had ever taken a walk together just for fun. Fun was intriguing and a good delaying tactic. “I have sand pails for shells if you find anything to collect. This is the best shelling beach in North America.”

“I might. I have a niece who loves pretty shells.”

“You have a niece?” I wondered why he had never mentioned her before.

“I’ll tell you all about Jenny, unless you think it will destroy my mystique.”

I got to my feet. “You have no mystique, and it’s a deal. Besides if we take a walk, I can have another muffin.”

“Let’s walk far enough for two.”

That was almost too much pleasure to imagine. “You’ve got a deal.”

8

Kris

When I was a teenager and wanted to sneak out of the house on a school night to be with my friends, I tiptoed shoeless to our creaky front door. Then I waited for some blast of neighborhood noise, a car passing with its stereo blaring, sirens or a truck rumbling along the main street a block away. The moment I had cover I opened the door just enough to squeeze through and stepped out to the porch, where I pulled on my shoes before I headed down the street.

I was seventeen the first and last time I was caught. I returned from a night out to find my father in the living room reading a month-old issue of Lidové Noviny, “the People’s Newspaper,” sent by a friend from the country that was still called Czechoslovakia, although not for much longer.

My parents came to the United States during the Prague Spring, when the Soviets marched into Czechoslovakia and stamped out budding reforms. My father, Gustav—Gus—was a leader in the artists’ community, and his paintings were political in nature, which meant he was in danger. He, my mother, Ida, and sister, Lucie, escaped and eventually made their way to Cleveland, Ohio, where I was born.

On this night he looked up from that nostalgic taste of the country he had been forced to leave and pulled his glasses to the tip of his nose to see me more clearly. “You won’t do this again, Kristoff, correct?”

I remember considering. Sneaking out was one thing, but lying to my parents another.

“I would not like to buy a padlock for our door,” he said, while the moral implications were still racing through my mind. “In case of fire, that could be troublesome.”

I made my case. “I work hard at school, Táta. I’m on the forensics team and the editor of the yearbook. I’ll probably get a college scholarship that pays all my expenses.” To my credit I didn’t add the obvious, that a scholarship was the only way I would get a higher education.

“All this is true,” my father said in his lightly accented English. Unlike my mother he had studied the language before fleeing the country of his birth. Her English came after intensive study here, and Maminka still speaks Czech at home and anywhere else it’s understood.

“I need to have a little fun,” I whined.

“In a car coming home with other boys who have had too much to drink?”

“I walked home.”

He nodded. I remember thinking I was gazing into a mirror or a time machine, because someday I would look much the same. Except for straighter hair and darker eyes I strongly resemble Gustav Lenhart.

“Fun is good,” he said. “We need fun. I am too serious. I know this. I take life too serious. I take myself too serious. I am afraid sometimes I have passed this on to my children.”

“Let tonight be proof you haven’t.”

He laughed. He continued as he preceded me up the stairs. My father has a deep rumbling laugh, and despite taking the world seriously, he still laughs frequently.

He wasn’t laughing a few minutes ago when I hung up from our transatlantic telephone call.

This afternoon as I prepared to leave our suite of offices I didn’t have my shoes in my hand, but I might as well have. I was making a concerted effort not to alert anybody I was leaving before six. Robin had scheduled two housekeeper applicants to interview before dinner. She’d asked me to try to get home to meet them so I could tell her my preference. She’s already done all the footwork, checked references, conducted initial interviews.

Frankly I couldn’t care less whom she chooses. I don’t want any stranger in my house. At the same time I want her to see I’m involved in decisions about our family. Robin has exaggerated my lack of involvement, built it up until it’s now an insurmountable wall between us. Not that she doesn’t have anything to go on. I work long hours, and the nature of my job means I’m at the mercy of our senior partners and clients. Nobody gets ahead at a law firm by saying no, so I can’t always be counted on to arrive home when she wants me to.

The flip side is that in the long run, all this work will be worth it. I made partner at thirty-three, and my star is rising due to hard work and good decisions, but being a partner doesn’t mean my job’s secure. Until I move up to the next level, I’m really just a glorified associate, only I’m paid more. The minute the firm believes I’m letting them down, my rising star becomes a meteor crashing to earth.

I had almost made it down the plushly carpeted hallway to the door leading outside to the elevator when Larry Buffman saw me.

I waited as he approached. He spoke when he was still a few yards away. “I was just on my way to your office, Kris.”

Buff is a nice guy, the senior partner I most often work with. He’s pushing sixty but still filled with energy and savvy. He’s also on his third wife, but not of the trophy variety. Lee was his high school sweetheart, and they found each other again at their thirtieth college reunion. His first wife died too young. His next marriage was short-lived and pure rebound. This one seems solid and happy.

Buff understands about marriage, but he’s never let that stop him from staying late. And he’s never let my marriage influence him to give me a pass, either.

He glanced at his watch. “Mervin Pedersen wants a conference call in fifteen minutes. For the record, he says he likes you and wants you in court, so he wants you on the call. I told him that was our plan all along.”

Hearts don’t sink. It’s physically impossible. On the other hand, they sometimes feel as if they do. Witness mine.

I nodded as if I was happy at this news. “So he’s determined to go ahead with suing the FDA?”

“He’s decided to let us handle whatever we decide together. This could be worth a lot of money to the firm, and I plan to let you bill for a majority of the hours. That should provide the boost you need.”

I knew what boost Buff was talking about. The next step in my career is a promotion to equity partner, where I’ll share in the firm’s profits, resulting in a significant increase in compensation, as well as attain a new level of job security. I’m young for this, and to get there I have to prove once and for all that I can bring major income into the firm and have every intention of continuing to do so until I drop dead at my desk.

Buff tilted his balding head. “Were you heading somewhere?”

“Robin wanted me to come home and help pick a new housekeeper, but we both know she’ll pick the one she likes best anyway.”

“Wise man. She’ll understand if you stay later?”

I nodded. She would understand. She wouldn’t agree, but she would understand what was behind my choice. I’d told her often enough, especially lately.

Buff was nodding along with me, and we probably looked like a couple of bobblehead dolls. “When I had to work late as a young man I had a system. I added up the hours when I should have been home with Nan, my first wife, multiplied by ten and sent flowers worth that much. Or sometimes I took her to 1789 in Georgetown when the figure got high enough. If I tried that with Lee she would divorce me. She can’t be bribed or cajoled.”

Lee Buffman has a lot in common with my wife.

“Robin’s going out of town to work for the next few months,” I said, since letting Buff know right now might cushion the blow when I started leaving work earlier. “She has an opportunity she can’t afford to miss.”

“Tell me again what she does? Something to do with flowers, right?”

I managed not to wince. “The garden’s more of a hobby. She’s a photographer, a photojournalist.” I realized he needed a little more, and I’m not ashamed to brag about my wife. “That’s how we met back in 2000, during the Gore-Bush election recount. She was there as a freelancer taking photos. One of them made its way to U.S. News & World Report. She’s had others in Time, People.” That last, of course, was a photo spread of Cecilia.

“You have young children.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not that young. Ten and twelve. I may be working from home a bit more than usual in the next few months, but we’re hiring the housekeeper to take up the slack.”

“Slack doesn’t begin to cover it, Kris. If I was lucky I saw my children on weekends. Then, by the time they hit puberty, they weren’t around on weekends anymore. Now I have grandchildren I rarely see.” He paused, looked wistful just long enough, and then grinned. “Truth is, I never did like little kids all that much.”

I laughed, because whether he liked kids or not, the story, like all Buff’s stories, was purely for effect, one of his friendly little object lessons. They worked especially well in a courtroom.

“I need you for that call,” he said, getting back to business. “And you need to be there for your own reasons.”

“I’ll call Robin and let her know.”

He clapped me on the back. “Good man.”

In my office I loosened my tie, a Father’s Day gift last summer from Pet and Nik. If you look closely you see that the pattern is actually hands clasped, dozens in each row, but from a distance it looks like just another geometric exercise. Last week Robin told me the tie is like life. You have to examine both carefully to see how closely woven we humans are, but the truth is always right there if we look for it.

Robin isn’t particularly philosophical, or at least she wasn’t. Nothing is quite the way it used to be before she began the slow crawl toward her fortieth birthday. How much of that was a factor in her decision to follow Cecilia around the country? How much was Talya’s death or her own brush with it? I guess it hardly matters.

I dialed our home phone and let it ring repeatedly. If she was in the garden it might take her a few moments to get to her feet and inside, find where she’d left it and answer. I was about to try her cell, even though she rarely remembers to carry it, when she picked up.

“Kris? Are you in the car?”

That was becoming as common a salutation as “hello.”

“I wish. I got caught just as I was walking out. I doubt I’ll get out of here in the next hour. Can you go ahead without me? I’ll just have to trust your judgment on who to hire.”

She ignored that. “I just hung up with your mother.”

I put the phone on speaker and my head in my hands. “I was going to tell you about that tonight.”

“You canceled the trip to Prague? Without talking to me first?”

“I wanted to make sure I could actually get most of our money back before I told you. By the time I talked to somebody at the airlines it didn’t make sense to do anything but cancel. The rep was willing to bend a few rules and help us, and I wasn’t sure the next one would be so accomodating.”

“Ida says you have to prepare for a trial? She’s very unhappy. She called me to see if there was anything I could do.” Robin gave a humorless laugh. “That was the only funny part of the call.”

I let that pass. “If everything goes well maybe we can get over there in the spring for a few days.”

“But Lucie’s whole family will be there at Christmas. Last week your mother emailed a list of places she and your father want to take us while we’re all together, places your family came from, elderly relatives we’ll only meet this once. This means everything to them, especially Gus. He’s seventy-two, and he needs you to see him as a success, Kris. He left everything behind when he fled, including his best chance to be an artist people will remember. Now he’s getting a little of the recognition he deserves at last. He needs you to see that before he dies.”

For a woman who had once refused to express herself, Robin had come a long way. “Do we have to do this over the phone?”

“Please reconsider.”

“It’s not just the trial. With you leaving I’m going to be out of the office more. I can’t afford ten days away, even over the holidays.”

“You’re blaming this on me?” She sounded incredulous.

“No, it’s just a fact. If you go, even if we hire Mary Poppins, I’ll still be away from my desk more than usual.” I thought about the conversation I’d just had. “And now it’s more crucial than ever for me to perform at top speed.”

“If I go?”

“The timing couldn’t be worse for me.”

The line was silent a moment. “Let me ask, then. Are you saying that if I stay, you’ll take the time at Christmas, and we’ll fly to the Czech Republic to be with your family the way we planned?”

I’ve had to make a lot of decisions I don’t like lately, and I’m not always happy with the man I’ve become. But one thing I’m not is a blackmailer.

“I’m not saying that. I can’t go away no matter what. It’s true your leaving would have made going harder, but it’s the trial that makes it impossible.”

“Glad to hear it. For the record, I wasn’t going to accept the blame and stay home.”

“Are we done?”

“Not quite. I’ve been waffling. I got the tentative filming schedule today. No matter how much I don’t want to, I’ll have to miss Pet’s big piano recital. And neither of the housekeepers I’m interviewing is interested in attending Nik’s soccer games.”

“Welcome to the too-busy-at-work club.”

“But the difference between us? I would never, under any circumstances, miss an occasion as important as the Christmas trip. This is one of the most memorable moments in the life of your family, and you’re not going to be there to share it.”

“You know what? You’re blowing the whole thing out of proportion because you never had a real family of your own or memorable moments.” The moment the words emerged, I wished I could crawl under the desk and bang my head. “Look, that sounds a lot worse than I meant it to. I just mean I had lots of memorable moments when I was growing up, and this is just one more.”

“Oh, I heard you. I was waffling a little, but now, you know what? I’m not. I have your permission to hire the housekeeper I like best?”

“Do what you want.”

“I’d suggest eating dinner before you come home because I’m not cooking tonight. I’m going to let the kids sit in on the interviews, and we can make our choice over dinner. See, I actually do have a family, and I’m going to make a memorable moment with them on my own. Without you. You have a nice evening.”

She hung up and I stared out the window that had been my reward when I made partner the first time. How much bigger would the next one be?

Would it be worth everything I would have to do to earn it?

9

Robin

Of the two women I interviewed for the second time, Elena Martinez was my favorite, and the hands-down favorite of Nik and Pet. I offered her the job, and she accepted.

Elena is young and attractive, with curly dark hair that bounces over her cheeks and eyes the color of cocoa. She’s also the single mother of a four-year-old son, which might be a complicating factor, but Elena’s own mother lives near her apartment, and Elena says her mother will take Raoul if he’s too sick for day care.

Her references are excellent, too excellent for a temporary job. It turns out that when this position ends, her plan is to move to California to be near Raoul’s father. She doesn’t want her son growing up without a role model.

I can certainly relate to that.

Elena arrived about an hour ago to go over everything one more time and meet Kris. While we waited for him we went over schedules and food preferences. I showed her where to find every cooking and cleaning utensil, as well as my extensive lists of the children’s friends and the professionals we use for everything from steam cleaning carpets to filling cavities. I’ll carry my cell phone, but I want as few questions as possible.

Tomorrow the airport shuttle picks me up at the crack of dawn. I could have asked Kris to drive me, but starting tomorrow he has new responsibilities. Somebody will have to get the children to school every morning. Most days Elena won’t come in until noon.

Now Elena and I were strolling through the yard, and she was admiring the last gasp of my roses. “Your garden is so pretty.”

“The landscaping crew will come and do whatever’s needed. If you look out the window and see men in bright blue shirts mowing and trimming, pay no mind.”

“That’s good, because I don’t know a thing about plants.”

“And I know way too much, as you can see.”

I would miss my garden. Late October was definitely not a peak, but I still had the roses in bloom and clouds of windflowers, along with bright Peruvian lilies and late-blooming daisies.

“Can we ever have too much to love?” she asked.

“I used to have garden parties out here with my friends. Little tables with sandwiches and cakes, everyone in skirts and floppy hats. Silly but fun.”

“No more?”

“Our children grew—we got too busy.” I thought of Talya, who had always helped me pour tea. “Some of us are gone now.”

“New friends will take their place.”

In this case I knew better. As I had predicted, the Weinberg house was already on the market, and no matter who moved in, things in the neighborhood would never be the same. Michael had already closed on a new town house in our school district, and he would probably be moved in by the time I returned. When I had gently questioned his haste, he’d claimed Channa was looking forward to the change, as well, but I wondered. At the conversation’s end he had offered me Talya’s dressing table. I hope he hasn’t banished everything that’s a reminder of the woman he and his daughter have lost. I’ll cherish the table and keep it for Channa, just in case.

“Do you have any questions?” I asked. “About anything we went over?”

“Mr. Lenhart knows I must pick up Raoul from day care at six-thirty? They will charge for every minute I’m late.”

“If something does happen, you’ll bill him for those minutes, right?”

“I will, but my time with Raoul is precious. I don’t want to miss any of it.”

“Don’t forget, in an emergency you can call the women I’ve highlighted on my list.”

She shook her head. “That will be Mr. Lenhart’s job.”

I realized how far ahead of me she was. “You’re right. If he has an emergency, he can fix it. The list is just in case he doesn’t.”

She smiled, showing pretty, even teeth, but I thought the smile said, he’d better.

As if in emphasis, Elena glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, but I need to leave in a few minutes.”

Luckily Kris took that moment to walk out to the back deck, then down the steps toward us.

I smiled at him when he reached us, but his was only for show. He’s still angry with me, and I try not to be reminded of my grandmother, whose anger destroyed my childhood. Luckily I’m an adult, and this time I haven’t lost the power of speech.

I made the introduction, and Elena offered her hand. Kris’s smile was warmer when he focused it on her, as if he realized she wasn’t the culprit.

“I hope you’ll enjoy working for us,” he said.

“Miss Robin made a list of all your expectations, Mr. Lenhart.”

“Call me Kris.”

She smiled, but I knew that he would be Mr. Kris no matter what he told her. When I asked Elena to call me Robin, she’d told me that in Colombia, where she had lived for the first part of her life, there was a useful line between domestic help and employers, and she planned to observe it here. In turn I had told Nik and Pet to call her Miss Elena.

“Do you have any questions for me?” he asked, as I had earlier.

“I explained to Miss Robin I have to leave here at six, not a moment later.”

“Pet and Nik should be fine for a little while if I’m not home right on time.”

She was still smiling politely. “I can’t leave them without supervision. If there was a problem, I would blame myself.”

Kris looked taken aback. “Could you just leave them for a few minutes while you fetch your son and bring him here?”

“His day care is half an hour away.”

He recovered. “I’ll do my best.”

She examined him much the way I remember examining algae under my ninth grade microscope. “I’m sure your best is perfect.” She said goodbye and left to pick up her son. Kris watched her go.

“You couldn’t find somebody more flexible?” he asked after she disappeared from sight.

“Kris, if you really can’t get home on time, feel free to hire someone to come in when Elena leaves. But the other woman I interviewed refused to stay beyond five-thirty. I bought you an extra half hour to make it back from work.”

“We’re paying her enough to make some exceptions.”

“She has a life and a son.” I couldn’t help adding, “Sometimes there’s not enough money in the world to convince a parent anything in life is more important than their child.”

“And apparently sometimes there is. You know, like a job you can’t say no to?” He let that rest a moment before he added. “So what about your life?”

He had turned my salvo around and aimed it right at me. “Me? I’ve been busy setting everything up to make our transition as easy as possible. So I’d appreciate a moratorium on criticism. See how Elena does. If you’re not happy, feel free to make arrangements that suit you better.”

“Are you packed and ready?”

“I guess I was saying goodbye to the garden.”

“It’s on its way out, isn’t it?”

I wanted to stand here with Kris’s arms around me and start our goodbyes. I wanted us to forgive each other and move on. Distance in miles doesn’t have to mean emotional distance. I’m not leaving forever. But he was a yard away, arms folded against his chest. The signs were clear he didn’t want to move closer.

“It’s on the way out. I’m glad I’ll be back in time to get it in shape for the spring.”

“I wonder—would you have been as willing to go off with Cecilia if the garden was in full bloom?”

I watched my windflowers dance in the breeze. “Please don’t make this opportunity sound like an extended vacation and shopping trip with my sister, okay? I’m jump-starting my career.”

“You could do that right here.”

“Which part of ‘this is important to me’ eludes you, Kris?”

“How much of ‘you need to spend more time with your kids’ factors into your decision, Robin?”

“You do need to. While they’re still around.”

“Wouldn’t it have been simpler to just plan a family vacation?”

I watched as he realized what he’d said. Without thinking he’d just thrown himself on a bomb that was about to scatter body parts to the four winds.

“We did,” I said. “Just ask your parents how well that turned out.”

* * *

Pet’s room is painted a color our painter calls kimono purple, as luscious as a Concord grape. She has a fluffy white area rug and billowy curtains, and she collects metallic gold accessories. Picture frames, a spray-painted bamboo tray on top of her white dresser, a beige bedspread covered with gold and silver flowers pulled neatly over her trundle bed. She’s ten. I look forward to seeing her talent for design blossom, because the room is beautiful, and all the ideas were hers.

Ida believes Pet’s artistic gift comes from Gus, who is far too modest to say so. Pet likes art classes, but right now her first love is set design. The theater camp she’s attended for several years recognized her talents this past summer and put her to work designing the Emerald City.

When I went to say good-night—we no longer call this tucking in—my daughter was on her knees saying bedtime prayers. Kris’s mother is Catholic, and Kris attended Catholic school as a boy, Notre Dame as an undergraduate and finally Georgetown Law School. We were married in his family’s church and I converted afterward. I wanted us to attend church as a family, and we do. On Easter and Christmas Eve.

At the moment Nik has no interest in religion, but Pet, whose given name, Petra, is a feminine version of Peter, takes religion seriously. She’s already talking about attending a Catholic high school in nearby Fairfax when the time comes.

I waited until she crossed herself and got into bed before I went to perch on the edge beside her. I ask the same question every night. “Homework all done and everything ready for the morning?”

“Who’s going to ask that when you’re not here?”

“Well, Daddy, for one. And I’ll call most nights to ask you myself.”

“That won’t be the same.”

“Change isn’t bad—it’s just different.”

“Different isn’t always good.”

I reminded her of a promise I had already made. “Don’t forget, I’ll come home whenever I can, but the moment the timing works out, I’m going to whisk you to wherever we’re filming so you can watch. That’ll be fun, don’t you think?”

“Nik won’t come? You promise?”

“Nik will come at a different time.”

“Daddy doesn’t want you to leave.”

Children pick up on everything. “Daddy’s going to miss me, too,” I said.

“He doesn’t want to do the things you do for us.”

“I think he’s a little afraid he won’t do them well enough, don’t you?”

She considered. Then she shook her head, her long brown hair fanning over the pillow. “He’s probably right.”

“You have to help him, Pet. Let Daddy know if he forgets something, and don’t expect him to be perfect right off the bat, okay?”

I didn’t want to drag this out. The longer I stayed, the more my own ambivalence would infect the room. I love my children, and spending this much time away suddenly seemed impossible. Still, my childhood was one long series of goodbyes, and I know how to make them.

I stood and bent over. “I know you’re ten, but may I kiss you good-night anyway?”

She sat up and hugged me hard as I kissed her cheek and stroked her hair.

“I love you, and I’ll be home for Thanksgiving if not before. We’ll do all our favorites. If you want, you can make the pumpkin pie all by yourself.”

She sniffed, and I kissed her again. Then I left the room without looking back. I learned that in foster care, too.

Nik’s room was across the hall from Pet’s. About three months ago he push-pinned a sign to his door, a skull and crossbones and the words Stay Out On Pain of Death. Kris wanted to remove the sign, but we aren’t raising a serial killer. We’re raising a normal twelve-year-old boy who values a little privacy in a life filled with family demands and social interactions. I compromised and let him have the skull and crossbones but not the threat.

I knocked. Almost a minute passed, but after my second attempt he mumbled something close to “come in.”

“Just saying good-night,” I said after I opened the door. While Pet keeps her room so neat it looks as if she’s planning a photo shoot for Architectural Digest, Nik’s is always strewn with projects and clothing. My son’s childhood has been spent flitting from one great idea to another. He takes up and abandons hobbies at an awesome rate. He collected coins, built entire villages out of Popsicle sticks, created sculptures from clay, raised gerbils and kept a garter snake named Walt, who happily moved back to my garden after a month in captivity.

The one hobby that seems to have ridden the wave is music. My son’s gray walls are covered with rock-star posters, most signed to Nikola Lenhart from friends of Cecilia’s. He has an electronic keyboard on a stand in the corner and a guitar in the opposite corner. So far, unlike Pet, who is making steady progress on the piano, Nik has shown not an ounce of talent. But Cecilia has pointed out how many music industry jobs only require a love of music and an assortment of other abilities. When Donny was here after the accident, he and Nik chatted about the skills needed to manage an artist or an act. Nik looked a little interested, which, these days, means he was totally captivated.

I saw he was sitting at his desk wearing an old T-shirt and pajama bottoms with tattered cuffs, and I joined him, peeking over his shoulder. “Homework all done?”

“Everything but this stupid essay.”

Nik’s a good student and likes his classes. When he momentarily forgets he doesn’t like me anymore, we actually enjoy discussing what he’s learning.

“The one about talking to people whose political ideas are different from yours?”

“Yeah, how lame is that. Like I care.”

I messed up his hair. “You’d better care.”

He swatted my hand away. “Miss Greene wants me to say I should listen with respect and talk about my feelings.”

“But you don’t want to do that?”

“I’d rather tell an idiot to stop spouting garbage and then go talk to somebody who has a brain.”

“That’ll get you an F on the essay and no friends, because eventually you’ll run out of people who agree with you.”

He shrugged, but I’m not worried. Nik will find a way to complete the assignment that works for him. And what twelve-year-old boy wants to politely agree with anybody? Especially his mother?

I changed the subject. “I’m leaving early tomorrow. You know I’ll miss you, right?”

He shrugged again. “Miss Elena says she’ll make tacos.”

“I bet they’ll be amazing.”

“Maybe she won’t try to sneak in vegetables, like you do.”

“That’s me, sneak extraordinaire.”

“You don’t have to call all the time.”

“I’ll remember that. Maybe I’ll just call once a day.”

“Aunt Cecilia told me she couldn’t do this without you, and she hoped I didn’t mind loaning you to her.”

I was touched Cecilia had managed to get Nik aside and tell him that on the one afternoon she was with us. “Do you? Mind, I mean?”

“Why should I?”

“Such an excellent question.” I straightened, and then before he could escape I launched myself at him for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I love you more than roses in spring and sunsets in summer.”

He pushed me away. “Stop that!”

“Your turn.”

“We haven’t done that since forever.”

“Your turn.”

He groaned. “I love you more than pizza and orange juice, okay? Jeez!”

“That’ll do. Pepperoni pizza?”

“Leave me alone.”

I did, but reluctantly. A firstborn child holds a special place in any mother’s heart. Except apparently my mother’s. And Cecilia’s.

When I got to our room Kris was nowhere in sight, and I hoped he was on his way upstairs to say good-night to our children. I took a shower and washed my hair since there would be no time in the morning.

Sometimes showers are the only time I can think without interruption. Now as I lathered and rinsed it seemed to me that this entire trip had moved forward without me. From the beginning I’d been pushed and pulled between Cecilia and Kris, with very little time to face my own feelings. I had been so busy responding to everyone else that I had pushed down the fear that had built steadily inside me. Finally it was erupting into panic. Logic dictated I should be sure I was doing the right thing before I got on that plane tomorrow, even if backing down at this late date created myriad problems for everyone.

How could I leave my family? How could I expose my marriage to greater stress? Did I really believe I still had the talent to pull this off?

Did I really want to face Cecilia’s past and the role I had played in it?

The water had grown cold when I finally stepped out. No matter how frightened I was, I was on a path now, and I saw no way to turn around. But this was not the way a journey should begin.

As I dressed for bed I forced myself to concentrate on the mundane. My suitcase and camera bag were already downstairs. I had been told to pack light, that our hotels would do our laundry and cleaning, but I had the added burden of my equipment to drag along with me. When photography was my full-time job I developed a tried-and-true system for travel. A knit dress, tights and black flats, two pairs of lightweight pants, three shirts ranging from semidressy to casual and a vest with multiple pockets. Quick-dry underwear I can wash out and hang up at night is a given, and two plain T-shirts I can sleep in or wear if necessary. For this trip I added a fleece cardigan and a heavier waterproof jacket I would carry on the airplane.

My photography bag contains cameras—including a new Canon I bought for this occasion—an assortment of lenses, filters, cables, memory cards, batteries and more. My second carry-on is a backpack with my computer, tablet and personal items, but it’s large enough to hold camera equipment if necessary later on.

Our first stop will be western Pennsylvania, the town where Cecilia was born. We probably won’t be there long, but the temperature will be in the forties at night. At this point the next destination is still under discussion.

I was about to give up on Kris and try to get some sleep when he finally came in and closed the door behind him.

I sat up. “Is Nik still working on his essay?”

“I don’t know. He was in bed.”

“You’ll need to check with him tomorrow. It’s due at the end of the week.”

“I’ll put that on my list.”

His tone didn’t bode well. “He’ll be glad to talk about the essay. We talked a little tonight. He’s trying to figure out what he should say, that’s all. Maybe you can help.”

“I’m going to take a shower.”

He made a wide berth around the bed, as if he was afraid I might leap out and grab him.

“You could wait,” I said.

“I’ll be busy in the morning.”

“I mean wait a little while.” I patted the bed beside me, willing to take a risk because Kris’s arms around me tonight would go a long way to quieting my fears. “Wouldn’t you rather snuggle and maybe say goodbye properly?”

He finally looked at me. “You’re getting up early. You ought to go to sleep.”

“I can sleep on the plane.”

“I’m not in the mood, Robin. Do you know that in order to get home on time to meet Elena I had to blow off a meeting? I’ve been on the telephone all evening catching up with what I missed.”

“Okay.” I turned away from him. I knew better than to say more because at moments like these words are dangerous weapons.

He spoke to my back. “I don’t want to be this angry. For the record.”

“Does that mean you think you’re overreacting or that it’s my fault?”

“I wish I knew.”

I rolled over again and faced him. “I’ll be gone for a while on this first leg. Do you really want to say goodbye this way?”

“Remember me? The guy who doesn’t want to say goodbye at all?”

“For the record, in case you’re still mulling over your choices? You’re overreacting.”

“Maybe so, but how much worse could your timing be?”

“For which of us? The one who’s trying to figure out her life by doing something other than wait on her family hand and foot? Or the one who can’t figure out how to incorporate that same family into his world?”

“Look, I know the accident has a lot to do with this.”

“Not as much as you think. It just sped up the process.”

“Maybe I’ll get used to seeing you walk out the door, Robin. Maybe I’ll even start to look forward to it. Who knows?”

My voice remained steady, but only with great effort. “Could be. Maybe you’ll find having a paid housekeeper is every bit as good as having me. And maybe I’ll find that having no husband isn’t all that different from having you.”

We stared at each other. The weapons had been launched. Maybe both of us were torn and wishing we could take back our words.

Or maybe that was just me.

I turned away again, and moments later I heard the bathroom door close behind him.

10

Kris

Robin’s gone. I had counted on waking up to say goodbye before her airport shuttle arrived. I wanted to wish her well and restore at least a fraction of goodwill, but apparently I lay awake for too much of the night thinking of exactly what I would say and how I would absolve us both. Midnight problem solving takes a toll. I didn’t hear her get up, much less go downstairs. Now she’s gone, and frankly I wouldn’t even be awake right now if Channa Weinberg wasn’t standing in the driveway next door sobbing.

Channa, who lost her mother less than a month ago, a woman I admired and whose friendship I enjoyed. The same woman who took the place of my wife on the night of the accident.

My wife? While Talya left this earth without a goodbye, this morning Robin left our home without learning how much she would be missed, how glad I am that she survived the accident, how sorry I am that I’ve been acting like an asshole ever since.

Now I heard Michael comforting his daughter, although at this distance the words weren’t clear. But as I slid out of bed and started down the hall to wake my children, I wondered what I would say in the same circumstances.

Michael probably understands what Channa needs, and acts accordingly, despite his own grief. Then there’s me. The man who fully intended to be a hands-on father and found that eking out the time was a lot harder than he expected. Of course I had the perfect stand-in. Robin is a wonderful mother who has always been right here so I can be a wonderful wage earner. And now she’s changed the rules and taken off to leave me in charge of both.

The first glimmer of anger reappeared, and I welcomed it. I didn’t have enough time to be angry at myself and Robin this morning. I made the obvious choice. Suddenly I missed my wife less.

Pet was already up, which I should have expected. Fully dressed for school, she opened her door and stared at me standing bleary-eyed in her doorway in my pajamas.

“Doesn’t your bus come soon?” I wasn’t quite sure what time it was because I hadn’t checked the clock. And strike two? The bus schedule was posted downstairs.

Clearly, from Pet’s expression, my IQ had dropped a few points this morning. “I have to eat, don’t I?”

“Exactly what are you wearing?”

My daughter isn’t sophisticated enough to hide guilt. She has fair skin like her mother, and now I watched the color in her cheeks deepen before she looked down. “Everybody wears skirts like this.”

The skirt barely covered my daughter’s tush. Maybe everybody wore them, but I was pretty sure that unless they were auditioning for a reality show called Preteen Hookers, they wore them with something else.

I pointed toward her closet. “Wear something under it or change.”

“Daddy!”

“It’s fall. You’ll freeze, and besides you’ll spend the whole day pulling your skirt down. If they even let you stay in school.”

“But I told you, everybody wears skirts this short.”

“Does your mom let you wear that skirt to school without something under it?” The “something,” whatever it was called, wasn’t in my vocabulary. I would Google this mystery later so our next conversation could be more precise.

She didn’t answer.

“Go.” I pointed again.

“Fine, but I’m going to be late!”

That was already clear. I headed down the hall to pull Nik out of bed. As expected, he was still sleeping. The one thing I remembered about the bus schedule was that Nik’s bus came later, because middle school started later. If I was lucky at least one of my children would board a school bus today and not require a personal chauffeur.

Except that, of course, that would mean Nik would be here alone after I left with Pet. Could I trust my increasingly rebellious son to get to his bus stop on time. Or at all? I really didn’t know.

“What do you want for breakfast?” I asked on my way out of his room.

“What I always have.”

“And that would be?”

“What Mom fixes.”

“Then I’ll fix whatever I feel like fixing unless you give me a better clue.”

“Waffles.”

Robin had pointed out the frozen waffles in our freezer. “You want sausage or bacon?”

“I don’t eat pork. Do you know what pig farms do to the environment?”

“You can tell me all about it some other time.”

Downstairs I found the waffles, read the directions and slid them into the toaster. I took out cereal and milk, bananas and berries, juice. I located the syrup and butter, and had everything on the counter by the time Pet arrived wearing something that stretched to her ankles under the skirt. I hoped she didn’t strip off whatever it was as soon as she was out of sight.

As I got bowls and plates my cell phone buzzed. Pet had already informed me she liked toast and strawberry jam with her cereal, so I had popped out Nik’s waffles to replace them with bread.

“Can you pencil in a breakfast meeting first thing?” Buff said without the usual pleasantries. He named three other attorneys on our floor and a local coffee shop. “Everybody else can be there.”

I did calculations in my head. I had to dress and drive Pet to school. I had to figure out what to do about Nik and whether I could safely leave him here to do what he was supposed to. Then I had to drive into work. Since that would be later than usual, I would be hampered by rush hour.

Trying to do the impossible wouldn’t win me points with Buff, because clearly I would fail. And in any law office, it’s all about results.

I told him the truth, then I finished with, “But I’ll try to get there by the end of the meeting and someone can catch me up.”

“Robin left this morning?”

“It may take a day or two to get into the swing of our new schedule.”

“We’ll do what we can without you today.”

I didn’t miss the slight emphasis on “today.”

I called upstairs to Nik, who didn’t answer.

“He’s always slow,” Pet said through a mouthful of toast. “Sometimes Mommy has to go up and shoo him downstairs.”

“Does your mother leave him here to catch his bus if she has to take you to school?”

“I don’t know. She always makes sure I’m on time for my bus.”

“You’re old enough to take on that responsibility, Pet. You can set your alarm.”

“Like you set yours this morning?” She cocked her head in question.

“Let’s just pretend that once upon a time you missed the bus. Let’s say you fell and skinned your knee, and by the time it was all washed and bandaged and you had changed your clothes, the bus had left without you.”

She waited.

“Now your mom has to take you to school, right?”

She shrugged.

“So, would she leave Nik here to finish getting breakfast and out to the bus on time?”

“Are you kidding?”

I had been afraid of that. I tried to sound sure of myself, responsible, in control. “Everybody’s going to have to pull their own weight from now on.”

“You mean like deciding what we can wear to school and stuff?”

Pet had always been so much easier to parent than Nik that I don’t think I’d ever noticed that under that sweet smile a demon was lurking.

Nik slouched down the stairs just as Pet finished her cereal and went to brush her teeth.

“I’m going to drive your sister to school. Then I’ll come back and make sure you’re all set,” I told him.

He put his hand over his heart and widened his eyes. “Gee, you’ll trust me for the what, twenty minutes it takes to get there and back?”

Since I didn’t trust myself to answer, I left him to eat alone, and went upstairs to shave and dress for what was clearly going to be a very long day.

11

Robin

Late to work. Sorry you didn’t get me up before you left. I assume Pet’s not allowed to wear a short skirt over bare legs. K

As love notes go, Kris’s email sucked. I slipped my cell phone in the pocket of my jeans in case more recriminations were on the way. There was no telling what Kris was really sorry about on this first morning of our new life. That we hadn’t said a fond goodbye? That he had overslept and wanted me to take responsibility for that as well as everything else?

And Pet? The handwriting was already on that wall. Our daughter was testing her father. I doubted this morning would be the last time.

Switching gears from loyal wife to career photographer, I felt disoriented, and I stopped to regroup. I think I’ve forgotten how overwhelming an airport can be. I should remember. In college I chased internships and visited Cecilia wherever she happened to be. After graduation I took a job with a charitable foundation that required me to travel internationally to photograph good works and horrifying tragedies.

These days I rarely fly without family. A few times I’ve visited Cecilia on my own, but mostly when I leave town my children are with me and we’re heading off on vacation. Kris joins us when and if he can, but I can’t remember the last time the two of us went somewhere by ourselves.

Newark Liberty International Airport reminds me of a science fiction space station or Tomorrowland at Disney World. Glass and lights, sky-high ceilings floating overhead and shining terrazzo floors underfoot. As I walked toward the gate where I was to meet Cecilia and everyone flying with us, I pretended I was on my way to accept a new command: six earth years exploring outer space with the crew of the Starship Enterprise. When we were growing up Cecilia and I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation whenever we were allowed to. Space catastrophes are often more palatable than real life.

I had been surprised to find I would be flying to Newark to meet the others before continuing on to Pittsburgh, and then to Uniontown for the night. Tomorrow we drive from there to Randolph Furnace in Fayette County, south of the city, which is Cecilia’s birthplace. I’m not sure why I wasn’t booked directly to Pittsburgh, but I’m sure this trip will be filled with surprises.

The usual number of people were milling at the gate when I arrived, camera bag hanging from my shoulder and backpack carefully balanced. I’m an out-of-practice sherpa, so I was happy to take a seat and set everything on the floor in front of me.

I was adjusting my load when a man took the seat beside me. I was so glad to be temporarily free of paraphernalia that I didn’t pay attention until he spoke.

“Cecilia sent me your bio. You’re Robin Lenhart, aren’t you?”

I realized Mick Bollard himself was sitting beside me. I smiled and offered my hand. “I’m such a groupie—I know who you are.”

His hand was broad and warm. “It looks like we’re the first ones here.”

“I had no idea you’d be on this flight, too.”

“I thought we might get some footage of the trip. Just in case it makes sense later, which it probably won’t.”

I was starstruck. I was sitting next to one of the best documentary filmmakers in the business. While I’ve never considered a similar career, I appreciate everything about the genre. Working next to Mick Bollard was as much of a draw as helping Cecilia face our past.

He was somewhere in his early fifties, with a mop of graying brown hair that curled over his nape and the tops of his ears, along with raisin-dark eyes and a warm smile. He was dressed as casually as I was—faded jeans, buttoned shirt, a light windbreaker.

He seemed to like what he saw, because his smile broadened. “I’m glad you’re coming along. I’m hoping you’ll answer some questions about Cecilia’s childhood.”

“On or off camera?”

“Up to you. It’s just that you seem to have lived through a lot of her foster-care experiences, too.”

We were interrupted by a teenager who took the seat next to Mick. “I found the trail mix you like. The one with the cashews and apricots.” She turned to me, leaned over and extended her hand. “I’m Fiona Bollard.”

“Fifi,” Mick said. “My lovely daughter. She’ll be traveling with us.”

Fiona was about fifteen, but already self-possessed enough to have extended her hand and held my gaze. She was a pretty girl, with hair the dark brown her father’s must have been and the same lively eyes. Her face was longer, though, and her lips were a small, perfect bow.

As if she was used to the next part, she explained her presence without being asked. “I’m homeschooled. Mick figures I’ll learn more on the road than I will in even the best private school.”

I noted the use of her father’s first name and that Fiona had attributed that sentiment to him, not to herself. I wondered how she felt about missing the chance for social interplay with her contemporaries.

Mick answered my unspoken question. “Fifi spends summers with her mom, and Glo gets her involved in all kinds of activities to make up for her gypsy life with me.”

“He just needs somebody to carry equipment.”

Mick slung his arm over his daughter’s shoulders. “Cheaper than another production assistant. You have children, don’t you, Robin?”

As I nodded I thought about my two and wondered how they would like to have Fiona’s life. If a dose of it would give them her relaxed confidence, I would be happy to yank them out of school for a few months.

We chatted a moment before another man approached. He was in his thirties, bearded and thin as a drinking straw. His hips were so narrow he had to be wearing suspenders under his sweatshirt, because I couldn’t imagine a belt that would hold up his jeans. Mick introduced him as Jerry, director of photography.

“Which means that on this leg he’ll be doing everything that involves a video camera. Jerry’s one of the best in the business, and we’re honored to have him.”

Jerry, who had a surprisingly deep voice, nodded to a group heading in our direction. “Looks like we’re about to start work.” As he spoke he flipped the locks on a wheeled case and pulled out a camera.

I know how much technology has changed my own field and was prepared for the changes in cinema cameras, but this one was so much smaller than I’d expected. Thumbelina had replaced King Kong.

There was no time to consider that further. The small group was attracting attention, and I saw that my sister was right in the middle of it.

Cecilia was flanked by Donny and another larger man in a sport coat who hadn’t been with her at my house. A pale blonde pixie in her twenties followed behind with a wheeled suitcase, but Cecilia herself was toting a faux-leather bag large enough for a weekend of travel. She wore faded jeans ripped at the knee, like the ones we had scored at church rummage sales back in the day. In contrast, the sparkly four-inch heels and boho-chic embroidered cape hanging casually over her shoulders would never have graced a table at First Baptist.

I started to move forward to greet her, but Mick was standing now, and he rested his hand on my arm.

“You’re the photographer today, right? Not the foster sister?”

“Sister,” I said automatically, and then chagrin filled me. “And of course you’re right. I need to get busy. This is going to take some getting used to.”

“No doubt. And for my part? Sister. I hear you.” Mick left to greet Cecilia.

As I grabbed my case and lifted out the best camera and lens to document this scene, more people recognized Cecilia and crowded in. I thought about Max Filstein and what he would say. Max is nearly always right, and this was turning out to be no exception. I probably wasn’t the best person for this job. Not only had I momentarily forgotten why I was here, but I hadn’t prepared my equipment. And even when I was organized and working on cue, could I be trusted to take the shots that were really needed? The ones that portrayed Cecilia in an unfavorable light? The ones where she was clearly tired, where she looked her full forty-two and then some? The ones where she exploded in anger or sobbed in despair?

Right now, after too many years away from the career I had loved so well, I felt like a mute eight-year-old again, an unloved and unwanted child who had been given a camera by a compassionate therapist and asked to take photos of the most important moments and people in her life.

Thirty years ago that camera, one of the first generation of disposables, had changed everything. Today I would take whatever photos were required. Because Cecilia and everything this trip represented were suddenly as important to me as almost anything I had ever done.

And once again, I wanted to make myself heard.

* * *

Having a superstar on board doesn’t work magic with the airlines. We sat on the tarmac for more than an hour while rain pelted our plane and ground crews unloaded and reloaded cargo. We were never told why.

Cecilia saw the delay as a public relations opportunity, and with the flight crew’s permission she went back into coach and shook hands with starstruck passengers, signed whatever they had handy, gave tips to three teens who had-rock star aspirations and serenaded an old man who swore he had every album she had ever made, including the vinyl of her debut album, Saint Cecilia.

Jerry took footage of the visit to coach, and when I was granted permission I took photos and had subjects sign a model release app on my phone in case one was necessary later. I planned to make extensive notes about what was happening in today’s photos and those I took later, so I could pass them on to the writer if a book really materialized.

None of it was easy for me. None of it seemed natural. I hoped that would change, because hesitation and second-guessing would affect my work.

By the time the plane took off, Cecilia had made two hundred friends who would recount this meeting for weeks to come.

“There are two kinds of performers,” she told me when she finally plopped back into her seat next to mine. I was sitting in first class, too, which I was pretty sure had more to do with being her sister than her photographer.

“What kind are you?” I asked.

“The kind who honestly likes her audience and wants to give them a thrill. The kind who hugs them tight when she can because life’s a bitch, and a little fun, a little glitter, makes it a lot easier. I have friends in the business who are so cushioned nobody gets close or feels close. They’re the performers who won’t let people take photos and Tweet during the show. And my God, video? YouTube scares them shitless. They never go into the audience to shake hands or chat. I drive security crazy, but I’d rather take a risk and be loved for it than be so safe nobody remembers my name.”

“Everyone on this plane knows your name, that’s for sure.”

“And so will their friends and their friends.”

“That’s a pretty big piece of yourself you doled out back there.”

Her smile was like a burst of sunshine. “Yes, wasn’t it?” She glanced at me. “I love it.”

She did, I could tell. She was glowing. Cecilia is never happier than when she’s the center of attention. Growing up, she had so rarely been seen that she was making up for it now. On the other hand, I consciously chose to continue watching life from the sidelines so I could put my own editorial spin on it with a camera.

“Will you ever get tired of this, do you think?” I asked.

My question sobered her. I love Cecilia’s profile, topped off today with an elaborate braided knot of glistening auburn hair. Even an old-fashioned paper silhouette of my sister would be expressive. She’s more than just a singer. She’s acted in some good movies and some not so good ones, but at no time on or off film is Cecilia’s face ever truly blank. I’m not sure we see what she’s really feeling, but we always see something.

“I get tired of being mobbed.” She turned away and closed her eyes. “I get tired of being grabbed and crowded. When I’m alone at home I really like the quiet and the space. I didn’t always. For a long time it gave me too much time to think.”

“And remember.”

“That, too. We’ll be doing a lot of that in the next weeks. I haven’t been back to Randolph Furnace since my mother left me at my grandparents’ house for almost a year. She came back and got me when I was maybe six, and that was that. I must have been six, because I started school in Pennsylvania. Unless they had kindergarten...”

“That’s one of the problems with our childhoods. Unless a social worker was around to document whatever was going on, we lost the details. Now it’s just vague memories.”

“You don’t have many of those.”

I had made sure of that. “You’ve never talked much about yours.”

“I’m foggy on dates, but I sure have memories.”

“Do you have any good ones of Pennsylvania?”

For a moment it seemed as if she didn’t want to answer, but then her shoulders lifted under the elaborate cape. “My grandparents. I loved them. Maybe that’s why I never went back to Randolph Furnace. They died while I was still a child, and by then the mine had closed and the town was practically deserted. I held dying against them, I guess. You know, dying when they knew I was out there somewhere in the world with crazy Maribeth.”

I knew the answer but asked a question to keep her talking. “Your grandfather was a miner?”

“Not the healthiest profession. As it turned out neither was construction, since that’s what killed my father.”

Cecilia’s father had died in his late teens, when she was still just a toddler. A beam fell on him and quickly destroyed their little family and her mother’s ability to cope. The irony? He had chosen construction instead of mining because it seemed safer.

I was worried. These weren’t good memories. “You’ll be okay going back tomorrow? Complete with film crew and me?”

“Tonight.”

I wondered what I had missed. “Tonight? Once we settle into the inn in Uniontown there’s a crew meeting to go over what we’ll be doing.” Mick had explained what would happen. Everything we would do each day would be covered at a meeting the night before, from a briefing on the topic to transportation arrangements, our roles, logistics for each location, what shots we would cover and estimated wrap time.

“Yes, I know. I’ll be briefed after the meetings on whatever I need to know.”

I continued. “So I was told that tonight we’d be going over details for filming in Randolph Furnace tomorrow and maybe the next day, depending on weather and whatever else happens.”

“That’s Mick’s plan. But I’ve made my own. I want to go back without the crew first.”

I was sure Mick wasn’t going to like that. The point was to document Cecilia’s initial reactions on film. Not leftovers or replays. Mick was after the truth, or as much of it as anyone ever knows.

“I won’t go to the house,” she said, as if she knew what I was thinking. “I just want to drive around town a little, get a feel for what it’s like now.”

“Why?”

“So I don’t turn tail and run.”

“Isn’t this going to be one of the easier places we visit?”

“The first time you do anything it’s never easy. Like sex. Remember? Or the first week of a diet? Or how about that first baby you pushed out? You were in labor for what, ten years?”

“It only felt like ten years.”

“Come with me. We’ll steal a car.” She laughed at the noise I made. “Actually we’ll take Wendy’s rental. She won’t tell because she thinks I’ll fire her if she disagrees with me about anything.”

Wendy was the blonde pixie from the airport entourage. She was Cecilia’s assistant, hairdresser and makeup artist—which meant she did whatever Cecilia asked and then some. Of course there was also Hal, the big guy, who was a combination bodyguard and gofer, and he didn’t look easy to fool. Cecilia was insisting on as little security as was absolutely necessary. The crew and Donny would be performing publicity sleight of hand throughout the trip. She wanted to be one of the gang.

“Won’t Hal know what you’re up to?”

“He’d better. That’s what I pay him for. But I’ll tell Hal hands off. He answers to me, whether he likes what I’m doing or not. Donny’s the only one who might cause a problem. But he’ll probably be meeting with people. We’ll be able to sneak out.”

“Did you have any idea we would so quickly revert to our past? You plan escapades guaranteed to get us both in trouble, and I go along because I love you?”

“Even the worst childhoods have their high points.” She rested her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes for the rest of the flight. I leaned against her and made myself comfortable, too.

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