Ezra was silent at first. "Since summer."

Larissa was shocked. "But, Ezraa"

"You're telling me."

"Oh, Ez. I had no idea."

"I thought she might've mentioned it."

"It is strange she hadn't."

"You know, Lar, Maggie says she's finding it harder than usual to talk to you these days."

A disconnected Larissa didn't ask for clarification.

"She says you're not listening."

"To what?"

"To anything."

"Well, that's silly. Of course I listen."

"You're very good at covering up. I'm just telling you what Maggie said."

"Maybe that's why she hasn't talked to me. Because she thinks I'm not listening."

"Perhaps."

"I'm going to try to do better," Larissa said. "Okay?"

Ezra nodded. "She could really use a friend right now."

"Exactly. And who can't?" She gazed at Ezra with sympathy. "I'll talk to her, I promise. I'll be very tactful."

He scoffed. "You can try. But a heads-upa"you know how Maggie is. She's been trying to figure out why this illness has been given to her."

Larissa shrugged. "Oh, not that again. Why does there have to be a reason? Why can't it just be given?"

"Given by whom?"

"Isn't that the eternal question?" She laughed lightly, becoming more animated. "But why can't Pozzo in G.o.dot be right? One day he woke up and he was blind as Fortune. Why can't we get sick because of dumb blind fortune?"

"You know that Maggie doesn't believe things just happen."

"Not even headaches?"

"This isn't a headache. It's total body misery. And it affects her life, her entire family. She feels responsible."

Larissa chewed her lip. "But look, she's asking too much of her body. She didn't get kidney disease on purpose."

"*Course not. But she's trying to figure out"a"Ezra tightened his mouth as he continueda""if this is Thomas Aquinas's warning or an Epicurean struggle for her to work harder to achieve the absence of pain."

"Epicurus seems to be losing."

"No kidding."

"What did Aquinas write?"

"He wrote," said Ezra, "that pain is given to us by G.o.d so that we can protect our material body and stop doing whatever it is we are doing that's causing us pain, and thus, by protecting the material body, we protect our immortal, immaterial soul."

Larissa was thoughtful. "Immaterial, like not important?"

Ezra chuckled. "You would ask that. No. Immaterial like standing outside matter."

"But didn't your Epicurus say that nothing exists outside matter?"

"Yes, but Maggie is suffering. She needs to come to terms with this transformation of her body and consequently her entire life."

"But why can't it be nice and plain? Why can't blind Pozzo be right?"

"Because she's not getting better, Lar," said Ezra. "And this causes spiritual suffering for her. Maggie thinks that her pain means she's breaking some boundary, transgressing laws put into her mortal body by a life-creating force. Perhaps she's been careless or overindulgent. She's not a naturalist, Larissa. She doesn't obey random laws of nature. She is an ethicist. She obeys the laws because she sees in them a divine source."

"Careless?" Larissa shook her head. "That's not Maggie."

"She likes her food, she likes salt, doesn't drink enough water, hates cranberry juice."

"Oh, Ezra. You don't get punished with kidney disease!"

"She thinks she did."

"She just got a lousy set of genes from her parents. What does that have to do with her?"

"Because it's her life that's being altered," Ezra replied. "And mine."

"Well, I don't know how blaming herself is going to help," said Larissa firmly. "I'm sure Epicurus agrees with me."

Ezra smiled. "Sure, to swirling atoms all this blather about ethics is meaningless."

"There you go. Isn't that more comforting?"

"Maggie doesn't think so. But she is trying to work toward the Epicurean model."

"A fine goal to shoot for," Larissa agreed brightly. "What does Epicurus say about the soul?"

"Oh, brilliantly, he says we ain't got one."

No soul! Larissa widened her clear eyes. "No soul, really?" She mulled. "That means no G.o.d?"

"Right. In his day it was G.o.ds, but same difference, yeah."

No, G.o.d, no soul!

"Wouldn't that be easier for Maggie," Larissa asked, "to live in a soulless universe?"

"Would it?" Ezra shrugged. "Without a soul, the here and now would be all you'd have, all you would ever have."

"Exactly!" Larissa became lively, encouraged.

"But in the here and now, Maggie's body is sick," said Ezra. "If Epicurus is right, and the only thing she has is her body, her body is failing her. That doesn't provide as much comfort as you might think."

"I guess." Deflated, Larissa palmed her coffee cup. "But you know what? If there's no soul, there is no G.o.d, and if there's no G.o.d, there's no judgment. And if there's no judgment, with a little bit of hard work, there could be no conscience." No conscience! "No moral boundaries, no ethical laws, see? No consequences means no punishment. Tell Maggie that. Then you don't have to suffer. You just have to feel better."

"How?"

"I'll talk to her, Ez. I'll set her straight. I'll tell her that if G.o.d doesn't interfere with nature, he doesn't interfere with man's mortal body. If there's no G.o.d, it means you can reason yourself out of anything." Or into anything.

"Reason yourself out? But by what method, Larissa? The swirling atoms?"

"Right! Because atoms can't reason."

Ezra smiled. "Exactly. Matter must somehow learn to stop contemplating itself. That's a neat trick. Maggie hasn't mastered it yet. Have you?"

"Well, it's not easy," Larissa agreed.

"Yes, because first you have to explain by what method you manage to examine yourself in the first place. Molecules can't, can they? Atoms can't reason. They're neither naturalists nor ethicists."

"Right, they're nothing. Just nothing," she said. "Why isn't that comforting? I feel better already. Tell Maggie to drink some cranberry. It's miracle juice for the kidneys."

"She hates cranberry juice. Perhaps I forgot to mention it."

Larissa suddenly jumped up. She grabbed her lunch plate and cup like an efficient waitress.

"Where are you going? It's only noon."

"Gotta get stuff and do stuff. Who's going to go food shopping while we sit here and contemplate our molecules? I don't have cleaning people anymore."

"You don't? What happened to Ernestina?"

Larissa waved her hand across her throat. "I had to let her go."

"What? Why? When?"

I hear them walking, walking. I want them to stop, I have to get the phone in case it rings, but I can't open my door, and they're always knocking, every two seconds, asking me if I want coffee, clean sheets, if they can do my bed now, clean the bedroom, if I need anything at the store, where the paper towels are. I'm going to go crazy. They're outside in the hall bathroom, they're in the hallway, vacuuming, every time I turn around, they're right there. One, another, a third. I tried to switch them for a different day, not Mondays, but they have no openings. They come to my house at 8:30, the children barely having left for school, and they're already knocking.

"I'm getting ready, no, no, thank you. I don't need anything."

I hear them like mice, like squirrels outside my door.

"Look, how nice you look! Where you going, Miss Larissa?"

"To the school, Ernestina. I'm directing a play."

"Look so nice. So pretty. You dress up for the store like I dress up for my boyfriend."

Larissa shrugged. "I was tired of them being in my house, Ezra. Besides, I think one of the girls might have been stealing." This wasn't true. It was just to end the conversation.

"Really? So what are you doing now?"

"Cleaning my own house." When Ezra looked at her incredulously, Larissa said, "What, you don't think I can do it? Think I'm afraid to get my hands dirty?" She rushed out of the cafeteria.

"Larissa, wait!" Ezra caught up with her in the hall. "One more thing."

"Quick, Ezra. I gotta run."

"I don't want to do Saint Joan unless we agree on the lead. She has to be right."

"Okay. How about Megan?"

"Megan! You're joking. You're not paying attention to me."

"I am." She was nearly running.

"She is pampered and overweight. How is she going to be the dynamo that frees France and restores the King to his throne? She is round!"

"What, round people can't be martyrs?"

"Larissa, you're not taking this seriously. Megan is wrong for the part."

Larissa shook her head, speeding up. "How about Tiffany?"

"No Tiffany!" Ezra called to her departing back. "No running in the halls!"

She was running out.

"Megan will be fine, Ez," she called back to him, waving. "You'll see. We'll play her against type, she'll be fantastic. Soft and chubby on the outside, lethal on the inside."

She was early, and he was late. She sat in her car, and waited, wondering if she should use her key and go in.

What's the key for? Jared had asked a few weeks ago and Larissa replied she didn't know. Huh, he said. Odd. A nervous Larissa was going to give it back to Kai, sensing trouble brewing, but he said, no, don't give it back. It's your key. I can't give you jewelry, cars, pretty things. I can't give you anything. But I give you the key, like a key to me. As long as you have it, you know that my door is always open. If she could've put the key around her neck on a gold chain, she would've. The best she could do is drive around clutching it between her fingers. She bought a gold-plated key ring for it, with red Swarovski crystals, and when Jared saw, he said, "Is that Swarovski?"

"No, darling. Costume jewelry at the trinket kiosk at the mall."

"Ah. Looks pretty authentic."

"Doesn't it, though."

But what if I used the key to come in when you're not home? she had asked Kai.