"My brain?" I said lightly, trying to catch my breath between strokes of her hands.

"Your eyes . . . your shoulders . . . your breasts, especially this one ... your legs ..."

It took Destiny a long time to complete her list to our mutual satisfaction.

Afterward, the ringing phone couldn't awaken me from a deep sleep.

Destiny had to shake me several seconds before I became coherent enough for her to relay, "Kris, Rose at the hospital is on the phone. You need to go see David."

24.

The next hours passed in a blur. Later Destiny recounted them for me.

It seemed I tried to leave the apartment wearing no clothes. She dressed me and drove me to my brother's hospital bed, where my worst fear was confirmed. We sat with his lifeless body until my father arrived. He tried to hug me, but I brushed past him into the hallway. I cried throughout the elevator descent but stiffened when I passed my mother, smoking a cigarette outside the hospital lobby. I ignored her.

We returned to my apartment, and Destiny called Ann to tell her David had died. My sister said, "Finally" Nothing more.

Destiny rang up Fran, who came by at dawn with bagels I couldn't eat.

As my lover and my friend made small talk, I kept repeating my need to go to Hanging Lake. To be alone with Lauren and David.

Ignoring their alarmed protests, I drove into the mountains in search of a peace I'd never found.

I don't remember pulling out of my zombie-like state until I'd hiked the mile straight up and had dipped my bare feet into the glacier-cold, blue-green lake.

If I'd paid attention on the three-hour drive, I would have noticed Ruth's unmistakable persimmon-colored car following. But I never saw the vehicle or Fran next to her, neck craned, binoculars raised.

At the top of the mountain, acutely conscious, I had an overwhelming feeling of relief.

Lauren was free.

Her freedom had begun the moment she planned her death. Those who loved her thought she left abruptly, but nothing could have been farther from the truth. She schemed and plotted and planned until every clever detail fell into place.

She made love to Nicole, somehow able to embrace her lover despite all her faults and infidelities.

She wrote to Cecelia and sent details of the insurance benefits. Nothing more needed to be said between the two women, briefly lovers, forever friends.

She spent her last lunch with her sister Patrice and made a final promise to care for Ashley.

Finally, she left four million dollars to the niece she adored. She killed herself to mitigate the irreversible injuries she thought she had caused.

As the only solution she could devise, Lauren Fairchild gave up her life. She died to atone for one mistake.

Maybe her final act was noble, perhaps foolish, but nothing about it was impulsive.

And David was free, too.

My brother's freedom began when he chose to reject the medicine that kept him alive but didn't give him a life.

Everyone believed David could carve out a decent existence in spite of his disabilities, but he never had.

He spent every waking moment on the verge of seizure, forever nursing injuries caused from crashes to the ground.

No wonder he slept so much.

When he was young, he was "harmless," and people accepted him. As he matured, however, his differences became more marked, and we all began to reject him.

The more he was hated, the more he hated himself, and the more pronounced his disabilities became. The more profound his disabilities, the more we discarded him.

He'd spent time in mental hospitals, boarding houses, nursing homes, and rehab centers, but he never could find that elusive place in which people who are different nonetheless belong.

My freedom would come the day I stopped apologizing for enjoying a life less wretched than my brother's.

Perhaps the end of his time would mark the beginning of mine. I thought about that all the way home.

I never did see Ruth and Fran tailing me back to Denver.

From Hanging Lake, I drove to my apartment, hurriedly changed clothes, listened to a message from Destiny reminding me to meet her at seven, and set out for Patrice's.

Lauren's sister answered the door in shorts that extended past her knees, an over-size Children First T-shirt, and an apron speckled with brown stains. She invited me into the house, where the smell of chocolate chip cookies greeted me.

Before I could muster the final explanation of the case, Patrice asked if I'd go outside and play with Ashley.

"But I'm done," I protested. "I've found out why Lauren killed herself."

"I know," she said. "I sensed that when you called yesterday. All night, I've tried to prepare myself for the news. Whatever it is, it can wait a few minutes. I'll finish baking off the last few batches of cookies, and you and Ashley can play in the yard. When she found out you were coming, I promised her you'd spend time with her before her nap."

"Okay," I sighed.

I cut through the living room, dining room, and kitchen, careful to avoid toys strewn everywhere. Outside, a blast of hot air hit me as I descended the wooden ramp. Ashley spotted me from the back of the yard and came running. Her awkward side-to-side gait sabotaged her forward motion, and she fell twice in the grass before she reached me. I knelt to hug her, and she kissed my hand. I carried her back to the pine tree cluster she'd left.

Once there, I exclaimed in delight at her secret hideout. Beneath three giant trees planted too close together, a sandbox had been constructed. Massive branches drooped to the ground and provided a shelter that felt almost as cool as the house.

At Ashley's beckoning, I studied her work in the sand and concludeda"with a vivid imagination, for she'd assembled lots of piles that resembled nothinga"that she'd built a town. Her vehement nodding confirmed my lucky guess.

I took off my polished black loafers and, unconcerned about my pressed white dress shorts and yellow silk blouse, I plopped in the dirt. I put my watch in my pocket, pushed up my sleeves, and began to construct serious piles of my own.

This delighted Ashley. We played for some time in silence before I spoke. When I did, she abandoned her projects, moved closer, and studied me intently. My hands kept moving.

"It's good to see you," I began. "We sure are having fun, aren't we?" She nodded. "I could sit here all day."

"I still have some popcorn left from our trip to the grocery store." Her eyes brightened. "I meant to bring you some, but I forgot. I'm not having a very good day. My little brother died this morning. He wasn't little anymore. He's big now. Was big. He used to be small, like this." I grabbed a twig from outside the box to demonstrate. "But then he grew, much taller than I am, but not quite as high as these trees. He didn't grow up on the inside too much, though, but he looked grown up on the outside. He was kind of a kid and an adult at the same time, which confused everybody. Not that it should matter, but people expect you to act a certain way, and he never could. He had a tough life."

I paused, suddenly keenly aware of my audience. "Do you understand any of this?" I asked.

The child nodded solemnly but immediately jumped up and ran into the house. A short time later, she reappeared and tapped me on the shoulder. I raised my head from my lap and took my fingers from my ears. I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to block out the incessant barking of a neighbor's dog.

Ashley handed me a warm cookie and a room-temperature bottle of water. I thanked her profusely, and we sat contentedly side by side until Patrice called her in for a nap. I hugged her good-bye and told her I'd see her next Wednesday morning, and I'd bring enough popcorn for her and Erin and Tyler. She became agitated until I added, "Some for Mommy and Jean, too." She left beaming.

I ate my cookie and needed every bit of the water to get the food to pass through my swollen throat. I chewed numbly and sat in the box for a few minutes before I stood, brushed the sand away, and walked slowly, stricken, toward the kitchen.

As I entered through the back door, Patrice turned from the oven, where she'd placed her last batch of cookies on the top rack. "Your brother died?"

"How did you know?" I asked, astonished. I hoped she hadn't seen me slumped over in the sandbox.

"Ashley told me."

"She spoke?" I said, thrilled.

"Not yet." Patrice smiled sadly. "No, she showed me one of her books. One of the baby birds in it dies because he's too weak and falls from the nest. She pointed to the picture and went to the window and pointed to you."

"He died early this morning," I said quietly. "He never did regain consciousness."

"Is it for the best, like people say when they have no idea what to say?"

"I think it is," I replied and further surprised myself by adding, "Lauren's death might have been, too. She left your daughter four million dollars in insurance proceeds."

Patrice's hand flew to her mouth, and her gaunt, angular face lost all color. She staggered to the table and fell into a chair without bending her knees.

I took a seat next to her and spoke slowly. "Please don't stop me, or I'll never finish. This is what I know ..."

I told Patrice about Nicole and her girlfrienda"how Lauren had known about but not objected to the affair. I outlined her sister's methodical process of buying eight separate insurance policies and naming Ashley beneficiary and Cecelia administrator. I recapped the information Dr. W had shared with Lauren, that this kind of money could make a profound difference in Ashley's life.

The entire time I spoke, Patrice whimpered, "How? Why?" as if chanting in a trance. She rocked back and forth and pulled on idle strands of hair.

Unable to reach her with mere words, I interrupted her dreamlike state by reaching for her jittery hands and quieting them in mine.

It took every ounce of courage I possessed, and some I borrowed from who knows where, for me to look into her troubled eyes and continue. "Because she hurt Ashley. One night when she was babysitting, she shook her to quiet her. Ashley's disabilities turned up immediately after, and Lauren thought she caused them. Without that shaking, Ashley would be healthya"at least that's what Laurena""

Patrice interrupted, her voice calm but earnest, "You're wrong, Kris. Lauren was wrong."

"I know," I began. "Dr. W explained everything. The retinal hemorrhaging, but Ashley's not blind," I could hear myself blathering.

She cut in again, no emotion in her voice. "One morning, Ashley woke up fussy and feverish. I took her to our family physician, and he thought she had the flu. Stephen and I didn't want to cancel our plans, so Lauren babysat her that night. The next morning Ashley had a seizure. We rushed her to the hospital, and she stayed there two weeks. Bacterial meningitis. That's what caused Ashley's hearing loss and brain damage."

Patrice wrestled her hands from mine and gestured helplessly, palms upward. She continued, her voice lowering with every sentence until her words were almost indistinguishable. "If she shook her, it had to be that night. When we came home from dinner, Lauren told me she had trouble with Ashley. She vomited nonstop and screamed when she was diapered. The more Lauren held her, the more she cried.

The next day, the doctors at the hospital told us these were all classic signs of spinal meningitis, but until she had a seizure, we were still treating it like the flu. How were we supposed to know it was serious?"

"You couldn't have known," I said, uneasy.

"But Lauren never said a word about hurting her," she said despairingly.

"She was too ashamed. She didn't tell anyone except Cecelia, by accident one night. She only did that years later because she was drunk. The next morning, she didn't remember telling her. Lauren never even told her therapist," I added, hoping she wouldn't want to know how I'd obtained that tidbit.

"And now my sister's dead. All because of the shame." Patrice lowered her head and began to shake with weeping.

I put my arm around her shoulder and in utter silence watched tears puddle on the oak table, the first I'd shed since my brother died.

I prayed Patrice wouldn't ask, "Could the shaking have aggravated the meningitis?" Fortunately, she never did.

For I had posed that exact question to Dr. W, and she had answered it in her precise, clinical manner. "If the brain tissues were inflamed from meningitis, certainly it would have taken less shaking to provoke damage."

That response would haunt me the rest of my life.

25.

One more person to talk to about Lauren's four million dollar suicide.

I drove from Patrice's house to Choices and couldn't help but grin when I saw Colleen at one of the front registers. My eyes darted from her pierced lower lip to her blue hair, artfully arranged in braids and beads. I tried to mask my shock as I shook her hand warmly. "You've been promoted!"

"You call this a step up? No way, babe. Handling the cash is too stressful. Plus, I'm morally opposed to promotions. One more tentacle the big establishment has in the little worker. No thank you. I'm just covering for a chick who went to Brazil."

"Is Cecelia in?"

"Sure thing. I'll call her." She picked up a private line. "She'll be down in a minute. She says to meet her at the juice bar."

"You didn't use the loudspeaker. You're slipping," I chided.

She smiled impishly. "My voice is a little raw. I went to an Indigo Girls concert last night."

I headed toward the back of the store but paused to graze at the food sampling table in aisle one. This could get addicting, I thought, as I munched my way through a handful of Colorado trail mixa"peanuts, carob chips, almonds, and raisins.

Cecelia beat me to our rendezvous spot. Perched on a bar stool, she greeted me warmly. "Hi, stranger. Can I buy you a drink?"

"Sure. What's good?"

"My personal favorite's the peach smoothie."

"Sold!"

Cecelia turned to the young man behind the counter. "Jack, could you please make two of the usual?"

"Coming right up."

I sat down next to Cecelia, and she rotated her steel stool to face me. "What's new? How's your brother?"