"I know," Keely said, interrupting. "What happened?"

"I saw you go out this morning. So when I was raking the side yard next to your house and I heard an unG.o.dly shriek coming from your house . . . well, after what happened the last time, I figured I'd better look into it. I could tell it was the baby, and she was just screaming b.l.o.o.d.y murder."

The image of the quiet street rent by Abby's screams made Keely feel both ashamed and wildly frustrated, as if it were her own incompetence causing everything in her life to go wrong. "Oh Lord," she said miserably.

"Apparently," said Evelyn, washing out her gla.s.s and carefully placing it in the dish drainer, "she'd fallen and banged her chin on the coffee table. There was blood all over the place. When I walked in, she was sitting there by herself, wailing, with blood all over her, all over the carpet . . ."

"Where was Dylan?" Keely demanded.

Evelyn Connelly shrugged. "For a minute, I thought you'd left her all alone in the house. I a.s.sumed the boy was in school . . ."

Despite her guilty feelings, this was too much for Keely. "That's absurd. I would never do that," Keely said angrily.

Evelyn wiped her hands on a dish towel, examining, for a moment, her large, sparkling diamonds. "At any rate," Evelyn continued,"I cleaned up the mess and changed her clothes, bandaged her cut . . ."

"Thank you, Evelyn. That was good of you," Keely said stiffly.

"Oh, I'm used to it," said Evelyn. "I'm a doctor's daughter. I've seen my share of blood."

"And where was Dylan all this time?" Keely asked.

Evelyn c.o.c.ked her head and pursed her lips. "He wasn't much help," she said. "He was more in the way than anything else."

"So he tried to help," said Keely, somewhat relieved. "Well, toddlers do fall. They have accidents."

"Ifthat's what happened," said Evelyn. "We only have his word for that."

Keely felt as if her face were frozen. Abby tugged cheerfully at her mother's hair. "Well, thank you, Evelyn, for helping us out."

"I brought her over here because I didn't think it was a good idea to leave her alone in the house with him," Evelyn continued ominously.

Keely had to bite her tongue, to remind herself that her neighbor had been trying to do what she thought was right. "As I said, thank you for your help. We'll get out of your way now."

"All right," said Evelyn, in a tone that indicated she had done all she could and was washing her hands of the problem. She led the way back down the hall, followed by the dogs, to the front door. Keely bundled Abby close and edged past the dogs and her disapproving neighbor. She hurried away from the dark house without looking back.

Once she reached her house, she closed the front door and leaned against it, holding Abby so tightly that the baby squirmed in protest. Keely gazed up the stairs. The hallway seemed to spin around her, so she shut her eyes. Finally, she exhaled, opened her eyes, and carried Abby into the nursery. She changed her, got her a bottle of juice from the kitchen, and set her down in the playpen. Though the playpen was once her favorite place, when she wasn't very mobile, Abby now fretted in protest at being confined there. "I'll be right back," Keely promised.

Taking a deep breath, she started up the stairs. The door to Dylan's room was locked. She knocked loudly. "Dylan," she said. "Open the door." There was no answer from inside the room.

She stood in the hallway waiting, her anger rising by degrees. "Dylan," she said.

"G.o.ddamit." She turned the k.n.o.b and jiggled it. "Open this door." She heard the lock turn, and then the door opened and they were face to face. The room surrounding them was in a state of utter chaos, as if he had deliberately strewn his belongings across the surfaces of his desk, bureau, and bed. He gazed at her defiantly.

Her anger and frustration boiled over. "Dylan," she said, "I told you to watch your sister when I went out. I told you not to leave her alone," she cried.

"I didn't," he said sullenly.

"Ms. Connelly told me that when she came in the house, the baby was sitting there all alone, covered in blood and screaming."

"She's an old b . . . bag," he said.

"Are you saying she's lying? She has no reason to lie about it, Dylan. You, on the other hand . . ."

"It's my fault, of course," he said bitterly. He sat back down in his chair and swiveled it away from her. "The stupid baby falls down and busts her chin and you blame it on me."

"What am I supposed to think?" Keely cried. "How am I supposed to trust you?"

"I wouldn't, if I were you," he said sarcastically.

"I trusted you today," she cried. "I trusted you to take care of Abby. In spite of everything, I trusted you to take care of her."

Dylan looked up at her with narrowed eyes. "In spite of everything."

"Oh, come on, Dylan. Let's not play word games. I'm over there trying to convince the district attorney of what a fine, upstanding kid you are and how she's not being fair to you, while you're here letting G.o.d knows what happen to your sister."

"You don't trust me," he said flatly. "Why can't you just admit it?"

"It's not about me trusting you. I thought you would have learned your lesson by now. To be careful. To think," she cried. "Instead, you just continue on the same way. You think about yourself, and that's it. The h.e.l.l with what happens to anybody else."

Dylan leaned back in his chair, laced his hands behind his head,and nodded. "You're right, Mom," he said. "Everything you say is right."

Keely shook her head. "Don't take that att.i.tude with me, Dylan."

"I'm just agreeing with you," he said innocently.

"You're just being fresh-that's what you're doing. Instead of taking responsibility for your actions-"

Dylan leaned forward and the chair landed on the floor with a crack, at the same time that his fists landed on the desktop. "Just get out of here," he shouted.

Startled, Keely jumped but stood her ground. "You don't tell me what to do," she said.

"It's still my room," he snarled.

"And a royal mess it is," she observed angrily. "Clean this place up."

Dylan looked around at the littered surfaces, the piles of clothes. "It looks fine to me," he said.

In that instant, staring at the utter disarray, Keely was reminded of another, worse mess-the way Prentice Weaver's apartment had looked when she and Lucas had unlocked the door and walked in. It was as if the horrible condition of his dwelling had reflected the torment of his mind, the chaos of his life. Keely didn't want to think that about her own son. It was different with kids, after all. They were messy. It took time for them to learn to clean it up. But she realized, even as she told herself that, that Betsy Weaver had probably told herself the same thing when Prentice was a teenager, only it hadn't been a pa.s.sing phase. It had been a sign of trouble yet to come.Oh Dylan,she thought.What do I do with you?She took a deep breath and tried to think calmly before she spoke.

"Dylan, did Dr. Stover call while I was out?"

"Yeah," he muttered. "You're supposed to call him back."

"Okay. I will. Look, honey," she said. "I want you to try to clean this up, and then I think we need to sit down calmly and talk about what's going to happen next."

"What does that mean?" he asked suspiciously.

"Dylan," she said. "Dr. Stover was recommended to me by the school as someone who might be able to help you with your problems."

"Great. A shrink," he said.

Keely was about to demur but then she nodded. "Right. Okay. A shrink. Is that so awful? I think you need to talk to someone about . . . everything that's going on in your life. Someone who's not involved like I am."

"Now you think I'm crazy," he said.

"I don't think you're crazy. But I feel like I'm not doing a good job here, honey. I feel like we're just yelling at each other and getting nowhere."

"That's all right," he said dully. "Sometimes I think I'm crazy, too." He stared out the window over his desk at the dry, withered leaves still clinging to the tree branches.

"Dylan," Keely chided, her compa.s.sion for him renewed. "You are not crazy." She came over to his desk chair and tried to put her arms around him. "It's just been a really hard time."

He shook her off as if her embrace were poisonous. "Don't do that," he said. "Don't touch me and don't give me any more of your fake sympathy."

Keely drew her hands back into fists and took a deep breath. Then she walked to the door. "All right. I'll leave you alone. Clean up this room," she said, throwing the command back over her shoulder, not wanting to meet his bitter gaze. "I can't stand it anymore."

The phone was ringing as Keely came downstairs. When Keely picked it up, she heard a gentle, hesitant voice say her name.

"Keely, this is Betsy. I know it's late for an invitation, but would you and the children like to join Lucas and me for dinner tonight? Cook bought a roast that's more than big enough for all of us."

Instantly, Keely thought of Dylan. She knew he wouldn't want to go, but at this point she didn't care. "Betsy, your invitation couldn't have come at a better moment. I need to get out of here. These walls are closing in on me. That would be wonderful." They agreed on a time, and Keely hung up the phone feeling slightly less isolated and depressed than she had been. Now, if only Dylan could manage to go and be civil through the meal, everything would be fine. She went to the foot of the staircase. It sounded as if Dylan was flinging the furniture against the walls upstairs. "Dylan," she called out.

"I'm cleaning up," he called back angrily.

"Come down here," Keely said. "I need to talk to you."

After a few moments she heard his door bang open and his footfall head down the upstairs hallway. "What?" he said when they were face to face.

"Lucas and Betsy have invited us over for dinner, and I said we would go."

"Oh no," he said. "Not me."

"Why not? They're your . . . grandparents."

"They are not. They're nothing to me."

"Dylan," she cried.

"I have one grandmother. That's it," he insisted.

There was no use in arguing the point, she decided. Technically, he was correct, and it wasn't right to try to make him feel something for the Weavers that he didn't feel.

"All right, fine. They're not your grandparents-"

"They're hardly even Abby's grandparents," he continued, feeling vindicated, "considering how old Mark was when they adopted him. They don't even count as grandparents-"

"Dylan, just stop it. Just sh . . . just be quiet."

"Shut up, you mean."

"Dylan," Keely insisted, trying to keep her voice even, "I need to get out of this house and be with people."

"I don't want to go over there. You have to eat with the right fork, and I never know which gla.s.s I'm supposed to use."

It was true that the Weavers retained the slightly stuffy habits of Betsy's privileged upbringing. Lucas had come from a blue-collar background, but he had adapted well to his wife's Brahmin ways. Still, they were not really stuffy people. Betsy was an awkward, shy woman, an avid birdwatcher, plain to the point of homeliness.

"It wouldn't hurt you to mind your manners for an evening," said Keely. "Besides, the Weavers have been very kind to us."

"I have homework to do," he insisted. "Jake said I could come over to his house and do the a.s.signments with him," Dylan muttered.

"Not so fast. You're suspended from school. That means you're grounded. You're not going out socializing," she said.

"It's not socializing. We're just going to do homework. You're the one who wants to go outsocializing."

"Dylan . . ."

"I've got to keep up with the work. The teachers will be on me worse than ever when I get back," he said.

"I don't care. You're not going out tonight or any other night while you're suspended. That's final. You're staying put, or you're going to the Weavers with me."

"I'm not going there," he said through gritted teeth.

"Then I'll call and cancel-"

"Oh, because you don't trust me to stay at home without you," he said sarcastically.

Keely stuck out her chin, but she knew that what he said was true.

"Thanks a lot, Mom . . ."

"Well, you have to admit, Dylan, you haven't given me much reason to feel otherwise."

"I won't go out," he said. "I'll call Jake and get the a.s.signments and I'll stay here and do them. Okay?"

Keely sighed. She knew she couldn't keep him a prisoner here in the house. She had to find out if he was going to respect the boundaries she set. She had to let him prove himself, no matter how much she feared he might disappoint her. Keely hesitated, uncertain what to do. "You'll be hungry . . ."

"I can make a sandwich if I'm hungry."

"I know you can," she said.

"So go. You want to go, so go."

She was ready to argue with him, but she just didn't feel as if she could fight with him anymore. If she forced him to go with her, she knew he would be sullen and withdrawn and make everyone uncomfortable. And though the Weavers would be understanding, it seemed unfair to inflict his moodiness on them. They were only trying to be kind. And what he said was true. He did know how to make a sandwich for himself.

"All right," she said wearily. "I guess you can stay home."

"Wow, great," he said bitterly.

"Don't push me," said Keely, shaking her head. He turned his back on her. Moments later, she heard the door to his room slam.