"Paige knows how to take care of kids. She's a pediatrician."

"Pediatricians are the worst, when it comes to their own."

"You weren't." "I was the exception. I also didn't work for four years, so I could devote myself to Dougie. And I had the luxury of you. Paige doesn't have a husband to support her while she raises a child."

He came straighter. "She's keeping it?"

"I don't know. I'll find that out when I go over."

"Are you aryuing for or against?"

"I'm not arguing anything. I'm listening to what Paige has to say."

He settled mutinously onto the sofa and looked at the television again.

Angie knew he was angry about Mara's death. She was, too. It had been a senseless loss of life, not to mention the loss of a dedicated doctor and a good friend.

"I'll tell Dougie I'm going," she said softly. "Do me a favor and grab the phone if it rings. If it's the answering service, have them call me at Paige's. If it's Melissa, don't let Dougie stay on too long."

"Why not? The funeral was tough on him. He could use some cheering up. Besides, it's Friday. He doesn't have school tomorrow."

"It's the relationship. He's only fourteen."

"What's being fourteen without talking to girls on the phone?"

"And your tux," Angie reminded him. "You'd better dig it out of the attic and bring it down. If it doesn't fit, we'll take it to the tailor tomorrow."

Ben sank deeper into the couch. The awards ceremony isn't for six weeks."

"Truenshe pushed off from the doorjamb"but it's been six years since you last wore that tux Even if it fits, it may look ancient, in which case we'll buy a new one. You're getting national recognition with this award." She was proud of Ben. He was a talented cartoonist. "I want you to look great."

She climbed the stairs to Dougie's room. The door was closed. She knocked, opened it, and poked her head inside. Dougie was sprawled on the bed looking incredibly like Ben and aggrieved by the intrusion. He must have known the minute she had hung up with Paige, because he was on the phone himself.

He quickly covered the receiver. You never give me a chance to say Come inn She smiled. "I'm your mom. I don't need permission."

She paused, thinking of Mara.

"Are you okay?"

He shrugged. "I guess."

Who're you talking with?"

"Kids from school."

Angie knew how that worked. There might be half a dozen kids crowding around the pay phone in the dorm. "Melissa, too?"

He shrugged again.

"Not long," she warned with what she thought was due indulgence, then added, "I'm running to Paige's for a little while. Remember Mara's baby? The little girl she was planning to adopt? Well, she came today."

Dougie's jaw dropped.

"Paige has her."

"What's she going to do with her?"

"That's what we have to discuss. I may be gone a few hours. Why don't you drag your father outside to shoot baskets? The floodlights are working again." "I thought I'd go down to Reels."

Angie was immediately uneasy. The video store with the soda bar in back had been the hangout of choice for the Mount Court kids since VCRs had invaded the dorms. "Who'll be there?" she asked gently.

He shrugged. "A bunch of kids."

Melissa?"

He shrugged again. "If she decides to go with the others. There won't be any problem, Mom.

They have to be back by ten."

Angie sighed. ill'd rather you didn't go, Dougie. Not tonight."

"Mara wouldn't mind."

Not tonight."

He covered the phone more completely. "Why not?"

"Because groups of kids have ways of getting into trouble. I seem to recall an incident last spring when a bunch of kids were picked up for pitching beer cans at the war memorial in the center of town. The pitching was disrespectful, the beer was newly drunk, and the kids were all underage and tipsy."

"But we're going to Reels."

"Which is on the same block as the drugstore, the card store, and, coincidentally, the package store." All it took was a little cash slipped to a transient truck driver buying his own beer. "It makes me very uncomfortable, Dougie."

"Don't you trust me?"

"Of course I trust you. I just don't trust some of the others."

"They're good kids."

"I'm sure they are." All kids were. Some were confused and rebellious, but they were basically good kids who occasionally conspired to do foolish things.

"Mom," he complained, whispering now, "I'm fourteen. This is embarrassing."

It was also the first year she had to face this kind of decision.

Seventh-graders at Mount Court had to be back on campus by eight for anything but a chaperoned event, which wasn't to say that there hadn't been a few cruisers among those innocent seventh-graders, simply that Dougie had never asked to be one.

She sighed. "Do it for me, Dougie? It's been a difficult few days, and I'm feeling it. The last thing I want is to be worrying about you, and I will, if you meet the kids at Reels.