He glanced around the Tavern, then at Lacey, and suddenly he wasn't in the mood for a burger and beer, but for a filet mignon and fine red wine. "We can do better than this," he muttered. After dropping several bills on the table, he slid out of the booth and reached for her hand as he strode toward the door.

five I HE PICTURE SAT IN ITS WHITE WICKER FRAME in its customary place on the mantel. It was a black and-white photo, a family portrait, with a youthful Nonny at its center and six-year-old Paige perched on her lap. Paige's parents, Chloe and Paul, flanked Nonny's shoulders, looking younger than their twenty-five years and trapped by the camera in the way of creatures of the wild, frozen one instant only to flee in terror the next.

And flee they had. Paige recalled the day well. It had been her birthday, and she had had such high hopes. "We'll do whatever your heart desires," Chloe had written from Paris weeks before. uIt will be your day." So Paige had planned a special breakfast, then a trip from suburban Oak Park to Chicago to shop for her birthday gift, then a movie, then a dinner at home that Nonny and she prepared. She had wanted her parents to see how grown-up she was, how able how well mannered and pretty.

She had been desperate to please, and she had, she thought. Everything had been perfect. More than once Chloe and Paul had told her how wonderful she was.

She had been on cloud nine when the picture was taken in Nonny's sitting room right before dinner. Right after dinner her parents had given her hugs and kisses, then, to her dismay, had left her standing at the parlor window while the car pulled away.

Always before, Nonny had made gentle excuses for her daughter and son-in-law, using vague references to business, friends, or vacations, then counting on Paige's brief attention span and similarly childlike perception of time to cover the lapses. This time she was more honest.

"Your parents have what's called wanderlust," she had explained to Paige, who thirty-three years later remembered every word of that conversation. "They like to be moving, doing different things. They can't be kept in any one place for long.

"Why not?"

"Because they have a curiosity about new things, and it won't go away.

It keeps them traveling. Last year it was France. This year it will be Italy."

"But what about Chicago?" Paige had asked.

Chicago seemed to her a huge place filled with plenty that was new and different. If they were in Chicago, I could see them all the time."

Nonny had nodded sagely. "You're right. But they've already explored Chicago. They did that when they were growing up, just like you are now. Sometimes when people get bigger, they have to go farther to satisfy that curiosity."

"None of my friends' parents do that. They stay here. I want my parents here, too." "I know you do, pumpkin," Nonny had said, giving her a hug and holding her close. "But your parents are different from the others."

"They hate me."

"No, they don't."

"They didn't want to have me at all."

"That's not true. You were their wedding gift to each other. They love you very much. But it's them they're different."

Why?

"Because your father doesn't have to work, for one thing. His parents are very wealthy. He has all the money he needs, so he can buy you nice things and travel around with your mother."

"Why can't I travel with them?"

"Because you have to go to school. But they do take you places.

Remember last year, when you all went to New York? You loved that."

Paige nodded. "But I got tired. I was happy to come home. Don't they ever get tired?"

"No. That's one of the things that makes them different." uWhat's another thing?"

"The curiosity I mentioned."

Paige's child mind grouped curiosity with chicken pox. "But when will they get better?"

Nonny had hugged her again. "They're not sick. Some people say they have a fairy-tale life."

"Are they happy?"

Only after a while, and with a reluctant smile, had Nonny said, "I suppose," and thereby given Paige her first, full dose of reality. She had thought about her parents' happiness long and hard, standing in the circle of Nonny's protective arms, and finally when there didn't seem anything she could think of to soften the blow, she had simply started to cry.

"Oh, pumpkin," Nonny crooned.

"But I tried so hard. I didn't spill anything, or bite my fingernailsand I took the littlest piece of cake and gave them the biggestI thought I was so good."

"You were, you were. You're always good, pumpkin You're the best little girl in all of Illinois, in all of the United States, in all of the world, but that has nothing to do with why your parents can't stay DUt.

They have money and curiosity, and so much energy that they just keep going."

"But what about me?" Paige wailed, at which point Nonny had swung her up on her lap, and held her tight.

"You are mine, is what you are," she had said with a fierceness Paige had never forgotten.

"You're the one who won't get away."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you're different from your mommy. She never let me hold her like this.

She had too much energy even back then. She was always running around, getting into things, always curious. And I'm not saying that you aren't curious, just that you're more normal about it. You'll be happier in the long run, Paige. You'll be more peaceful, more content, and you'll do good things in your life."

"How do you know?"

"I know. You'll do good things. I promise."

For a long time Paige hadn't been sure. She did well in school, had lots of friends, and grew closer to Nonny every year, but she continued to blame herself for her parents' absence. She racked her brain when they were homedressed differently, talked differently, behaved differentlybut nothing was good enough to keep them there. They always left her standing at the parlor window while the car pulled away.

Inevitably people asked about Chloe and Paul, and for a time Paige simply repeated what Nonny had said. "Wanderlust" became a part of her vocabulary long before any of her friends knew the meaning of the word.

"My parents? Oh, they're in Alaska. They have wanderlust," she would say with a nonchalance that hid her hurt.

Then came junior high, an exclusive private school, and a new circle of friends. Paige was an adolescent, old enough to understand what jet-setting was, worldly enough to have friends with jet-setting parents, rebellious enough to be angry. When asked she took to saying that her parents were deaduntii the horrendous day when they did indeed have a close call in a small plane. She never told the story again There were, over the years, several longer stretches when Chloe and Paul were home. Sometimes they stayed with Nonny, sometimes at Paul's family's estate, and in either case Paige was always beside r herself with anticipation at the thought of their being around. It wasn't until the summer of her seventeenth year that she was able to admit to herself that anticipation always exceeded fact. Nonny was right Her parents couldn't stay put. They grew restless impatient, irascible when restrained.

At the end of that summer, when her parents left again, Paige didn't stand at the parlor window watching the car pull away. She kissed them each then turned and, feeling something akin to relief that the normal order of her life would finally return, waiked Nonny back to the house The lesson of her sixth birthday conversation had finally sunk in.

Paige's need for her parents' love would never changeand birthdays would always be painfulbut she could finally accept that their love would come only on their terms. To compensate, she had Nonny.

"I'll always be here for you," Nonny had promised when she tucked Paige into bed on that sixth birthday and Paige had always known it was true.

She'd left Nonny to go to college, then to medical school, and by the time she was doing her residency in Chicago Nonny had moved back to her own childhood home in Vermont. Through it all, though, they were in constant touch, sharing their lives, being there for each other and although Paige still loved her parents, Nonny was the one in whom she confided.