"When we get around to it. Things are too busy right now, and too emotional." Paige understood Peter and Ben, typically male, putting business first did not. "Mara's still warm in her grave. It feels wrong to rush into replacing her."

"Mara's stomach isn't the one that's grumbling," Ben said, and walked off.

Angie smiled and called after him, "You'll survive. I'll have dinner ready in ten minutes."

And it was. Ten minutes later Ben was seated at the table and she was calling up the stairs for Dougie.

"I had dinner at school," he called back.

"You had food there. This is dinner."

"But I'm not hungry."

"Come on, sweetheart. Just a little."

"Mom, I have homework to do."

"Five minutes with us, that's all, then I'll let you get back to work."

To Ben, as she poured Dougie's milk, she said, "There were times when I worried because he was so agreeable. This sputtering is a relief.

It's so typically adolescent." She bobbled a hot baked potato from the microwave to Dougie's plate then did one for Ben, then for herself.

"The Harkins stopped by the office with their youngest this afternoon,"

she told Ben. "Gerry was asking for you." ils his daughter sick?"

"She's having trouble in school, and apparently the teacher doesn't know what to do. It sounds to me like an attention deficit problem, which can be easily treated once it's diagnosed. I recommended that they have her tested" She looked up. "There you are." She nudged Dougie's chair. ill even have sour cream for the potatoes."

But Dougie didn't sit. "I'm not hungry, Mom.

I told you that."

She smiled. He was a good-looking boy, had been as a child and was even more so now as a teenager Given the rate he was growing, no amount of food was apt to make him fat. "Tell me again, once you've eaten that steak."

"I'm not eating it. I had dinner at six. I was hungry then. I'm not hungry now."

She set down her fork. Something in his tone went beyond the sputtering she had found relief in moments before. She could have sworn she heard an accusation. But that wasn't possible. Dougie adored her. "Then have some potato. The skin is the best."

"I'm stuffed."

"But this is dinner. Come on, sweetheart. I told you this morning that we'd be eating at seven." She gestured toward the bulletin board.

"It's right on the new schedule."

Dougie made a face she'd never seen before.

ill don't like that schedule. It tells me to get up earlier in the morning and eat dinner later at night. It's a pain."

"It's new," Angie soothed. "That's all. Give it a week, and you'll forget we ever did anything different." ill doubt it."

"Oh, sweetheart," she chided gently, and sat back in her chair "you're upset with the change because you're upset about Mara. That's natural, and it's okay, but you have to give the new schedule a try. With Mara gone, things have been turned upside down at the office.

This is the best I can do for now. Be patientyou'll adjust." "I always adjust," he complained.

"Once things quiet down at the office, once we hire another doctor, we can go back to the way things were" "I don't want to go back to the way things were."

Angie didn't follow. "What do you want?"

He opened his mouth to talk, then shut it again.

She sat forward and urged, "It's all right.

You can say what you want. I'll listen. I always listen. What do you want?" ill want to spend more time at school," he blurted muiss hlalsf tlhoufsy bneing a day student.

Day students "That's the point," Angie said on a note of amuse wmetht.

OYofu ge.It tnO enjoy the other half, and still be "But I want to be with the kids. I want to live in the dorm."

The suggestion was absurd. "Sorry, but that's out of the question."

Why?

"Because it's not what I want for you. I sent you j to Mount Court because I felt that you would be ] more challenged academically there than at the ,!

muddle school here in town. Boarding is something "Why can't I try it?"

"Because you're only fourteen. I don't mind if you sleep over in the dorm once in a whileyou did that last yearbut I don't think it's necessary for you to move away from home."

"It's five minutes down the road!"

She shook her head again. "College is soon enough to board. You don't need it now."

Dougie stared at her for a minute, then turned on his heel and left the room.

Startled by his persistence, Angie looked at Ben "Where did that come from?"

Ben finished chewing a mouthful of steak.

"It's been building."

"Building from what? He's never said he was unhappy living here before."

"And he isn't saying it now. He's just saying that it would be fun to board at Mount Court."

"Do you think it would be fun?"

"If I were fourteen, with the confidence that kid has, I probably would. Dougie's feelin his oats. He's listening to the stories his friends tell about dorm life, stories that are probably greatly embellished, and he thinks it sounds pretty neat."

But Angie had created a home that she thought was pretty neat, one the likes of which many children would die for. She couldn't imagine Dougie wanting to live in a dorm. "It has to do with Mara," she decided. "We've all been down since she died. He's missing her, wanting to go someplace where he won't be expecting her to turn up. He feels her presence in this house."