Nonny liked that idea. So did Sami, who had great fun poking at the letter tiles. Paige still won the game, but by that time Nonny was thinking about lunch and after lunch Sami went in for a nap and Nonny dozed off on the living room sofa Planting herself before the fire and out of sight of the phone, Paige picked up her knitting. She was fin ishing the afghan Mara had started for Sami. It seemed the perfect thing for Sami to bond with and then take with her to her next life. A gift from Mara.

Via Paige Kitty wandered into the room. She had spent the morning as she always did, roaming the house perching on one windowsill or another, clicking her teeth at anything that looked as if it might be a bird Now she sat at Paige's feet and stared at the yarn as it came out of the skein. Every few minutes she pounced, took the yarn in her mouth, and shook it.

When Paige gave a tug she released her hold, sat back, and stared at the new yarn coming out. I Paige set aside the knitting and scooped her up. r She was getting bigger. Her fur was longer now and softer.

Paige enjoyed the feel of her at the foot of her bed each night. There was something nice about reaching down to touch her and about the purr that started up when she did it "You going to get rid of her, too?"

Nonny asked.

Her eyes were open, though other than that she hadn't moved.

Paige felt the blunt edge of the question, particu larly the "too."

"It's not a question of getting rid' of her. It's a question of finding her a proper home."

"Are you still lookingvn "Theoretically. But I keep forgetting to ask.

She demands so little."

"Are you willing to keep her?"

Paige rubbed kitty's neck. Kitty closed her eyes and raised her chin for more, which Paige promptly gave ill may do that by default. She's here. It may be more of an effort to find her a home than to keep her." Hearing her own words, she looked at Nonny. ill know what you're thinking, but the same is nof true about Sami. You don't keep children by default. Sami is a human being. She's a responsibility that gets bigger the bigger she gets."

Nonny didn't say anything. Nor did she look away.

"I'm a full-time pediatrician," Paige protested.

"Not full-time, now that you've hired a fourth."

"Then threeffluarters time. Plus Jill. Plus helping organize the Mount Court Wds to help around Tucker," which she felt was a wonderfully worthy cause. "PIus being on call once the mountain opens for skiing. Phls reading. Plus knitting. My life is still demanding, Nonny. Children aren't in my game plan. Not for a while, at least."

When Nonny simply lay there staring at her, she set kitty down. "I know what you're thinking, but if the biological clock runs out, it runs out. I won't rush into something that I'm not ready to do."

Nonny neither moved nor spoke.

Paige sighed. "Look, I know I'm not giving you the answers you want, and I'm sorry to be imposing on you with Sami this way_ n "Don't use that word!" Nonny hollered, sitting up with a speed Paige wouldn't have expected from a woman her age.

"But it is an imposition."

"Damn it, Paige, that's the trouble with you!

You're so smart when it comes to most things, but when it comes to parenthood you're way off the mark." She had pushed her small self from the sofa and begun to pace. "Not that it's your fault. Chloe and Paul made you feel like an unwanted limb. Growing up, you were good as gold for me, because you didn't want to be a burden, and you're still apologizing every time you ask me to do something. Still apologizing."

She stopped in front of Paige with her hands on her hips. "For Cod's sake, Paige, people who love people want to do things for them.

Why haven't you learned that? Have I ever complained? Have I ever said I'd rather be playing bridge? My coming to baby-sit for Sami isn't a task. It's a privilege. It's a ioy.

Yes, it's work, but a labor of love. No obligation No onerous task.

No grotesque plague on my time. I want to baby-sit. And if you were truthful with yourself, you'd admit that you want to keep Sami. You adore her. She adores you. You have ample resources to raise her in comfort. But you're frightened of making the commitment, because you think of it as something that will smother. You mother everyone else's children, but that doesn't count because you can leave them all behind at the end of the day. Well, let me tell you," she scolded as Nonny rarely did, "you leave behind the pleasure, too. No pain, no gain, as they say. You come home to an empty house, which, by the way, will seem twice as empty now that you're used to having Sami around."

She started to turn away but turned right back And I'll tell you something else. That empty house will seem three times as empty when you're fifty and four times as empty when you're sixty, and by shhenl ift whll be too late. I know." Turning on her heel Paige waited for her to come back. After a bit, she went into the kitchen and made a pot of fresh mango tea, thinking that the smell of it steeping hmight lure Nonny down. When it didn't, she poured The snow continued to fall. Paige watched it, sipping her tea, thinking that everything Nonny said made sense but that old habits died hard. It was one thing to tell herself not to feel that she was imposing, quite another not to feel it. She had always tried to be self-sufficient, precisely to avoid that dilemma. As for Sami, Paige didn't know. She just didn't know. She supposed she had the time to be a mother. She supposed she had the intelligence and the resources to be one. And the love. Yes, she had that. She did love Sami. But it was such a responsibility.

More than doctoring or foster parenting. Much more.

She had always assumed she wasn't cut out for motherhood, which was one of the reasons why she had become a doctor.

Or had she become a doctor to give her an out when the weight of the responsibility loomed?

The phone hadn't rung. It would be nighttime in Siena. If it didn't ring very soon, it wouldn't ring at all.

She finished her tea rinsed the cup, and set it on the drainer. Then she iooked at the snow again and felt a sudden, dire need to be in it.

After putting on her insulated running gear, a Cortex parka, a wool hat, and mittens, she left a note on the kitchen table for Nonny and set off.

The streets had been plowed but were deserted. She had them to herself, running at the side or the middle, as went her whim. It wasn't until she had reached the center of Tucker, rounded the hospital block, and started back down Main Street that she encountered a moving vehicle. It was Norman Fitch.

"Nasty day to be out," he called out his window.

"Actually," she breathed, "it feels great."

"Snow's not stopping for a while. We're expecting up to a foot. You'd best be heading home. Be dark before long."

But Paige wasn't heading home yet. She had hit her stride and was feeling too good to stop. If her parents chose to call so late, it would be their loss.

She made a tour of the streets behind the center, running up one and down another. The snow was mounting underfoot and her sneakers were getting I wet, yet still she ran on. She headed north out of town, where the road was broad and beautiful rolling through stands of trees whose arms held the snow in lieu of leaves.

In time she began to feel a chill, but her feet beat a rhythmic tattoo on the snow, and her will wasn't yielding to either cold, wetness, or encroaching dusk.

By the time she turned in under Mount Court's wrought-iron arch, she was starting to tremble. That was when she felt a qualm, but it was too late to turn back. She couldn't make it home. She didn't want to.

Since the drive had been first cleared, another several inches had mounted up. She plodded through them, tired now and laboring, but determined. She passed the academic buildings, the administration building, the library, and the first of the dorms. She turned onto the path between the second and third and, in the distance, saw the completed frame of the new alumni house, but she ran on to the Head's house and struggled up the low steps. Stopping at last, panting, she rang the bell.

Noah answered the door wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, with his round, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and a pencil between his teeth. He took one look at her, tossed the pencil aside, and hauled her in by the arm. "Brilliant," he declared, as he swung the door shut.

"Absolutely brilliant." He pulled off her hat and mittens and set to picking at the zipper of her parka through the snow that had crusted there. "What in the world possessed you to run all the way out here?"

"Don't know," she said through chattering teeth. She was shifting from one foot to the other, too cold to stand still but unable to undress, which was fine since Noah was doing it for her. "It wasn't conscious.

I just ran.

My feet took me here."

He had freed the tab of the zipper and was tug ging it down. She turned from one side to the other to free her arms from the parka.

Then she held his shoulder when he knelt to pull off her sneakers.

"This'll all melt in your hall," she warned.