Apparently Jane had called to tell him that she no lonver wnr As soon as Jill was shifted onto the proper bed and covered, he leaned over.

"Jill?

Jillie? It's me."

Jill opened her eyes. They took him in and filled with tears again.

"It's all right, honey," he said, taking her hand and patting it.

"You'll be just fine now.

Don't you worry about a thing."

Purposefully, Paige moved in close to him.

Had he smelled of liquor, she would have summoned Norman Fitch to kick him right out of the hospital. That was how much she thought of Frank Stickley.

But he smelled clean.

So she touched Jill's shoulder and said softly, "I'm going home now, Jill. Your parents will sit with you for a while, but I'll be back first thing in the morning. If there's any problem, ring for the nurse and she'll call me, okay?"

Jill nodded.

Paige left the hospital thinking that Frank Stickley reminded her of Thomas O'Neill. Both men were stubborn, both considered their own values sacrosanct, both had the ability to cut off a child as though it were a fingernail rather than a piece of the heart.

Jill would never forget what her father had done. She might be able to set it aside for the present, but she wouldn't forget it. It was a piece of emotional baggage that she would likely carry for the rest of her life.

Rejection was like that. A borer, it drilled a tiny hole deep inside that never went away.

In good times it might be filled with the overflow of happiness, but in bad times it got bigger and bigger, until finally it choked off the will to live. That was what had happened to Mara. Paige was convinced of it. Rejection had become synonymous with failure. Whether her death had been accidental or not was a moot point. She had lost the will to live.

Later, standing over Sami's crib watching her sleep, Paige wondered if children weren't the key, a perpetuation both of the species and of the self. For Mara certainly, they were a validation, a declaration to the world that "I am worthy, therefore I am worthy to raise a child."

Jill, who was barely old enough to know what raising a child meant, had felt it on some level. And Paige? Her work had always been her validation.

Suddenly she wondered if it was enough.

Peter was the first to arrive at work the next morning and started seeing drop-ins as soon as they came. He was feeling better than he had in a long time, and that, in spite of Angie's call the night before. The fact of her taking Friday and Monday off would mean more work for him at a time when he had other things on his mind, but he could be generous.

Angie had been through a rough period. If a long weekend together was what she and Ben needed, he could grant them that.

Fortunately, while the morning served up more than its share of seasonal colds, coughs, and earaches, the afternoon was acute free. He was out of the office by five, crossing through the parking lot to the hospital. What snow remained from the storm had become slushy and dirty, but that didn't discourage him. He was feeling energetic.

He had a regular roster of accident victims whom he saw daily, and daily the list shrank as patients were discharged. Only the more serious remained which meant that those who needed the greatest care could finally, comfortably, get it.

He visited each in turn, saving Kate Ann for last. When he arrived, she was picking at her dinner. He stood at the door for a minute, watching There were only two patients left in the room, Kate Ann and another. The other seemed always to have visitors, while Kate Ann had none, which was one of the reasons Peter tried to save a little extra time for her each day. The other was that he felt bad for her. She faced an ominous future.

"Look who's here," came a familiar voice. A pair of arms circled him from behind, hands coming to rest on his chest with the same suggestiveness as the voice, which proceeded to croon against his back, "My favorite doctor."

He took the hands and lifted them off. As he turned, he saw a group of giggling girls slip into the stairwell down the hall. "Not appropriate behavior, She gave him a crooked smile that said she disagreed. "You were looking pensive. Very sexy. Tell me you were thinking about me."

"Sorry, but I wasn't. What are you doing here?"

She pulled at her smock. "I work here."

Smock or not, he didn't believe it. He wouldn't have put it past her to filch the smock. "Uh-huh."

"I do. A bunch of us are helping out. After the collapse at the movie house and all. If it hadn't been fall break weekend, some of us might have been at that concert."

"There but for the grace of God?"

"You could say." She tossed her chin toward Kate Ann. "Has she eaten?

I've been back twice looking for her tray. She is so-o slow."

"She has reason to be slow," Peter pointed out. "She has a slight problem with mobility.

If you want to be helpful, you could see if anything needs to be cut.

For that matter, if you want to be helpful, you could just go in and sit with her. She doesn't have any family.

She lies there day in, day out, alone. She could use the company."

Julie looked at Kate Ann uneasily. "What in the thing in cOmmonatty to her? She and I don't have a "How do you know that7" ,sBecause she's much older than m " "And she's a townie " m time tm a fudl-bime Studentsn she argued i,1 d } h w denjng of her eyes when theyP]ceaSeh to see the bright "Okay."

"What'd you get for dinner?"

"If you ever need anything and she's around, she'll get it. Okay?" He gestured toward the tray. "Don't want anymore?"

"No," she murmured.

Peter gave Julie the tray. "All set," he told her by way of dismissal, and went to the foot of the bed to occupy himself with Kate Ann's chart. By the time he had read that there was no change in her condition, Julie was gone. He returned to the head of the bed.

"You look better, at least. I like the robe."

He had picked it up at the mall. It hadn't cost much, but it made Kate Ann look as if someone cared.

"I like it, too," she whispered, fingering the collar. "But you shouldn't have bought it."

Maybe not, he thought to himself, but the teal green of it demanded attention. It refused to be invisible. If Kate Ann was to get the care she needed which had become his causeshe had to emerge from the woodwork.

Besides, teal did interesting things for her skin, made it look less pale, more alabaster.

He doubted she had ever worn anything as vivid. The Kate Ann his mind pictured was always dressed in dull browns and grays. If she did something with her hair, which was straight and long, parted in the middle, and pulled back into a braid, she might actually look attractive.

Then again, it was probably better to leave her hair as it was. Less work.

"And the book on tape," she added. "I listened to it this morning."