Why? Because your parents treated you like a drag so you think of family life as a drag? Well, what do you think you've had hereyou, Nonny, and Sami? It's family life, and it's no drag. Same when Sara and I join you. You enjoy it. You know you do."

She freed her hand and clutched it in her lap. "My life was so simple before.

you're asking me to be a wife and a mother not once, but twice over, and on top of that you're asking me to abandon my practice and move to Santa Fe."

"That's negotiable," he offered, thinking for sure that he would pique her interest, but she only shot him a look.

"Negotiable? How romantic."

"What I'm saying is that my leaving Tucker isn't a done deed."

"Fine. If you stay here, we can continue on like we are now."

"Which would suit you perfectly well. You could keep on with your work, and play at having a husband and kids, and then when the going gets rough you could take off, free as a bird."

"I'd never do that."

"Right! So what's the difference if you're married?"

"Precisely? What's the difference if I'm not" He started to laugh. He couldn't help it.

"Christ you have a quick mouth. Always could tie me up with words.

Right from the start."

"And right from the start you were rigid," she returned. "You got an idea in your mind, like evening study hall, and insisted on it come hell or high water. Good Lord, Noah, you've been through one marriage and failed.

Why in the world do you want to try it again?"

"So I can do it right this time."

"And you're sure you will?"

"I think so."

"Well, you have more faith in yourself that I have in me."

"No," he said sadly. ill just want it more, I guess. That's all."

Feeling dejected, thinking that if Paige didn't really love him, moving back to Santa Fe and putting everything about Tucker, Vermont, behind him might be the only way he'd survive, he left to Join the others in the kitchen.

Paige didn't know what to do. Conflicting thoughts chased each other around in her head, leaving her little peace that night. Loving Noah was brand new. Left to her own devices, she might have worn the knowledge around for a while to see about the comfort of the fit, but he wasn't giving her that luxury. He was pressuring her to make decisions she didn't feel capable of making.

Then, the following afternoon, after she had muddled her way through a day's work, she got a call from Joan Felix that upped the pressure something fierce.

> twenty-one g THINK WE HAVE ONE," JOAN SAID.

Paige didn't follow. "One what?"

"Family. For Sami. It's a mother and father who have four biological children and are looking to adopt a fifth. They just moved to Vermont from the Midwest. We had a preliminary meeting with them last Friday.

On the surface, they look good. It'll be at least a month before the home study is complete. You've been through that, so you know what it's like."

Paige heard only half of what Joan was saying. An awful thumping inside her drowned out the rest. She caught something about a biological family for Sami, four children wanting to take her west, but the only thing that really registered was an image of Sami's bedroom, suddenly empty and quiet and cold "Paige? Are you there?"

"Yes."

ill thought for a minute that we'd gotten cut off."

"I'm sorry." Paige pressed a hand to her stomach. "Would you tell me again? You found a family for Sami?"

She tried to listen this time, but when she hung up the phone, she was feeling nauseated.

It was one upheaval in her life too many. She made her way back to the kitchen and opened a can of ginger ale. She was sipping it, willing her stomach to settle and her mind to make sense out of what she'd learned, when Angie slipped in.

She didn't say anything, just leaned against the counter near Paige with a nervous look on her face.

Paige didn't like that look. Not on the all-knowing and confident Angie. "Why do I get the feeling something's happened?" she asked warily.

"Ben and I are going to make it," Angie said.

The words registered. Paige intellectualized them and managed a semienthusiastic, "That's great, Angie," but she knew there was more.

Whereas Angie should have looked pleased, she remained nervous.

"But we may be moving."

"Moving?"

"Back to New York."

"Oh, Angie!"

Angie closed her hands around Paige's wrists and, beseechingly, said, "I'm torn, Paige. In so many ways. If I were the only one involved, I'd never even be considering this. I love Tucker. I love you. I love our families. But I'm not the only one involvedmuch as I may have fooled myself into thinking that for too long a time. There's Ben. And what it boils down to is that he needs to be in the city.

He's bored here."

Paige didn't know what to say. She couldn't grasp a future without Angie. From her first conception of the practice, Angie had played a vital role. "But . . . what will you do?"

"I called a friend in Manhattan. He knows of two slots for pediatriciansboth slightly upstate, but within easy commuting distance. I may look into them." She paused, expectant in a skeptical sort of way. "What do you think?"

Paige was having trouble thinking, what with her world tipping over again, but she tried.

ill think, uh, I think that you can't possibly go, because we need you here, but if that's what's necessary to save your marriage, you'll have to." Angie leaving? Sami being adopted by strangers?

Her stomach was a single large knot.

"Nothing's definite," Angie said. ill may hate both positions, and Ben may decide to work out of Montpelier, or teach in Hanover, or even commute to New York. But if he wants to go, I can't say no. He tried here. For ten years he did, for my sake, and we all know what happened. So now I'm trying to listen to what he's saying. He's a smart guy. He knew his son. Dougie may only be fourteen, but he's happy at Mount Court. He could either stay at school here or come with us if we movenot that I love the idea of his staying, any more than I love his boarding now. My heart still rebels. My mind sees the merit in it. Dougie needs to breathe. If the values I've spent fourteen years instilling in him haven't taken by now, they never will." She took a quick breath. "I'm trying to look realistically at the future.