KATE.

MAYBE IF THE FIRST THING HE SAID THAT MORNING HADN'T BEEN "I PULLED AN all-nighter," I would've been kinder. But this was his third report in as many days. The previous two were "Wow, I got in six hours" and "I typed so much I can't even move my fingers." On those mornings I managed a "Good" and a mildly enthusiastic "Oh, honey, how great." Now it felt as if he was expecting me to burst into applause.

When Tim first started on the history of loss, I was eager to help. I read every word he wrote. And I think I weathered well the theme shifts, the new approaches, and the complete rethinkings. But as the years went by, I began to wonder if I was helping. My interest seemed to make him tense. Which made me tense. So I tried to detach, deciding that I didn't know anything, and I didn't want to know anything. Better, then, to ask nothing and eventually, hopefully, be pleasantly surprised.

But that morning I worried we were headed toward the all too familiar place of last-second panic. "I pulled another all-nighter," he said, looking especially tired and frazzled. "And I was on fire!" As he protested too much, an old fear of mine came rushing back: Tim won't ever finish.

Later that same morning, Teddy's kindergarten cla.s.s made a presentation for the parents. For six weeks they had been studying s.p.a.ce. Teddy had learned a great deal. The sun is hot. Jupiter has a red spot. The M planets are Mercury and Mars.

He told me all this and more as we stood next to his three-foot-by-five-foot s.p.a.ce mural. He'd painted a piece of the sun in an upper corner; he'd cut out planets of various sizes and glued a gold and purple glitter ring around Saturn; he'd painted in comets and asteroids, and we'd taken his picture and his teacher had taken our picture, all of us proud. I gushed about the planets that he'd stuck on in no particular order-or, to be scientific about it, an order understood by him alone.

I smothered him with praise: "Oh, Teddy, that's beeeeaaaauuuutiful." "I love the colors." "You did this by yourself!" "Look, Sam, at what Teddy made. He made the galaxy!"

I noticed the time. "Okay, Mommy has to work." I gave both Teddy and Sam hugs. "Bye, boys. Mommy loves you."

"Can't you stay longer?" Tim asked.

"No," I said as I hugged him.

He looked rattled. "Do you know what you just did?"

"What?"

"You patted me."

"I did?"

"You patted the back of my shoulder while we hugged. Don't you realize what that means?"

"Stop it, Tim. All it means is I'm going to be late." Backing away, I blew kisses to the boys, and then I turned and was gone.

When I got to work, two messages had already been left on my voice mail. Both were from my new reporter friend at The Wall Street Journal. The first message had been left at the unG.o.dly hour of 5:57 A.M. It went: "It's Lacey, calling from home. I'm ready to get started. Are you?" The second message came at 9:05 AM. "It's Lacey Windsor." She sounded serious. "I'm at my office. Did you see the paper?"

I hung up my coat, replaced my shoes with my fuzzy slippers, pulled out Lacey's business card, and dialed her work number. She answered her own phone. I said, "In answer to your questions: Yes, I'm ready to get started. And second, I haven't seen any newspaper of any kind."

"Oh," she said.

"You see, my older son's kindergarten cla.s.s gave a presentation on outer s.p.a.ce. They even baked these moon cookies." I heard the sound of Bruno sitting down in my big squishy office chair. "My boss is here. Can I call you right back?" I hung up and turned toward Bruno.

"Outer s.p.a.ce," he said, trying to smile. "That sounds promising."

Bruno looked pale, ghostlike. His baggy, brightly colored clothes could no longer hide the fact that he was now mostly bones and skin. His eyes seemed twice their healthy size. He needed cheering up.

"You're going to be a happy man," I announced. "I have some interesting news." I began telling him about my "almost unbelievable chance meeting" with a "rising star" at The Wall Street Journal whom "I was just talking with on the phone" when Bruno extended a section of The New York Times and let it drop on my desk. The paper flopped open. The headline of an article in the top right-hand corner read: CORTEZ STOCK PLUMMETS, UNDERFER OUSTED.

I began to read the article but didn't get far. I knew it wasn't good for us.

"I'm sorry, Kate."

"Did you know about this?"

"Louis gave me a heads-up last Friday."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to ruin your weekend."

"Bruno, what does it mean-"

"The foundation was endowed with Cortez stock. Which is now worthless. So, basically, we have nothing to give away. It's over, Kate. Louis is sorry about it. We'll be paid what we're owed, but he needs us to go away quietly."

I stared out my office window, noticing the dirt on the gla.s.s. "Is that all he said?"

"No, he said he hoped I was feeling better."

I was too stunned to cry.

"I feel especially bad for you, Kate. You've done so much work."

I put on my best face. "Don't worry about me."

"I do."

"I wouldn't trade away all that I've learned."

"That's my girl." Bruno pushed himself up to a standing position and gingerly crossed toward my office door. "Thanks, Kate. You could've taken this hard."

I took it harder than he will ever know. I took it hard at first, snapping at our intern, Jessica, while we made the long list of people to call. Around noon, I took it hard when I headed out for lunch and couldn't decide on what and where to eat. Around three o'clock, I took it especially hard when I realized Bruno Schwine & a.s.sociates was finished and the Lucy Foundation was no more.

Funny thing was that Bruno seemed relieved.

I went home early that day, so I wasn't there when Bruno collapsed headfirst and tumbled down the stairs. Jessica called 911. She rode in the ambulance with Bruno, who was unconscious. I got to St. Vincent's as quickly as I could, and it was during those three continuous days when I stayed at the hospital that it occurred to me I'd been wrong. Maybe I hadn't been hired to try to save the world. Maybe I'd been hired to help my old friend die.

ABIGAIL HOSFORD.

KATHERINE . . . YES . . . IT'S ABBY HOSFORD, WITH THE HEIGHTS a.s.sOCIATION . . . calling again. I left a message earlier with your sweet, sweet son . . . such good manners, too . . . I worried you might not have gotten my messa- KATE.

"I GOT YOUR MESSAGE."

"h.e.l.lo? Katherine?"

"In fact, I've gotten all of your messages."

"Are you screening?"

Yes. "No, I was sleeping."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I can call back. I just hate to keep calling you."

"Then stop. Stop calling."

"And I know you've been at the hospital. I spoke with your friend Claudia. I'm sorry about your loss. Your boss, I mean."

"He's actually doing better."

"Is he?"

"I mean, he's stable, they think."

"Oh, good. Good."

"Abigail, why don't you tell me why you're calling?"

"Yes, well, we have a situation which might require your help-"

"Just tell me what you want."

"Okay, basically, it's this."

As she explained her "predicament," my first impulse was to hang up the phone. Instead, I listened as Abigail Hosford described "a delicate situation" that needed "prompt attention" and a "savvy touch." At the end of her spiel, and to my surprise, I said in a voice not my own, "Why, yes, I'll be glad to help. In fact, why don't we pay a visit to Mrs. Anna Brody-Ashworth this very afternoon and straighten out the entire matter?"

The reason for this meeting had to do with the proposed brochure for the Brooklyn Heights a.s.sociation's annual landmark house and garden tour: twelve pages in length, a glossy cover with colored photographs, a brief history of the Heights a.s.sociation, a map of the Heights with the tour houses clearly delineated, the extensive list of house tour patrons, and most important, an entire page devoted to each featured house that year, including a detailed (five-to-six-hundred-word) description of each of the five homes.

Abigail filled me in on the particulars as we walked toward the Ashworth-Brody house. Months before, when Anna agreed to open her home to the community, she did so on one condition: She wanted approval of the copy. The Heights a.s.sociation was happy to give her approval, because they always gave approval, and in the past, there had never been a problem. But there also had never been a house quite like hers. (Oh, there'd been 84 Remsen, and 70 Willow, and countless others, but no house in the Heights rivaled, really, the Ashworth-Brody house.) And now the brochure was a week late getting to the printer for one simple reason: Anna Brody was not pleased.

I stood off to the side as Abigail Hosford reintroduced Pamela Wyeth-Bacon. Then Abigail indicated me, saying, "And of course you know-"

Anna turned and looked startled. Clearly, she hadn't been told I'd be joining them.

"h.e.l.lo," I said. "It's good to see you."

Anna Brody had cut her hair again, but this time it was extra short, like Mia Farrow's in that movie where she gave birth to the devil. Anna wore a big-collared cream blouse under a powder-blue cashmere sweater, caramel-colored slacks, and no makeup. She appeared nervous, jittery, as if highly caffeinated. (This didn't seem like the same woman who'd had lunch with me two weeks earlier.) She didn't look me in the eye. Instead, she focused on my forehead as she whispered, "It's been a while."

Anna didn't make eye contact with me the entire time all four of us were in the vestibule, nor did she later in the sunroom, where we sat around a gla.s.s table as her maid served tea and a tray of bitter Italian cookies. In fact, during the entire forty-seven minutes I was with her, she looked at me only once, and only at the end, and only because I made her.

It was all very polite at first. Pamela Wyeth-Bacon had never been in the mansion, and she gasped and praised and fawned over the s.p.a.ciousness, the colors, the curtains, the Biedermeier tables, the 1920 English stove, the Tuscan-style emblature.

I hadn't been in the house since Anna had done her newest redecorating. Needless to say, it was always exquisite, but now it was more so.

While the three of them discussed the "situation," I reviewed the most recent draft of the proposed description. Whoever had written the copy had done a wonderful job. In my opinion, One of the most striking and distinct features . . . was a phrase that could not be overused. It could apply to the hand-carved moldings and the ornate tin ceilings and the one-of-a-kind Honduras mahogany circular staircase and the truly grand parlor entrance hall with its huge pocket doors and marquetry paneling with black walnut inlay. It was true that her bathroom floor sparkled with a mosaic of muted green and yellow encaustic tiles, and how could she object to a border of limestone frames the bathtub or quibble over serenity fills the finished s.p.a.ce . . . ?

"Something's missing," Anna said.

"I don't know," I said. "This copy seems pretty good to me."

"I don't mean the brochure. The house."

We were confused.

"Something's wrong with my house."

The ladies objected, but that was all part of Anna's power. The more you complimented her, the more it appeared to hurt her.

"Maybe you could find another house," Anna said. "A better house."

Abigail laughed, clearly terrified at the thought. I began to feel sorry for Abigail and Pamela. They were trying to please Anna, and there was to be no pleasing.

Anna leaned toward me and said, "Let them use yours."

Now she was being cruel. (Only later did I realize she was being sincere.) A faint wail came from I didn't know where. Was it from upstairs or the bas.e.m.e.nt? Was it in the walls? Had it been going on the whole time we'd been sitting there?

Anna must have sensed me listening because she said, "That's Sophie."

"Is she all right?"

Avoiding my eyes, Anna spoke directly to my neck. "Of course she's all right. She wants to go the playground before it gets dark out."

The wailing unnerved me.

Anna said with a creepy Stepford smile: "Look, I hope you all don't think I'm being difficult."

Abigail: "Oh, my word, no. Never."

Yes! You're being impossible!

Pamela: "You want it to be perfect, that's all."

Abigail: "We do, too. We do, too."

I asked the ladies to leave us alone for a moment. With them out of the room, I told Anna to look at me. When she resisted, I took her by the wrist and squeezed hard, saying, "G.o.ddammit, Anna, look at me."

When she finally did, Sophie's wail from upstairs eerily started up again, this time louder, more insistent. So shrill, in fact, that I thought it might very well shatter gla.s.s.

"Now," I said, "listen good-"

Five minutes later, I found Abigail Hosford and Pamela Wyeth-Bacon standing nervously in Philip Ashworth's library.

"Mrs. Ashworth agrees to the copy as written. She looks forward to being a part of the house tour. And she apologizes for any inconvenience she may have caused. Now, ladies, if you'll excuse me." And I left the house.

There was so much I had wanted to say to Anna Brody. With all the real problems that real people are facing in the world, it was hard to care about the description of her house. So I told her to stop behaving like a child. I told her to get over herself fast. I told her to stop crying, and when she said, "I can't," then I told her to cry softer. I told her to get off her privileged a.s.s and take her little girl to the playground.

Finally, when I was done, she asked me to wait a moment, but I said, "No, I'm afraid I'm already late for a date with my husband."

Of course I wasn't late at all. Tim was. Half an hour late, and by then the Heights Cafe was packed and I was finishing my vodka tonic. I had already asked for the check when Tim rushed in. He looked at me with a puppy-dog expression. He was the embodiment of an apology. But I was in no mood for excuses. It had been over a week since my work had ended and Bruno had collapsed. It had been the worst week of a very trying year. Tim had suggested we go out, just the two of us, like old times.

The moment he sat down, I noticed how bad he looked. Bleary-eyed. It was if his eye sockets had sunk an inch lower on his face. He hadn't shaved in days, and he had scraggly patches of facial hair. His beard was blond and brown, but all I noticed were the flecks of gray.

He said, "How was your day?"