She stared off for a moment, her bony fingers skimming slowly across the white-on-white pattern of the chenille. "How old were you when we told you about your mother's condition?"

"Twelve." He remembered it more vividly than he wanted to. Auntie Vivvy and his father sitting there, his aunt doing all the talking, his father looking as if he'd just been Tasered.

Sean had asked, "Could I get it?"

Auntie Vivvy had looked to his father, urging him with her light-saber eyes to say something, contribute in some way. "Yes, Sean," she'd said finally. "It's an inherited trait, like your brown eyes, which you obviously got from her, instead of the green from your father."

Da's eyes were the color of sea glass, which Sean had always thought was kind of cool, since his father spent so much time at sea. But those eyes had been lowered, staring at his huge callused hands.

"Could Hugh get it, or Deirdre?" Six-year-old Hugh had been swinging by his knees from a limb of the magnolia tree. Sean had caught sight of him through the front window. He hadn't said anything. Auntie Vivvy hated when Hugh climbed her trees.

One-year-old Deirdre had sat on the floor nearby, babbling and clapping to herself. Sean remembered wishing he were little, like her, and didn't have to hear all this Huntington's crap.

"Each of you has a fifty percent chance of carrying the gene," Auntie Vivvy had said matter-of-factly, the way she said most things. But it had delivered a jolt of understanding-Sean realized what she was really saying was they could all end up like their mother-twitchy and weird, saying things that didn't make sense. "There's no way to know until symptoms emerge," said his aunt. "But that wouldn't be until you're older, so you don't need to worry about it now."

Right, he remembered thinking at the time. I'm twelve, but I'm not a frickin' idiot.

There in her bedroom, Aunt Vivvy was remembering this scene, too. "He never said a word. I had to do everything. Such a big strong man," she scoffed, "weak as a baby."

"He was heartbroken!"

"We all were."

"It was his wife, for godsake. The love of his life."

"And what would you know about that, Sean Patrick? You've never allowed love into your life."

"Neither have you!"

Her face softened slightly, a shadow of a smile, and he realized that she had. Somewhere, at some point, she'd had love. But Sean wasn't interested in his maiden aunt's now-defunct love life. "What made him leave?" he demanded.

"How old were you when she died?"

"Just turned fifteen."

"And Deirdre would've been . . . approximately four."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

Aunt Vivvy's gnarled hands laced together in her lap. "When your mother died, he broke. I've never seen anything quite like it before or since. Possibly it was because his family had scattered to the winds when they'd immigrated to America, and he had no one to turn to. I've thought about it many times. He had planted all his potatoes in one garden bed, as it were, and when the crop failed, he had nothing."

"He had three children."

Her eyes went half-lidded in disgust. "And don't think I didn't remind him of that. Often. Moving here was intended to be a temporary measure. I told him he had to stop the infernal sailor business and get a job that would have him home every night."

"But he didn't."

"I suppose it was some solace to him-the sea. He was raised on an island. He kept threatening to take the three of you and go back to it. But there was nothing there anymore. It had been abandoned in the 1950s, I believe."

"Great Blasket. I remember him talking about it."

"Yes." She sighed. "Ad infinitum."

"You haven't told me when or why he left."

"The crying and the drinking, Sean. The drinking and the crying. My God, but it was annoying! After a while I told him I'd had enough. He had one more trip scheduled, and I informed him that when he returned, he'd have to take the three of you and move out."

"Well, we know that never happened, so what was it?"

"He hit Deirdre."

"He hit her?" Sean could remember getting cuffed from time to time, and Hugh got spanked regularly. But he never remembered Deirdre being on the business end of those enormous hands.

"He was packing to go, drinking as if every port would be a dry town, and she was pestering him about something. I can't remember what, and it certainly doesn't matter. You know how Deirdre can be-every little thing an opportunity for a scene." Aunt Vivvy's eyes went a little unfocused as the memory came to her, her faced pinched in residual horror. "They were at the top of the stairs. He hit her so hard with the back of his hand that she flew up against the railing. She would have gone over if I hadn't caught her leg."

"Holy shit," he murmured. The image of four-year-old Deirdre falling headfirst into the foyer below was a grim one.

"Indeed."

"What did you do?"

She took a breath and let it out slowly. "I told him the truth."

"Which was . . . ?"

"That he was worthless and weak, and didn't deserve to be a father."

Sean felt the blow as if he'd received it himself. "And he believed you," he breathed. "Jesus, Vivian."

A mirthless smile rose on her face. "Yes, well, he had the last laugh, didn't he?"

"He never came back," said Sean. "And you were stuck with us."

CHAPTER 29.

In the morning, Chrissy came over for another dog training session, and Sean could feel the difference immediately. She was trying. It was not the Chrissy he was used to, always so sure of herself and her place at the fine-grain top of the social sediment. She'd only ever needed to smile or to breathe to confirm her status, and others had always smiled back, hoping to be anointed-at least until the end of lunch period-by the high priestess at the altar of popularity.

"So, Kevin," she said. "How do you feel it's going?" Kevin shrugged, of course, so Chrissy pressed further. "Come on," she said, "you're a pretty astute guy. I know you've seen some things George could improve on." Sean noticed the subtle shift toward George as the student, rather than Kevin.

"Well, she's pretty good at letting me be the boss. But she gets kinda mad when other dogs walk by. She growls and tugs at the leash like she's ready for a smack-down."

"Wow." Chrissy nodded as if he'd just identified a previously unnoticed geological fault line. "I am so glad you pointed that out. We'll definitely need to work on that one, won't we?" She asked further questions about exactly how far the other dogs were when George started to growl and what kinds of dogs, and the like, treating Kevin like an expert witness.

"Okay, so this is a perfect example of what I call a Broken Window. Did you ever hear of the Broken Window Theory?" Kevin shook his head, but his gaze locked on hers waiting for her explanation. She told him how little things like broken windows or graffiti in a neighborhood often led to bigger crimes, because criminals could see that the residents didn't care enough to maintain things. "So we've got to fix any of George's broken windows before they turn into vandalism and car theft. Get it?"

Kevin nodded solemnly. The image of George joyriding behind the wheel of a stolen Beemer almost made Sean laugh out loud, but he was able to maintain a veneer of seriousness.

Chrissy's eyes shifted toward Sean. "I do this with my girls all the time. They start to whine about something, or get sloppy about keeping their rooms clean, and I'm on them like a lightning strike!" She snapped her fingers. She turned back to Kevin. "Let's take George where you've seen other dog walkers, and help her learn to control herself a little more, okay?" She gave Sean a quick sparkle of a smile and set off with Kevin and George.

Sean was giving the porch a much-needed good hard sweep when they returned, and he could hear Chrissy explaining to Kevin, "She growls because she's so protective-that's in her nature, and we don't want to change who she is. We just want her to know that not everything is a threat. She'll actually be happier knowing that you can take care of yourself most of the time."

Kevin nodded, and Sean could see him thinking this through. The boy might not be able to be less fearful for his own benefit, Sean considered, but he might be able to do it for the dog he now loved. It was an odd motivator, but it just might work, and he felt his gratitude and affection for Chrissy rising in response.

When the dog training session ended and Kevin went inside to get George some water, Chrissy said, "So . . . um . . . are you hungry? I was going to get some lunch before the girls get home from field hockey camp."

Milano was her favorite restaurant, and they sat at a little round cafe table draped in pale green damask cloth and ate their sandwiches filled with high-end deli meat, thickly sliced cheese, and condiments like pesto and roasted red peppers. Chrissy chatted about her girls and her gym schedule and her occasional struggles with Rick, her ex-husband.

"He just doesn't get me anymore," she said. "He used to understand me like on this sort of cellular level? But now when I say something as simple as . . . I don't know . . . the accountant says you have too many write-offs and you're going to get audited again-he looks at me like I'm speaking Swahili or something."

"Actually, I'm not sure there's a translation for that in Swahili," said Sean.

She grinned. "Like you speak Swahili."

"Well, I lived in Africa-couple years in Kenya, couple in Democratic Republic of Congo-so, yeah, I really do."

"Say something, then."

He thought for a minute. At first he was going to tell her that she had a little drip of red pepper juice on her chin, but considered she might not take it kindly. "Wewe ni mrembo."

"Which means?"

"You're beautiful."

Her smile filled with buttery satisfaction. She made him say it several more times so she could repeat it to her daughters. One in particular was having a little self-esteem problem.

As they walked back out to the parking lot, she slid her hand into his, and it felt smooth and warm, a strangely new experience. Sex was one thing, but hand-holding was something else entirely. It indicated an attachment, and done publicly it was practically a blinking neon sign: WE ARE TOGETHER. Sean had always avoided it more assiduously than exposure to tuberculosis.

But it felt kind of good-as did the kiss she gave him when she dropped him off. In a funny way both felt weirdly more intimate than sex, and the thought that two such apparently innocent acts could start to seem like a contract of some kind tumbled around in his brain.

At eleven that night, the phone rang. It was Da. "Will you see me?" he asked.

"So much for giving me some time to think about it."

"I gave you a whole day."

Sean chuckled. "A whole day," he said drily. "Generous after being gone for almost thirty years. And how come you keep calling so late at night?"

"Because I don't want to talk to your aunt, and I remember she favors an early bedtime."

"You seem to remember a lot."

"Too much," he said. "I remember everything."

There was a silence then, the two of them listening to each other breathe into their respective receivers, like animals circling, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

"Have you told Hugh and Deirdre?" Da asked finally.

There was a momentary temptation to say, Hugh's dead and you nearly killed Deirdre. But the seesaw of anger and longing tipped toward the latter. "No," he said. "I haven't."

"You're still very protective of them. I'm glad of that."

"Someone had to be."

The older man was silent. Then he said, "I don't like the phone."

"Neither do I." They'd both spent the majority of their lives beyond the reach of a phone line, Sean realized. But he certainly wasn't going to dwell on their similarities.

"Will you meet me then, and I can beg your forgiveness in person?"

Sean felt the succubus again. He did not want to be begged for anything. "Wait a minute," he said. "Where are you?"

"The Comfort Inn."

"The Comfort Inn where?"

"On Route 9."

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-he was three minutes away! "Did you drive by the house a couple of days ago?"

"I saw you up on the veranda. That's how I knew you still lived there."

Sean felt woozy and thought he might faint. In three minutes, he could see his da. And then what? Weep? Punch him? Tell him one of his children is dead?

"I can't . . . I don't . . ."

"Shall I give you more time?"

"Yeah," Sean said, his throat feeling tight and painful.

"I'll give you the telephone number of the hotel. You can call when you're ready."

After the call, Sean sat in the kitchen. The rain had stopped, and the silence was punctuated by moisture dripping out of the downspouts. More time. Would it help? Would there ever be enough of it to sort out nearly thirty years of absence? Did he even feel like trying?

"Uncle Sean." There was pressure at his shoulder, and pain in his back. He felt sticky and hot, the sheets clinging to him like cellophane. He fluttered his eyes against the brightness in the room. "Uncle Sean." Another poke at his shoulder.

"For the love of God, what?"