Sean laughed. "She's pretty great, huh?"

"It's funny, because she doesn't actually look that different. It's like she's grown into herself or something. Plus she looks happy, which she never did in high school." He smirked at Sean. "I suppose you might be marginally responsible for that."

"We school nurses do have a way with the ladies."

Kevin and Rebecca made their way back, and Kevin was mightily impressed with the cake. "It's this enormous flower!" he said, holding his arms wide. "With Mrs. McGrath's face in the middle! And it says 'The President'!"

"Because she's the president of the Garden Club now," Cormac explained. "Your aunt used to be, you know."

Kevin grinned at Sean. "She must have graduated, because now she's the queen."

Sean laughed. To Cormac, he said, "Inside joke."

"Spinster!" Cormac's cousin Janie came over with her son Dylan. "How's everything?"

Sean introduced her to Rebecca, and Janie remembered her from high school. The women chatted as Kevin and Dylan eyed each other. Finally, Kevin said, "Wanna see my dog?" Dylan looked to his mother, who wanted to know where the dog was and how long they'd be gone, and whether the dog was friendly. "He's only in first grade," she murmured to Sean.

"Kevin's in sixth grade, and he's a Boy Scout, so he's pretty responsible, right Kev?" Kevin responded with a shrug-nod. "Don't worry," Sean told Janie. "It's safe."

" 'Don't worry,' " she said wryly. "Not sure I know that tune."

Sean nodded. "Yeah, just when it seems like the coast is clear, some other danger pops up." He told them about Kevin going under the waves when they were in Ireland. "I nearly lost my mind!" They both looked at him for a moment without responding. It seemed strange to Sean, and he said, "Well, wouldn't you?" Yes, they both nodded. Absolutely.

There was an awkward silence. Sean said, "So, Janie, I hear you've got good news."

"Cormac told you."

"Yeah, I hope that's okay."

"No, it's fine," she said. "I'm just trying to keep it on the down low until after the wedding. And I'm really hoping Cormac and Barb will have some good news of their own by then." She told Rebecca about the pregnancy and impending wedding, and then she heard her daughter start to cry from the opposite side of the yard and hurried off.

The boys came back and wandered around the party together. Aunt Vivvy truly was the queen, surrounded by Garden Club members who stopped to pay homage to her past leadership. Sean and Rebecca talked to the McGraths and various other party-goers. Sean always introduced her as "my friend, Rebecca," but they stood too close for their relationship to be mistaken as platonic. Mr. McGrath and Cormac bantered at the grill.

And Barb stayed upstairs.

After a while, Sean asked Cormac, "How about if I take a plate up to her?"

"Are you packing heat? You might need it."

"I'll take my chances." Sean loaded a plate and went upstairs.

Cormac's childhood bedroom still had a shelf full of trophies from their high school days and a poster of tennis great Boris Becker. Barb was curled into an overstuffed chair in the corner.

"Missed you out there, picture taker," Sean said. "Thought I'd bring the party to you."

"Oh, Sean, that's so sweet of you. I keep hoping I can get calm enough to face it."

"Cormac told me."

The circles under Barb's eyes were darker than ever. "I'm happy for them," she said dully. Then a flash of anger: "But she wasn't even trying! And she's just such a smartass!"

"A total smartass." Sean nodded sympathetically. "But she's family-what can you do?"

"Not a damn thing," she muttered, staring out the window.

Cormac had warned him, but Sean was still surprised by this uncharacteristic bleakness.

Then she turned to him. "Look," she said, "you've been through a lot, and you have a right to build your life however you like. But I just want to know: would you stay if he was your biological child?"

"Kevin?" Sean said, a vague panic dulling his comprehension skills.

"Of course, Kevin. Who else?"

"Um . . ." Sean hadn't really considered the question of biology before, because there'd never been a possibility of his having any kind of child, biological or otherwise.

"I've been thinking about it a lot," she said. "How much it matters . . . whether it matters at all."

"I guess maybe it's just personal preference," he offered. "Some people care about having the same genetic makeup, some don't."

"And what if you don't get a choice?" she said quietly.

They sat there, with the implications of her question hanging in the air around them.

She went on staring out the window. "I've been so determined to have a biological child, and I really want the experience of being pregnant. But that's over in nine months." She turned to look at Sean. "At which point, what does it matter where the kid came from?"

It seemed like sound logic. And yet he sensed something beyond it, something more than whether she'd decided to give up the hormone treatments and contact an adoption agency.

Her gaze softened. "I don't think either of us has a choice, Sean," she said, gently. "I think you and I are both going to raise and love other people's children."

She took a long slow breath and let it out with a sigh. Her shoulders, which had been stiff and ready for a fight, relaxed. Something seemed to change for her then, a perspective shift, a letting go. "It's an honor, really," she said, "don't you think?"

Without waiting for him to answer, she rose and went down to the party.

The rest of the day was surreal to Sean. His legs felt as if they might go out from under him at any time and he would sink into the ground and disappear without anyone noticing.

"Have you had anything to eat?" Rebecca asked at one point. She seemed to be studying him. He turned away, pretending to see someone he knew.

Eventually they left, and he dropped her off with a tepid peck on the cheek. At home, he helped Aunt Vivvy up to her room and told Kevin to take a shower and make sure his backpack was ready for school tomorrow. All of this was automatic now. He did it without a thought.

Other people's children. Had he somehow become a parent without his consent? Had the choice been made for him?

Later when the house was quiet, he was restless, and his shock turned to indignation. Who was Barb to make pronouncements about what choices he did or didn't have? He hardly knew her. Cormac must have told her about their conversations at The Pal-conversations he thought were just between them.

He paced around the kitchen, his back throbbing, which was strange because it hadn't bothered him for a while. He threw down four ibuprofen and opened a beer, hoping it would ease his restlessness. A massage would help, he thought, or, even better, sex. Anything that would take him out of his spinning thoughts. He grabbed the car keys and went out the door, telling himself he was not going to Rebecca's to lose himself in her body. He just wanted a change of venue. If sex happened, that would be nice, too.

When she opened the door she was wearing pajamas, faded and stretched out, a seam popping at the shoulder. He'd never seen her in pajamas before. If she had to wear them, why couldn't they be nice ones, at least?

"Well?" she said.

"Well, what? I can't just come by?"

She squinted at him, baffled. Then she held out her arms, indicating the room. He looked around. They had finished painting the day before. She must have moved all the furniture herself, because the room was completely set up. Or maybe she'd had help. Maybe that old boyfriend.

"It looks great," he said.

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, fine. I just couldn't sleep."

"You seemed a little . . . funny after you talked to Barb."

Sometimes he loved how perceptive she was. This was not one of those times.

He lifted a shoulder dismissively and dropped onto the new couch, which was not as squishy as the old leather one. It jarred his back.

"So," she said, when it was clear he wasn't starting the conversation. "The party was nice. I remember Cormac as being sort of this funny giant in high school, but he's got a very sweet side, too, doesn't he?"

Sean shrugged. He did not particularly care to talk about the "sweet side" of his traitorous friend at the moment.

"And Janie's just how I remember her," Rebecca went on, "nice, but a little edgy."

"Yeah, what was that weird look you two gave me when I told you about Kevin almost drowning? It was like in stereo."

"Um . . . I don't know if Janie was thinking the same thing . . ."

"It certainly looked like it."

"Well, I don't know. It wasn't really what you were saying, but how you were saying it."

"How was I saying it?"

"You just sounded very . . ." She hesitated. "Parental."

This was exactly not what he'd come here to talk about. It was what he'd come here to avoid. And here she was sitting in her ratty pajamas, hitting the sore spot.

"This is about getting tested, isn't it?" he said, knowing he was being irrational, but not able to stop himself, now that his building agitation had finally been unleashed.

"What?" Her eyes were wide with concern. "I never said anything about-"

"No, but the other night you implied it-that I'm like his parent now, so I should suddenly jump to do something I've always been completely against doing."

"Sean, that is not what I-"

"You know what I think? I think all this concern for Kevin is really self-interest. You want me to get tested for you."

For a moment she looked as if he'd slapped her, and somewhere down deep he knew that in a sense he had, and the resulting guilt made him even angrier. But then her eyes lit in just the same way Aunt Vivvy's did, and he realized he'd started a much bigger fight than he'd intended.

"Do I want you to get tested?" she said, her voice low but furious. "Of course I do. I can't put it out of my mind like you do. And how could I not want to know what I'm in for? Because whether we're together or not, Sean, if you have Huntington's, I'll be devastated."

"I could get hit by a bus and the outcome's the same."

"Yes," she said, nodding hard. "That would devastate me, too. Because that's what it means to live in the world, Sean-not on the edge of it." She crossed her arms. "And what if I get hit by a bus? A change of scenery won't help. The fact is, it never really helped. It just gave you a way to hide from yourself."

"Oh, my God, you're lecturing me about hiding? You've been peeking out from behind your parents your whole life. You're forty-three freaking years old and I practically needed a crowbar to get you to separate!"

"Okay," she said, standing up. "Time for you to go."

"You're kicking me out. What-is my energy destabilizing you?"

"Your energy is practically radioactive right now, and I want it-and you-out of here."

"Fine." In three long strides he was at the door. "But this conversation is not over."

"You're damn straight it's not over." She twisted the knob and held the door wide. "We'll finish it when you can stop being such a jackass. And next time? Call first."

CHAPTER 55.

Sean went to school early on Tuesday morning to get his mind off the previous night and found Penny with a shopping bag full of clothes. "Running away from home?" he teased.

The bag belonged to an eighth grader. "His father left, and he says his mom's sad and doesn't get out of bed much. He and his older sister are managing, but the washing machine broke, and he was starting to smell bad. The other kids were calling him 'Stink Bomb.' "

"So you're doing his laundry here?" Sean was shocked. Nurses didn't do laundry.

"There's a washer and dryer in the janitor's closet. We're working on getting a new machine donated to the family, but until then-"

"Shouldn't you call Social Services?"

"I think guidance made a call. But DCF has much bigger fish to fry. The kids are holding it together and they don't want to leave her, so it's pretty low priority."

"Any word on Davis?"

She sighed. "That could take weeks to get sorted out. We have to give the meds until the order changes, okay? So please don't let him off the hook again, or it's my neck on the block."

He took the bag from her and said, "Point me to the janitor's closet."

"You don't have to do that."

He patted her shoulder. "Least I can do for the patron saint of Belham Middle School."