"Five four-hour days sounds perfect," I tell her when she finally lapses into silence, and seems to be waiting for my response. "I can start next week."

"I'll need to get the paperwork to you..." she says, and then drones on about insurance and paying into my pension and all the rest, but I'm barely listening. If I work from nine to one I can get to Peekskill by two-thirty and spend the afternoon with Ben. It means I won't be there for his therapies in the morning, but sometimes I just feel like I'm in the way, fluttering my hands and mumbling encouragement while the professionals get to work.

No, I'd rather be there for his leisure time and dinner, and then get home in the evening to do it all over again.

Realization crashes over me at how exhausting such a dual life is going to be. I'm already exhausted, and I'm not even working. But I don't care. This is good news. This is a way forward.

As I'm leaving Alwin's offices to head to the train station, my phone rings. It's Juliet. I take a deep breath and then answer the call.

"Hello, Juliet."

I hear a ragged intake of breath and then Juliet says, "I don't really blame you, Maddie. Bruce wouldn't want me to say that, but..."

"I'm sure Bruce wouldn't," I agree, wincing as I remember him thrusting his tongue into my mouth, grinding his hips against mine. I close my eyes, cringing inwardly. What the hell was I thinking?

"I'm sorry," Juliet whispers, and I know she means it. She sounds like she has been crying. Maybe drinking too.

"So am I."

"How is Ben?"

"Getting better."

"Is he?" Relief fills her voice. "Oh Maddie, I'm so thrilled. Will he back at Burgdorf in January?"

"Ben will never go back to Burgdorf, Juliet," I say almost gently. Even if he had a complete recovery, which I know he won't, I wouldn't send him back there. Not after the insurance claim, the bad press. Not after everything.

"Oh." Her voice is small and sad, like a child's. "But..."

"He still can't really walk or talk," I explain, knowing the words are brutal and that they will hurt Juliet, but they are the truth. "He still has a long road ahead, and the truth is he'll never be the person he was before."

Juliet doesn't respond, but I can hear her uneven breathing. Finally she asks, "Do you blame me?"

I slow, people streaming past me on the way into Grand Central. I duck into the doorway of a deli and press against a bin of oranges. Do I blame her? I've wanted to. I've wanted to have the clean, sure feeling of knowing just who was to blame. Pointing your finger can feel very satisfying.

"I don't know," I admit. "You haven't actually told me what happened." She doesn't answer. "Were you talking to Helen Lanfer, Juliet? Did you not see Ben and Josh climb up on the rocks?"

Silence. I close my eyes. She's probably thinking of the settlement conference on Friday. Maybe I should be thinking of it too, but right now I just want an honest answer from my friend.

"Juliet..."

"I should go," she says hurriedly. "But Maddie, I am sorry." She hangs up the phone, and I stand there for a moment, staring down at my phone. I think about calling Lewis. I haven't because I'm afraid he's angry with me for the lawsuit, the article. He never answered the text I sent, and I wonder how he and Joanna are handling the media frenzy. I almost call him-I'd be returning his call, after all-and then I decide not to. I'm not going to go there any more. I'm not going to look to someone who's taken to save me. I'm not going to fantasize about something that will never happen, that shouldn't happen. I slide the phone in my bag and then start walking toward the train station.

24.

JOANNA.

I get to Burgdorf at five, after waiting in a Starbucks by Grand Central, my stomach in knots as I read the Daily Mail article over and over again. I know it must be Jane who posted on MetroBaby.

The article quotes 'a concerned Burgdorf parent' whose child has been 'overlooked and ignored by a school that prides itself on a nurturing and supportive environment'. I suppose I should be glad that the focus is mostly on Burgdorf rather than Maddie or me and Lewis, or Ben or Josh. The journalist clearly is out to rake up some mud about Manhattan's private schools, but the trouble is, when mud is raked up, everyone gets dirty. This won't be good for Josh, for any of us.

At five I make my way over to Burgdorf, circling around the block to Sixth Avenue. When I glance down the street I can see a couple of journalists lingering by the doors, even though most of the parents have already left with their children. Have they interviewed parents? What would they say about me? About Josh? What if the reporters dig and find out about Maddie and Lewis? Maddie and Lewis. I hate pairing their names together, even in my mind.

I knock on the side entrance, which is a metal door with no handles, used as a fire exit. It takes a few minutes but finally someone opens it. It's one of the cleaning staff, and I can tell she recognizes me.

"I'm looking for Josh Taylor-Davies..."

"Upstairs."

I follow her up the stairs to a classroom where the remnants of the afterschool club are hanging out. Josh is sitting alone in the corner, his arms wrapped around himself.

"Hey, Josh," I say softly, and he looks up, any expression he might have had in his face ironing out to blankness.

I don't know the teacher who is on duty, and she nods at me, her face tight. Does she blame me for this article, the bad publicity for Burgdorf? It's my fault for telling Jane, but no one knows that. I hope.

I feel hot and prickly with panic as I take Josh downstairs and out the side entrance. We walk quickly away from Burgdorf and I wonder how long this will be news. Should I keep Josh off school tomorrow? I have a full day of appointments booked. I've canceled so many things lately, rearranged my work for Josh as well as for my parents. I'm afraid if I continue to cancel, I'll lose patients, and that is something we can't afford.

But I can't think about that as Josh and I walk up Sixth Avenue, towards the park. Right now I need to think about my son.

"Hey." I rest a hand on his shoulder as we keep walking. "You okay?"

He nods. We walk in silence for a few minutes and then he asks, "Why were reporters there?"

"Who told you about the reporters?"

"Everybody was talking about it."

"Sometimes reporters want to make anything into a story."

"It was about...about Ben, though, wasn't it?" he asks, and he stares up at me solemnly, the expression in his eyes opaque.

I hesitate and then say, "Yes, Josh. It was about Ben."

"What did they say about me?" he asks.

"They didn't say anything about you. It was about the school, about the playground supervisors not watching where you and Ben were going."

"It wasn't their fault. Ben made sure they weren't looking."

"Why? Why did Ben want to go up on the rocks with you?" Josh doesn't answer and I struggle to keep my voice even. "Josh, please. Tell me."

"He wanted to tell me something," he says, and then he keeps walking.

Lewis is waiting for us at home, standing by the door, looking anxious and tense as we come into the apartment.

"Outside...?" he asks and I shake my head. No reporters.

Josh disappears into his bedroom and Lewis scrubs his face with his hands. "What a mess. I called Maddie to see how she's coping..."

"How Maddie's coping?" The words burst from me before I can help it.

Lewis drops his hands from his face. "Don't, Jo. Not now. Please."

I bite my lip, hard. "How can I not? When you've said-"

"We were friends," Lewis says, his voice rising. "We've been friends because Josh and Ben were friends. That's all."

"Except for the one time you kissed."

"Are you going to keep throwing that in my face?"

I stare at him, full of fury and hurt, because he's asking me to dismiss something that hurt me so much so quickly. It doesn't feel fair. "Do you know," I say, striving to keep my tone reasonable, "I didn't realize you actually spent time together?" Lewis does not reply. "I thought you just dropped Ben off, after bowling or going to the park. But that's not what you did, is it?"

Something flickers across his face and then disappears. "Not always."

"So sometimes you hung out, the four of you?"

"You were busy, and Maddie worked flex hours so she could be around more." I gasp at that, at the injustice of it, the implied accusation that this is something, at least partially, my fault"So we did things together," Lewis continues. "But that's all it was."

"Halloween last year," I fire at him. "You trick-or-treated together?"

His mouth tightens. "Yes."

"The time you went to the farm in Queens, to pick pumpkins. Maddie came?"

He folds his arms. "Yes-"

"Kites. You made two. The four of you flew them?"

"You have a good memory," Lewis grits out. "Yes, okay, fine. We flew them."

"So when wasn't Maddie with you?" I don't wait for his answer. "And why did you never mention her? If it was all so innocent, why didn't you ever say that you were with Maddie?" My voice rises to a near-shriek.

"Because I knew you'd react like this," Lewis snaps, and stalks out of the room.

I sink down onto the sofa, my head in my hands. After a few seconds I hear a door open and I think it's Lewis, but then I look up and see Josh.

"You were fighting," he says quietly. His voice sounds flat.

I try to dredge up a smile, but I just can't. "Grownups fight sometimes, Josh. You know that. Just like kids do. But we make up."

He watches me for a moment. "You were fighting about Maddie."

"Not really about Maddie," I hedge.

"You were asking him what we all did together. And Dad said they were friends. I heard him."

"Of course they're friends," I say. "Just like you and Ben are friends."

Josh looks away. "Ben is getting better," he says after a moment, and his tone has turned thoughtful, almost calculating.

"That's a good thing, Josh, isn't it?"

"When he's better...will things be the same again? The way they were? Will we do all the things we did before, together?"

I want to promise that things will be exactly as they were, but I know I can't. "Things will get better, Josh," I say. "I know this is hard, but things will get better. And some things might even be the same."

Josh nods slowly, accepting, and then he turns around and walks back to his room. I was trying to reassure him, but I feel like I said the wrong thing.

I hardly sleep that night; Lewis and I lie on the bed, our backs to each other, unspeaking. The silence is like ice, encasing us, separating us, and I can't stand it. But I don't know how to break it, either.

Morning comes and I am gritty-eyed and so tired I feel as if I am observing everything from a muted distance. Lewis and I move around each other in the kitchen like polite strangers, still not talking. I kiss Josh goodbye and head out, grateful for a little relief from the oppressive heaviness that lies over my home like a mantle, and yet I am so sad, so desolate, that every step feels like wading through a sea of glue.

The day passes in a slow blur. I check my phone for messages from Lewis, but there is nothing. At lunch I check the MetroBaby site, and see that the Burgdorf post is number three on the trending list, having been overtaken by a discussion on the ethics of installing nanny cams in your apartment and whether preservatives in baby food relate to autism.

I breathe a sigh of relief, because I am just starting to hope that this story is nothing more than a storm in a teacup.

On the way home from work I buy the Daily Mail at the bodega outside the subway station and see nothing about Burgdorf on the front page. Another sigh of relief. Maybe, after all this, we can actually move on.

We strive for normalcy that night; Josh talks about a new Lego installation at the store in midtown, where Lewis predictably took him that morning. I marvel at how resilient children are, at how Josh can go from wide-eyed sorrow to this enthusiasm for a Christmas tree made of over a hundred thousand pieces of Lego.

"With real lights, Mom," he says, and I nod and smile.

That night when we go to bed Lewis pulls me towards him, fits me against his body. It feels so good, so right, that I nearly cry. I suck in a hard breath and whisper, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," he says after a second's pause, and we don't say anything else; we simply cling to each other.

The next morning I juggle my appointments to take Josh into school. Neither Lewis nor I can afford to keep him off another day, and in any case we need to get back into the normal routine.

There are thankfully no reporters at Burgdorf, but there are parents, and they are glaring at me. I can feel their animosity, and I know Josh can too. I don't understand it; maybe I shouldn't have told Jane about the lawsuit, but she's the one who ranted about Burgdorf online. Maddie is the one who is actually suing. Why am I the one taking all the hostility, all the blame?

Then it hits me. Because I'm here. Maddie hasn't been back to Burgdorf since the accident, and no one but me knows that Jane was the original poster. And, of course, my son started it by pushing Ben.

I ruffle Josh's hair as I say goodbye, trying to keep things upbeat, and then turn and see Mrs. James standing in front of the doorway to the fourth grade classroom, her arms folded.