Josh pushed Ben? His best friend? Josh is that kid? The nameless kid Ben was arguing with, the kid whom Mrs. James suspended?

This is Josh's fault?

"I'm so sorry," she says and I don't answer. I don't know what to say, what to think. I want to grab Josh by his bony shoulders and shake him so hard his teeth rattle. "It was an accident," Joanna adds in a whisper, an apology, an excuse, and while I know it's true another part of me wants to start screaming and never stop. It was an accident that changed my son's life forever.

"Mrs. James told me they were arguing," I finally say numbly. "She didn't mention Josh. Just that it was another student. And that they were arguing," I repeat. My mind is spinning uselessly.

"Josh told me they weren't arguing. He's quite insistent about that. But he won't say much else." She grimaces, another apology.

"Have you asked him?" I ask, an edge to my voice.

"We've tried. But it's hard for him... He's been suspended..." She shakes her head, abject, a supplicant. "I'm not trying to make excuses."

Yes, I think. You are. You are making excuse because what your son did might have been accident, but it is still terrible, and someone is to blame. Yet do I really want to blame Josh? He's nine. He couldn't have meant for Ben to hit his head, to become brain damaged. Even if they were arguing, even if he meant to push him, I know Josh couldn't have foreseen the consequences. No child could have.

But it's still his fault.

I swallow down the pointless anger, the kneejerk sense of blame. "Where were they?" I ask. I still want to know the details. "Were they fighting over turns on a swing or something?" Ben has always been a swing junkie; he can never get enough of the adrenalin rush. I was the same as a kid, always running for the swings on the playground. High in the air I could forget my life for a little bit. Forget the foster homes, the fact that no one in the world would miss me. Forget the mean girls who whispered about my secondhand clothes, the free lunches I was entitled to. The trouble was, you always had to come back down. Get off the swing.

But Ben and Josh would never fight over a swing. Josh is more of a slide man, and in any case he never insists on his rights. When Lewis and I have been together with them-and the memories of all those times still possess a bittersweet sting-we'd intervene to make sure Josh got his fair share, his equal turn.

"They were...they were on the rocks," Joanna says and I stare at her in shock as the words seem to echo through the room.

"What?" Every Burgdorf parent knows the kids aren't allowed on the rocks, the huge boulders that form nearly a sheer cliff side that is a boundary to one side of the playground. "But they're not allowed to go on the rocks," I say. "Ever."

"I know." Joanna bites her lip. "Josh said this was the first time they went up there. He said Ben wanted to."

"Ben did?" Ben has always been a rule breaker, but the no-playing-on-the-rocks rule is a big one to break. Children can be threatened with suspension or even expulsion for flouting it, and I thought even Ben would have enough self-control, or at least enough self-preservation, to keep from risking that.

"I don't understand," I say. "Why would Ben want to go on the rocks? And why would Josh push him from there?"

"Lewis thinks they were just horsing around."

But Ben and Josh don't really horse around. At least Josh doesn't, and Ben accepts it. Mostly. Occasionally Ben tries to wrestle with him, but Josh usually just ducks away. And surely they wouldn't have been fooling around on top of the rocks, in a place they knew was forbidden, dangerous...

"No one told me they were on the rocks," I say. I rise from my chair, agitated now, everything in me racing. Ben fell from the rocks, not a slide or a swing. He fell from a place where he never should have been. Where he should have been prevented from going. And nobody told me. Not Mrs. James. Not Juliet. Nobody ever told me where Ben was when he fell. The accident report said the play structure, but the accident report may have been wrong. May have been a lie.

This is why Juliet is avoiding me, I realize in a sickening rush. She must have known where he was. She must feel guilty.

"I'm sorry," Joanna says as she watches me pace. "I wish there was something we could do. I wish..." She draws a hitched breath. "I wish this had never happened."

I whirl around. "You wish this had never happened?" I snarl, and I see something almost like anger flare in Joanna's eyes before she looks away. Animosity crackles between us, surprising me. I have every reason not to like her, this woman who has everything I want. But what reason could she possibly have for not liking me? Nothing actually happened between Lewis and me. Nothing much, and there is no way she can know about it. Unless Lewis told her, a prospect that sickens me.

"I'm sorry," she says again, but her words are meaningless. Everyone says them. Everyone, my whole life long, has said sorry. It hasn't made any difference whatsoever. "I would understand," she continues hesitantly, "if you're angry at Josh. At us."

"Of course I'm angry," I say, but my voice is now weary. I'm too tired and heartsick and lonely to be angry for long. And I know I can't blame Josh, a nine-year-old boy, for what happened. Yet I feel the need to blame someone, or at least to understand what really happened. Because I know I'm not getting the full story.

"They came down hard on Josh," Joanna tells me quietly. "A week's suspension. I think he...realizes the seriousness of what he did."

Does she think that makes it better, that I want to see Josh, with his shy smile and silky hair, punished? And yet, maybe I do. "I know," I say as I sink into a chair. "Mrs. James told me." I drum my fingers on the armrest, still restless.

"Lewis thinks the school is hiding something," Joanna says.

"They're trying to hide that the boys were on the rocks." It is obvious to me now. "In case I sue them for negligence."

Joanna studies me, her eyes wide and dark. Josh's eyes. "Would you do that?"

"I don't know." I can't even think about a lawsuit right now. "I need to focus on Ben," I say, but I know what else I need to do. I need to talk to Juliet, and get some real answers.

"If there's anything we can do..." Joanna begins, and before I can stop myself I give a weary, cynical laugh.

"Everyone says that. No one means it."

Joanna draws back a little. "I do mean it," she says."Whatever we can do. If you need meals, or errands done, watering your plants..." She trails off and I simply stare.

Watering my plants? I know she means well. I know I'm being unfair in my anger, my jealousy, but what I really want Joanna Taylor-Davies to do is to get out of here and leave me alone. I don't need her easy benevolence, not when what I really want, what I really need, is her husband.

For a second I imagine telling her just that. Actually, Joanna, I really need your husband to be here with me. Can you ask Lewis to come over?

Except I don't want to ask; I don't want Lewis to have sent his wife. The injustice and futility of it, of everything, swamps me.

"Thank you, Joanna," I say, "but there's nothing you can do."

10.

JOANNA.

We wait out Josh's suspension, cautiously enjoying the days of freedom, before his return to school starts to loom menacingly, like a dark cloud taking over the horizon.

I spend three days with Josh at the Lego Store, and then we have lunch out. I manage to cajole him to the Toys R Us in midtown, where we buy a couple of new puzzles. And one sunny afternoon we walk all the way across town to where the aircraft carrier Intrepid is docked. We don't go on it, don't even leave the sidewalk. Just look. But at least it's not Lego.

Then I go back to work and Lewis takes over. He takes Josh to the park, to fly kites and kick a soccer ball. Be normal, try to feel happy.

When I come home on Monday evening, two days before Josh is due back at Burgdorf, I see him and Lewis on the sofa with a length of brand new yellow rope.

"What are you doing?" I ask and Josh looks up and answers succinctly, "Knots."

I watch them for a moment; Lewis is guiding Josh through several complicated loops and twists.

"Bowline," Josh says, and he actually smiles. I can't remember the last time I saw him smile, a proper smile, showing all his teeth. One of his front teeth has only come in halfway and he's missing his left incisor; it fell out a couple of weeks ago.

Josh glances at Lewis. "The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around back of the tree, and then jumps back into the hole."

"That's it, buddy," Lewis says, clapping him on the back. I watch Josh smile up at Lewis, and then look at me, as if for affirmation. I smile back.

"I didn't know you knew how to make knots," I say to Lewis. I dump my briefcase on the kitchen counter and take out a sheaf of paperwork. Three and a half days of missed work and I'm swamped. Running your own dental practice isn't just about sitting in a chair and staring into someone's mouth. I'm responsible for everything: insurance claims, office maintenance, equipment repairs. I have two employees: my receptionist Barbara and a part-time hygienist, and I have to do their payroll and insurance as well.

"From my merchant navy days," Lewis says as he rises from the sofa. I'd semi-forgotten that Lewis was in the Merchant Marines for a couple of years, before I met him. He joined at sixteen to get away from home; there were funded places at a local training college. Then he spent another few years traveling the world on commercial ships, working in the engine department before he cashed out and came to New York when he was twenty-four.

"Handy," I say. Josh is still fiddling with the rope, trying to undo the little knotted noose he made.

Lewis comes over and rests a hand on the back of my neck, under my hair. I close my eyes, reveling in the feel of his fingers massaging the tense muscles in my neck, the strength and warmth of his palm against my skin.

"You okay?" he murmurs.

"Yeah. Fine. Just need to catch up on work."

Lewis kneads my neck with his fingers and I let out a small sigh of both contentment and need as I drop the paperwork onto the counter.

I haven't asked him about Maddie. He didn't ask about my visit to her a few days ago, beyond one indifferent 'How did it go?' which I answered with a brief 'Fine'. Neither of us pushed for details, which in retrospect seems odd. It's as if Maddie Reese has become a no-go area, and I'm not sure why or how it happened.

Meeting Maddie unnerved me. I hadn't taken much notice of her before, but in the hospital I realized how pretty she was. Her glossy dark hair was cut in a perfect bob, and even though there were violet smudges under her eyes she looked lovely; if I had not sensed a certain jaded hardness to her I would have thought her almost ethereal. Next to her I felt even more awkward and ungainly than I usually did. When I gestured with my hands, I felt like as if was waving oven mitts around.

And the fact that I was the one who told her Josh pushed Ben-that she didn't know-it felt like I'd made a mistake, even though I recognize that Maddie needs to know. But I didn't tell Lewis about that, and I didn't tell him about the boys being on the rocks, either. I'm not sure why. There are a lot of things in our marriage we've chosen not to speak about, and I suppose I'm adding to the list. But I just want to get past this. I want Josh to go back to school, Ben to get better, life to go on.

I want to believe it can.

Lewis drops his hand from my neck and I step away as if I don't miss it and open the fridge to see what we have for dinner. Josh is still sitting on the sofa, trying to undo the bowline knot he made. Lewis braces one hip against the counter, watching me.

"Josh and I had a look at PS 84 today," he says, his voice casual, and I turn from the open fridge.

"What?"

"It seems like a good place."

I shake my head instinctively. "Josh has liked it at Burgdorf, Lewis," I say in a low voice.

"I'm not sure that's true any more."

I glance over at Josh, whose head is bent over the rope. I can't tell if he can hear us. "What did he say about PS 84?"

Lewis shrugs. "Not much. But he seemed interested."

"I don't want him to have to start over."

We've lowered our voices so we're talking in hushed whispers. Josh still fumbles with the knot. "Maybe he has to, Jo," Lewis answers. "Maybe it will be good for him."

"Have you asked him what he wants?"

"Josh is nine. He doesn't know what he wants, or what's best for him."

I take out a package of tofu and stare down at it mindlessly. "And if he leaves Burgdorf, everyone will assume he's done something wrong, that he did it on purpose or something."

Lewis is silent for a moment, and I turn to him, shocked to think that maybe he believes this is true.

"It was an accident, Lewis," I hiss.

"I know that." He runs a hand through his unruly hair. "I know that, Jo. Of course it was."

We fall silent, both of us realizing that we're having this conversation with Josh in earshot. We hold each other's gazes in the silent, spousal communication: we'll talk about this later.

And then I turn back to the tofu, and attempt to turn it and some grilled peppers into a healthy dinner.

After that first party where I met Lewis, he asked me out again about a week later.

He took me to an Italian restaurant near Columbia that looked like it was right out of Lady and the Tramp, with big bowls of spaghetti and candles stuck in Chianti bottles covered in drips of hardened wax. I lasted until we ordered before I asked the question that had been burning in me, bursting to get out.

"What...what do you actually see in me?"

Lewis looked surprised, and I cringed inwardly-and probably outwardly, too-because I hadn't meant to sound so pathetic. But I needed to know; Lewis seemed way out of my league, with his vitality and self-assurance, his curly, dark hair and capable hands. I knew he worked in maintenance for an apartment building, and that might have made him less attractive to some women who cared about status and money, but never to me. Never to me.

"I like you," he said that night, and I knew he meant it. "You don't pretend or play games. You're so honest. I can see everything in your face."

I fought the urge to hide my face with my hands, longing for a sudden inscrutable sophistication to come upon me, to cover me. I did not want anyone, especially Lewis, to know what I was thinking. To see how much I liked him. But I think Lewis saw that right from the beginning.

I make tofu steaks and we eat all together. Josh talks a bit with Lewis about some of the sailor's knots they've made, and I watch and smile. From a distance, I think, we'd seem like a normal family. Nothing wrong here.

After dinner Josh goes to his room and Lewis helps me clear the table. In the kitchen he stands with his hands braced on the counter top.

"So why not PS 84?" he asks. "We could certainly use the thirty grand we spend on Burgdorf."

"This isn't about money," I say sharply, too sharply, and Lewis's eyes narrow.

"I've never thought or acted like it's about money," he returns. "But it's certainly a fringe benefit, and I don't see why we can't try the public school system. Plenty of people go through it and are fine."

"Plenty of people are not Josh."

"You honestly think he'll do better at Burgdorf?" Lewis asks. "All those kids ratted on him, Jo-"

"You know," I say very softly, "he did push him, Lewis." I take a deep breath, knowing I need to come clean. "And Lewis...they were on the rocks."

"The rocks? You mean the big boulders?" I nod and Lewis's eyebrows snap together in a frown. "Who told you that?"

"Josh did, a few days ago."