hat if it's not a boy?” asks the woman sitting on my other side.

“Oh, those are meant to be for either.”

I hide a smile. “I vote for Jack.”

The girl squints, looking out the window at the rotten weather. “Sleet is nice,” she says absently, and then tries it on for size. “Sleet, pick up your toys. Sleet, honey, come on, or we're gonna be late for the Uncle Tupelo concert.” She digs a piece of paper and a pencil stub out of her maternity overalls and scribbles down the name.

The woman on my left grins at me. “Is this your first?”

“My third.”

“Mine too. I have two boys. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.”

“I have a boy and a girl,” I tell her. “Five and three.”

“Do you know what you're having this time?”

I know everything about this baby, from her sex to the very placement of her chromosomes, including the ones that make her a perfect match for Kate. I know exactly what I am having: a miracle. “It's a girl,” I answer.

“Ooh, I'm so jealous! My husband and I, we didn't find out at the ultrasound. I thought if I heard it was another boy, I might never finish out the last five months.” She shuts off her hair dryer and pushes it back. “You have any names picked?”

It strikes me that I don't. Although I am nine months pregnant, although I have had plenty of time to dream, I have not really considered the specifics of this child. I have thought of this daughter only in terms of what she will be able to do for the daughter I already have. I haven't admitted this even to Brian, who lies at night with his head on my considerable belly, waiting for the twitches that herald—he thinks—the first female placekicker for the Patriots. Then again, my dreams for her are no less exalted; I plan for her to save her sister's life.

“We're waiting,” I tell the woman.

Sometimes I think it is all we ever do.

There was a moment, after Kate's three months of chemotherapy last year, that I was stupid enough to believe we had beaten the odds. Dr. Chance said that she seemed to be in remission, and that we would just keep an eye on what came next. And for a little while, my life even got back to normal: chauffeuring Jesse to soccer practice and helping out in Kate's preschool class and even taking a hot bath to relax.

And yet, there was a part of me that knew the other shoe was bound to drop. This part scoured Kate's pillow every morning, even after her hair started to grow back with its frizzy, burned ends, just in case it started falling out again. This part went to the geneticist recommended by Dr. Chance. Engineered an embryo given the thumbs-up by scientists to be a perfect match for Kate. Took the hormones for FVF and conceived that embryo, just in case.

It was during a routine bone marrow aspiration that we learned Kate was in molecular relapse. On the outside, she looked like any other three-year-old girl. On the inside, the cancer had surged through her system again, steamrolling the progress that had been made with chemo.

Now, in the backseat with Jesse, Kate's kicking her feet and playing with a toy phone. Jesse sits next to her, staring out the window. “Mom? Do buses ever fall on people?”

“Like out of trees?”

“No. Like… just over.” He makes a flipping motion with his hand.

“Only if the weather's really bad, or if the driver's going too fast.”

He nods, accepting my explanation for his safety in this universe. Then: “Mom? Do you have a favorite number?”

“Thirty-one,” I tell him. This is my due date. “How about you?”

“Nine. Because it can be a number, or how old you are, or a six standing on its head.” He pauses only long enough to take a breath. “Mom? Do we have special scissors to cut meat?”

“We do.” I take a right and drive past a cemetery, headstones canted forward and back like a set of yellowed teeth.

“Mom?” Jesse asks, “is that where Kate will go?”

The question, just as innocent as any of the others Jesse would ask, makes my legs go weak. I pull the car over and put on my hazard lights. Then I unbuckle my seat belt and turn around. “No, Jess,” I tell him. “She's staying with us.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald?” the producer says. “This is where we'll put you.”

We sit down on the set at the TV studio. We've been invited here because of our baby's unorthodox conception. Somehow, in an effort to keep Kate healthy, we've unwittingly become the poster children for scientific debate.

Brian reaches for my hand as we are approached by Nadya Carter, the reporter for the newsmagazine. “We're just about ready. I've already taped an intro about Kate. All I'm going to do is ask you a few questions, and we'll be finished before you know it.” Just before the camera starts rolling, Brian wipes his cheeks on the sleeve of his shirt. The makeup artist, standing behind the lights, moans. “Well, for God's sake,” he whispers to me. “I'm not going on national TV wearing blush.”

The camera comes to life with far less ceremony than I've expected, just a little hum that runs up my arms and legs.

“Mr. Fitzgerald,” Nadya says, “can you explain to us why you chose to visit a geneticist in the first place?”

Brian looks at me. "Our three-year-old daughter has a very aggressive form of leukemia. Her oncologist suggested we find a bone marrow donor—but our oldest son wasn't a genetic match. There's a national registry, but by the time the right donor comes along for Kate, she might not… be around. So we thought it might be a good idea to see if another sibling of Kate's matched up.”

“A sibling,“ Nadya says, ”who doesn't exist."

“Not yet,” Brian replies.

“What made you turn to a geneticist?”

“Time constraints,” I say bluntly. “We couldn't keep having babies year after year until one was a match for Kate. The doctor was able to screen several embryos to see which one, if any, would be the ideal donor for Kate. We were lucky enough to have one out of four—and it was implanted through IVF.”

Nadya looks down at her notes. “You've received hate mail, haven't you?”

Brian nods. “People seem to think that we're trying to make a designer baby.”

“Aren't you?”

“We didn't ask for a baby with blue eyes, or one that would grow to be six feet tall, or one that would have an IQ of two hundred. Sure, we asked for specific characteristics—but they're not anything anyone would ever consider to be model human traits. They’re just Kate's traits. We don't want a superbaby; we just want to save our daughter's life.”

I squeeze Brian's hand. God, I love him.

“Mrs. Fitzgerald, what will you tell this baby when she grows up?” Nadya asks.

“With any luck,” I say, “I'll be able to tell her to stop bugging her sister.”

I go into labor on New Year's Eve. The nurse taking care of me tries to distract me from my contractions by talking about the signs of the sun. “This one, she's gonna be a Capricorn,” Emelda says as she rubs my shoulders.

“Is that good?”

“Oh, Capricorns, they get the job done.”

Inhale, exhale. “Good… to… know,” I tell her.

There are two other babies being born. One woman, Emelda says, has her legs crossed. She's trying to make it to 1991. The New Year's Baby is entitled to packs of free diapers and a $100 savings bond from Citizens Bank for that distant college education.

When Emelda goes out to the nurse's desk, leaving us alone, Brian reaches for my hand. “You okay?”

I grimace my way through another contraction. “I'd be better if this was over.”

He smiles at me. To a paramedic/firefighter, a routine hospital delivery is something to shrug at. If my water had broken during a train wreck, or if I was laboring in the back of a taxi—

“I know what you're thinking,” he interrupts, although I haven't said a word out loud, “and you're wrong.” He lifts my hand, kisses the knuckles.

Suddenly an anchor unspools inside me. The chain, thick as a fist, twists in my abdomen. “Brian,” I gasp, “get the doctor.”

My OB comes in and holds his hand between my legs. He glances up at the clock. “If you can hold on a minute, this kid's gonna be born famous,” he says, but I shake my head.

“Get it out,” I tell him. “Now.”

The doctor looks at Brian. “Tax deduction?” he guesses.

I am thinking of saving, but it has nothing to do with the IRS. The baby's head slips through the seal of my skin. The doctor's hand holds her, slides that gorgeous cord free of her neck, delivers her shoulder by shoulder.

I struggle to my elbows to watch what is going on below. “The umbilical cord,” I remind him. “Be careful.” He cuts it, beautiful blood, and hurries it out of the room to a place where it will be cryogenically preserved until Kate is ready for it.

Day Zero of Kate's pre-transplant regimen starts the morning after Anna is born. I come down from the maternity ward and meet Kate in Radiology. We are both wearing yellow isolation gowns, and this makes her laugh. “Mommy,” she says, “we match.”

She has been given a pediatric cocktail for sedation, and under any other circumstance, this would be funny. Kate can't find her own feet. Every time she stands up, she collapses. It strikes me that this is how Kate will look when she gets drunk on peach schnapps for the first time in high school or college; and then I quickly remind myself that Kate might never be that old.

When the therapist comes to take her into the RT suite, Kate latches on to my leg. “Honey,” Brian says, “it's gonna be fine.”

She shakes her head and burrows closer. When I crouch down, she throws herself into my arms. “I won't take my eyes off you,” I promise.

The room is large, with jungle murals painted on the walls. The linear accelerators are built into the ceiling and a pit below the treatment table, which is little more than a canvas cot covered with a sheet. The radiation therapist places thick lead pieces shaped like beans onto Kate's chest and tells her not to move. She promises that when it's all over, Kate can have a sticker.

I stare at Kate through the protective glass wall. Gamma rays, leukemia, parenthood. It is the things you cannot see coming that are strong enough to kill you.

There is a Murphy's Law to oncology, one which is not written anywhere but held in widespread belief: if you don't get sick, you won't get well. Therefore, if your chemo makes you violently ill, if radiation sears your skin—it's all good. On the other hand, if you sail through therapy quickly with only negligible nausea or pain, chances are the drugs have somehow been excreted by your body and aren't doing their job.

By this criterion, Kate should surely be cured by now. Unlike last year's chemo, this course of treatment has taken a little girl who didn't even have a runny nose and has turned her into a physical wreck. Three days of radiation has caused constant diarrhea, and put her back into a diaper. At first, this embarrassed her; now she is so sick she doesn't care. The following five days of chemo have lined her throat with mucus, which keeps her clutching at a suction tube as if it is a life preserver. When she is awake, all she does is cry.

Since Day Six, when Kate's white blood cell and neutrophil counts began to plummet, she has been in reverse isolation. Any germ in the world might kill her now; for this reason, the world is made to keep its distance. Visitors to her room are restricted, and those who are allowed in look like spacemen, gowned and masked. Kate has to read picture books while wearing rubber gloves. No plants or flowers are permitted, because they carry bacteria that could kill her. Any toy given to her must be scrubbed down with antiseptic solution first. She sleeps with her teddy bear, sealed in a Ziploc bag, which rustles all night and sometimes wakes her up.

Brian and I sit outside the anteroom, waiting. While Kate sleeps, I practice giving injections to an orange. After the transplant Kate will need growth factor shots, and the chore will fall to me. I prick the syringe under the thick skin of the fruit, until I feel the soft give of tissue underneath. The drug I will be giving is subcutaneous, injected just under the skin. I need to make sure the angle is right and that I am giving the proper amount of pressure. The speed with which you push the needle down can cause more or less pain. The orange, of course, doesn't cry when I make a mistake. But the nurses still tell me that injecting Kate won't feel much different.

Brian picks up a second orange and begins to peel it. “Put that down!”

“I'm hungry.” He nods at the fruit in my hands. “And you've already got a patient.”

“For all you know that was someone else's. God knows what it's doped up with.”

Suddenly Dr. Chance turns the corner and approaches us. Donna, an oncology nurse, walks behind him, brandishing an IV bag filled with crimson liquid. “Drum roll,” she says.

I put down my orange, follow them into the anteroom, and suit up so that I can come within ten feet of my daughter. Within minutes Donna attaches the bag to a pole, and connects the drip to Kate's central line. It is so anticlimactic that Kate doesn't even wake up. I stand on one side, as Brian goes to the other. I hold my breath. I stare down at Kate's hips, the iliac crest, where bone marrow is made. Through some miracle, these stem cells of Anna's will go into Kate's bloodstream in her chest, but will find their way to the right spot.

“Well,” Dr. Chance says, and we all watch the cord blood slowly slide through the tubing, a Crazy Straw of possibility.

 

JULIA

AFTER TWO HOURS OF LIVING with my sister again, I'm finding it hard to believe we ever comfortably shared a womb. Isobel has already organized my CDs by year of release, swept under the couch, and tossed out half the food in my refrigerator. “Dates are our friend, Julia.” She sighs. “You have yogurt in here from when Democrats ruled the White House.”

I slam the door shut and count to ten. But when Izzy moves toward the gas oven and starts looking for the cleaning controls, I lose my cool. “Sylvia doesn't need cleaning.”

“That's another thing: Sylvia the oven. Smilla the Fridge. Do we really need to name our kitchen appliances?”

My kitchen appliances. Mine, not ours, goddammit. “I'm totally getting why Janet broke up with you,” I mutter.

At that, Izzy looks up, stricken. “You are horrible,” she says. “You are horrible and after I was born I should have sewed Mom shut.” She runs to the bathroom in tears.

Isobel is three minutes older than me, but I've always been the one who takes care of her. I'm her nuclear bomb: when there's something upsetting her, I go in and lay waste to it, whether that's one of our six older brothers teasing her or the evil Janet, who decided she wasn't gay after seven years into a committed relationship with Izzy. Growing up, Izzy was the Goody Two-shoes and I was the one who came up fighting—swinging my fists or shaving my head to get a rise out of our parents or wearing combat boots with my high school uniform. Yet now that we're thirty-two, I'm a card-carrying member of the Rat Race; while Izzy is a lesbian who builds jewelry out of paper clips and bolts. Go figure.

The door to the bathroom doesn't lock, but Izzy doesn't know that yet. So I walk in and wait till she finishes splashing cold water on her face, and I hand her a towel. “Iz. I didn't mean it.”

“I know.” She looks at me in the mirror. Most people can't tell us apart now that I have a real job that requires conventional hair and conventional clothes. “At least you had a relationship,” I point out. “The last time I had a date was when I bought that yogurt.”

Izzy's lips curve, and she turns to me. “Does the toilet have a name?”

“I was thinking of Janet,” I say, and my sister cracks up. The telephone rings, and I go into the living room to answer it. “Julia? This is Judge DeSalvo calling. I've got a case that needs a guardian ad litem, and I'm hoping you might be able to help me out.” I became a guardian ad litem a year ago, when I realized that nonprofit work wasn't covering my rent. A GAL is appointed by a court to be a child's advocate during legal proceedings that involve a minor. You don't have to be a lawyer to be trained as a GAL, but you do have to have a moral compass and a heart. Which, actually, probably renders most lawyers unqualified for the job. “Julia? Are you there?”

I would turn cartwheels for Judge DeSalvo; he pulled strings to get me a job when I first became a GAL. “Whatever you need,” I promise. “What's going on?”

He gives me background information—phrases like medical emancipation and thirteen and mother with legal background float by me. Only two items stick fast: the word urgent, and the name of the attorney.

God, I can't do this.

“I can be there in an hour,” I say.

"Good. Because I think this kid needs someone in her corner.”

“Who was that?“ Izzy asks. She is unpacking the box that holds her work supplies: tools and wire and little containers of metal bits that sound like teeth gnashing when she sets them down. ”A judge,“ I reply. ”There's a girl who needs help." What I don't tell my sister is that I'm talking about me.

Nobody's home at the Fitzgerald house. I ring the doorbell twice, certain this must be a mistake. From what Judge DeSalvo's led me to believe, this is a family in crisis. But I find myself standing in front of a well-kept Cape, with carefully tended flower gardens lining the walk.

When I turn around to go back to my car, I see the girl. She still has that knobby, calf-like look of preteens; she jumps over every sidewalk crack. “Hi,” I say, when she is close enough to hear me. “Are you Anna?”

Her chin snaps up. “Maybe.”

“I'm Julia Romano. Judge DeSalvo asked me to be your guardian ad litem. Did he explain to you what that is?”

Anna narrows her eyes. “There was a girl in Brockton who got kidnapped by someone who said they'd been asked by her mom to pick her up and drive her to the place where her mom worked.”

I rummage in my purse and pull out my drivers license, and a stack of papers. “Here,” I say. “Be my guest.” She glances at me, and then at the god-awful picture on my license; she reads through the copy of the emancipation petition I picked up at the family court before I came here. If I am a psychotic killer, then I have done my homework well. But there is a part of me already giving Anna credit for being wary: this is not a child who rushes headlong into situations. If she's thinking long and hard about going off with me, presumably she must have thought long and hard about untangling herself from the net of her family.

She hands back everything I've given her. “Where is everyone?” she asks.

“I don't know. I thought you could tell me.” Anna's gaze slides to the front door, nervous. “I hope nothing happened to Kate.”

I tilt my head, considering this girl, who has already managed to surprise me. “Do you have time to talk?” I ask.

The zebras are the first stop in the Roger Williams Zoo. Of all the animals in the Africa section, these have always been my favorite. I can give or take elephants; I never can find the cheetah—but the zebras captivate me. They'd be one of the few things that would fit if we were lucky enough to live in a world that's black or white.

We pass blue duikers, bongos, and something called a naked mole rat that doesn't come out of its cave. I often take kids to the zoo when I'm assigned to their cases. Unlike when we sit down face-to-face in the courthouse, or even at Dunkin' Donuts, at the zoo they are more likely to open up to me. They'll watch the gibbons swinging around like Olympic gymnasts and just start talking about what happens at home, without even realizing what they are doing.

Anna, though, is older than all of the kids I've worked with, and less than thrilled to be here. In retrospect, I realize this was a bad choice. I should have taken her to a mall, to a movie.

We walk through the winding trails of the zoo, Anna talking only when forced to respond. She answers me politely when I ask her questions about her sisters health. She says that her mother is, indeed, the opposing attorney. She thanks me when I buy her an ice cream.

“Tell me what you like to do,” I say. “For fun.”

“Play hockey,” Anna says. “I used to be a goaltender.”

“Used to be?”

“The older you get, the less the coach forgives you if you miss a game.” She shrugs. “I don't like letting a whole team down.”

Interesting way to put it, I think. “Do your friends still play hockey?”

“Friends?” She shakes her head. “You can't really have anyone over to your house when your sister needs to be resting. You don't get invited back for sleepovers when your mom comes to pick you up at two in the morning to go to the hospital. It's probably been a while since you've been in middle school, but most people think freakhood is contagious.”

“So who do you talk to?”

She looks at me. “Kate,” she says. Then she asks if I have a cell phone.

I take one out of my pocketbook and watch her dial the hospital's number by heart. “I'm looking for a patient,” Anna says to the operator. “Kate Fitzgerald?” She glances up at me. “Thanks anyway.” Punching the buttons, she hands the phone back to me. “Kate isn't registered.”

“That's good, right?”

“It could just mean that the paperwork hasn't caught up to the operator yet. Sometimes it takes a few hours.”

I lean against a railing near the elephants. “You seem pretty worried about your sister right now,” I point out. “Are you sure you're ready to face what's going to happen if you stop being a donor?”

“I know what's going to happen.” Anna's voice is low. “I never said I liked it.” She raises her face to mine, challenging me to find fault with her.

For a minute I look at her. What would I do, if I found out that Izzy needed a kidney, or part of my liver, or marrow? The answer isn't even questionable—I would ask how quickly we could go to the hospital and have it done.

But then, it would have been my choice, my decision.

“Have your parents ever asked you if you want to be a donor for your sister?”

Anna shrugs. “Kind of. The way parents ask questions that they already have answered in their heads. You weren't the reason that the whole second grade stayed in for recess, were you? Or, You want some broccoli, right?”

“Did you ever tell your parents that you weren't comfortable with the choice they'd made for you?”

Anna pushes away from the elephants and begins to trudge up the hill. “I might have complained a couple of times. But they're Kate's parents, too.”

Small tumblers in this puzzle begin to hitch for me. Traditionally, parents make decisions for a child, because presumably they are looking out for his or her best interests. But if they are blinded, instead, by the best interests of another one of their children, the system breaks down. And somewhere, underneath all the rubble, are casualties like Anna.

The question is, did she instigate this lawsuit because she truly feels that she can make better choices about her own medical care than her parents can, or because she wants her parents to hear her for once when she cries?

We wind up in front of the polar bears, Trixie and Norton. For the first time since we've gotten here, Anna's face lights up. She watches Kobe, Trixie's cub—the newest addition to the zoo. He swats at his mother as she lies on the rocks, trying to get her to play. “The last time there was a polar bear baby,” Anna says, “they gave it to another zoo.”

She is right; memories of the articles in the ProJo swim into my mind. It was a big public relations move for Rhode Island.

“Do you think he wonders what he did to get himself sent away?”

We are trained, as guardians ad litem, to see the signs of depression. We know how to read body language, and flat affect, and mood swings. Anna's hands are clenched around the metal railing. Her eyes go dull as old gold.

Either this girl loses her sister, I think, or she's going to lose herself.

“Julia,” she asks, “would it be okay if we went home?”

The closer we get to her house, Anna distances herself from me. A pretty nifty trick, given that the physical space between us remains unaltered. She shrinks against the window of my car, staring at the streets that bleed by. “What happens next?”

“I'm going to talk to everyone else. Your mom and dad, your brother and sister. Your lawyer.”

Now a dilapidated Jeep is parked in the driveway, and the front door of the house is open. I turn off the ignition, but Anna makes no move to release her seat belt. “Will you walk me in?”

“Why?”

“Because my mother's going to kill me.”

This Anna—genuinely skittish—bears little resemblance to the one I've spent the past hour with. I wonder how a girl might be both brave enough to instigate a lawsuit, and afraid to face her own mother. “How come?”

“I sort of left today without telling her where I was going.”

“You do that a lot?”

Anna shakes her head. “Usually I do whatever I'm told.”

Well, I am going to have to speak to Sara Fitzgerald sooner or later. I get out of the car, and wait for Anna to do the same. We walk up the front path, past the groomed flower beds, and through the front door.

She is not the foe I've built her up to be. For one thing, Anna's mother is shorter than I am, and slighter. She has dark hair and haunted eyes and is pacing. The moment it creaks open, she runs to Anna. “For God's sake,” she cries, shaking her daughter by the shoulders, "where have you been? Do you have any idea—

“Excuse me, Mrs. Fitzgerald. I'd like to introduce myself.” I step forward, extending my hand. “I'm Julia Romano, the guardian ad litem appointed by the court.”

She slides her arm around Anna, a stiff show of tenderness. "Thank you for bringing Anna home. I'm sure you have lots to discuss with her, but right now—

"Actually, I was hoping I could speak to you. I've been asked by the court to present my findings in less than a week, so if you've got a few minutes—

“I don't,” Sara says abruptly. “Now isn't really a good time. My other daughter has just been readmitted to the hospital.” She looks at Anna, still standing in the doorway of the kitchen: / hope you're happy.

“I'm sorry to hear that.”

“I am too.” Sara clears her throat. “I appreciate you coming by to talk to Anna. And I know you're just doing your job. But this is all going to work itself out, really. It's a misunderstanding. I'm sure Judge DeSalvo will be telling you that in a day or so.”

She takes a step backward, challenging me—and Anna—to say otherwise. I glance at Anna, who catches my eye and shakes her head almost imperceptibly, a plea to just let this go for now. Who is she protecting—her mother, or herself? A red flag unravels across my mind: Anna is thirteen. Anna lives with her mother. Anna's mother is opposing counsel. How can Anna possibly live in the same home and not be swayed by Sara Fitzgerald?

“Anna, I'll call you tomorrow.” Then without saying good-bye to Sara Fitzgerald, I leave her house, headed for the one place on earth I never wanted to go.

The law offices of Campbell Alexander look exactly the way I've pictured them: at the top of a building cast in black glass, at the end of a hallway lined with a Persian runner, through two heavy mahogany doors that keep out the riffraff. Sitting at the massive receptionist's desk is a girl with porcelain features and a telephone earpiece hidden under the mane of her hair. I ignore her and walk toward the only closed door. “Hey!” she yells. “You can't go in there!”

“He'll be expecting me,” I say.

Campbell doesn't look up from whatever he's writing with great fury. His shirtsleeves are rolled up to the elbow. He needs a haircut. “Kerri,” he says, "see if you can find some Jenny Jones transcript about identical twins who don't know that they—

“Hello, Campbell.”

First, he stops writing. Then he lifts his head. “Julia.” He gets to his feet, a schoolboy caught in an indecent act.

I step inside and close the door behind me. “I'm the guardian ad litem assigned to Anna Fitzgerald's case.”

A dog that I haven't noticed till now takes its place by Campbell's side. “I'd heard that you went to law school.”

Harvard. On full scholarship.

“Providence is a pretty tight place… I kept expecting…” His voice trails off, and he shakes his head. “Well, I thought for sure we'd run into each other before now.”

He smiles at me, and I suddenly am seventeen again—the year I realized love doesn't follow the rules, the year I understood that nothing is worth having so much as something unattainable. “It's not all that hard to avoid someone, when you want to,” I answer coolly. “You of all people should know.”

 

CAMPBELL

I'M REMARKABLY CALM, really, until the principal of Ponaganset High School starts to give me a telephone lecture on political correctness. “For God's sake,” he sputters. “What kind of message does it send when a group of Native American students names their intramural basketball league The Whiteys?”

“I imagine it sends the same message that you did when you picked the Chieftains as your school mascot.”

“We've been the Ponaganset Chieftains since 1970,” the principal argues.

“Yes, and they've been members of the Narragansett tribe since they were born.”

“It's derogatory. And politically incorrect.”

“Unfortunately,” I point out, “you can't sue a person for political incorrectness, or clearly you would have been handed a summons years ago. However, on the flip side, the Constitution does protect various individual rights to Americans, including Native Americans—one for assembly, and one for free speech, which suggest that the Whiteys would be granted permission to convene even if your ridiculous threat of a lawsuit managed to make its way to court. For that matter, you may want to consider a class action against humanity in general, since surely you'd also like to stifle the inherent racism implicit in the White House, the White Mountains, and the White Pages.” There is dead silence on the other end of the phone. “Shall I assume, then, that I can tell my client you don't plan to litigate afterall'”

After he hangs up on me, I push the intercom button. “Kerri, call Ernie Fishkiller, and tell him he's got nothing to worry about.”

As I settle down to the mountain of work on my desk, Judge lets out a sigh. He's asleep, curled like a braided rug to the left of my desk. His paw twitches.

That's the life, she said to me, as we watched a puppy chase its own tail. That's what I want to be next.

I had laughed. You would wind up as a cat, I told her. They don't need  anyone else.

I need you, she replied.

Well, I said. Maybe I'll come back as catnip.

I press my thumbs into the balls of my eyes. Clearly I am not getting enough sleep; first there was that moment at the coffee shop, now this. I scowl at Judge, as if it is his fault, and then focus my attention on some notes I've made on a legal pad. New client—a drug dealer caught by the prosecution on videotape. There's no way out of a conviction on this one, unless the guy has an identical twin his mother kept secret.

Which, come to think of it…

The door opens, and without glancing up I fire a directive at Kerri. “See if you can find some Jenny Jones transcript about identical twins who don't know that they—”Hello, Campbell."

I am going crazy; I am definitely going crazy. Because not five feet away from me is Julia Romano, whom I have not seen in fifteen years. Her hair is longer now, and fine lines bracket her mouth, parentheses around a lifetime of words I was not around to hear. “Julia,” I manage.

She closes the door, and at the sound, Judge jumps to his feet. “I'm the guardian ad litem assigned to Anna Fitzgerald's case,” she says.

“Providence is a pretty tight place … I kept expecting… Well, I thought for sure we'd run into each other before now.”

“It's not all that hard to avoid someone, when you want to,” she answers. “You of all people should know.” Then, all of a sudden, the anger seems to steam out of her. “I'm sorry. That was totally uncalled for.”

“It's been a long time,” I reply, when what I really want to do is ask her what she's been doing for the past fifteen years. If she still drinks tea with milk and lemon. If she's happy. “Your hair isn't pink anymore,” I say, because I am an idiot.

“No, it's not,” she replies. “Is that a problem?”

I shrug. “It's just. Well…” Where are words, when you need them? “I liked the pink,” I confess.

“It tends to take away from my authority in a courtroom,” Julia admits.

This makes me smile. “Since when do you care what people think of you?”

She doesn't respond, but something changes. The temperature of the room, or maybe the wall that comes up in her eyes. “Maybe instead of dragging up the past, we should talk about Anna,” she suggests diplomatically.

I nod. But it feels like we are sitting on the tight bench of a bus with a stranger between us, one that neither of us is willing to admit to or mention, and so we find ourselves talking around him and through him and sneaking glances when the other one isn't looking. How am I supposed to think about Anna Fitzgerald when I'm wondering whether Julia has ever woken up in someone's arms and for just a moment, before the sleep cleared from her mind, thought maybe it was me?

Sensing tension, Judge gets up and stands beside me. Julia seems to notice for the first time that we are not alone in the room. “Your partner?”

“Only an associate,” I say. “But he made Law Review.” Her fingers scratch Judge behind the ear—goddamn lucky bastard—and grimacing, I ask her to stop. “He's a service dog. He isn't supposed to be petted.”

Julia looks up, surprised. But before she can ask, I turn the conversation. “So. Anna.” Judge pushes his nose into my palm.

She folds her arms. “I went to see her.”

“And?”

“Thirteen-year-olds are heavily influenced by their parents. And Anna's mother seems convinced that this trial isn't going to happen. I have a feeling she might be trying to convince Anna of that, too.”

“I can take care of that,” I say.

She looks up, suspicious. “How?”

“I'll get Sara Fitzgerald removed from the house.”

Her jaw drops. “You're kidding, right?”

By now, Judge has started pulling my clothes in earnest. When I don't respond, he barks twice. “Well, I certainly don't think my client ought to be the one to move out. She hasn't violated the judge's orders. I'll get a temporary restraining order keeping Sara Fitzgerald from having any contact with her.”

“Campbell, that's her mother!”

“This week, she's opposing counsel, and if she's prejudicing my client in any way she needs to be ordered not to do so.”

“Your client has a name, and an age, and a world that's falling apart—the last thing she needs is more instability in her life. Have you even bothered to get to know her?”

“Of course I have,” I lie, as Judge begins to whine at my feet.

Julia glances down at him. “Is something wrong with your dog?”

“He's fine. Look. My job is to protect Anna's legal rights and win the case, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.”

“Of course you are. Not necessarily because it's in Anna's best interests… but because it's in yours. How ironic is it that a kid who wants to stop being used for another person's benefit winds up picking your name out of the Yellow Pages?”

“You don't know anything about me,” I say, my jaw tightening.

“Well, whose fault is that?”

So much for not bringing up the past. A shudder runs the length of me, and I grab Judge by the collar. “Excuse me,” I say, and I walk out the office door, leaving Julia for the second time in my life.

When you get right down to it, The Wheeler School was a factory, pumping out debutantes and future investment bankers. We all looked alike and talked alike. To us, summer was a verb.

There were students, of course, who broke that mold. Like the scholarship kids, who wore their collars up and learned to row, never realizing that all along we were well aware they weren't one of us. There were the stars, like Tommy Boudreaux, who was drafted by the Detroit Redwings in his junior year. Or the head cases, who tried to slit their wrists or mix booze and Valium and then left campus just as silently as they had once wandered around it.

I was a sixth-former the year that Julia Romano came to Wheeler. She wore army boots and a Cheap Trick T-shirt under her school blazer; she was able to memorize entire sonnets without breaking a sweat. During free periods, while the rest of us were copping smokes behind the headmaster's back, she climbed the stairs to the ceiling of the gymnasium and sat with her back against a heating duct, reading books by Henry Miller and Nietzsche. Unlike the other girls in school, with their smooth waterfalls of yellow hair caught up in a headband like ribbon candy, hers was an absolute tornado of black curls, and she never wore makeup—just those sharp features, take it or leave it. She had the thinnest hoop I'd ever seen, a silver filament, through her left eyebrow. She smelled like fresh dough rising.

There were rumors about her. that she'd been booted out of a girl's reform school; that she was some whiz kid with a perfect PS AT score; that she was two years younger than everyone else in our grade; that she had a tattoo. Nobody quite knew what to make of her. They called her Freak, because she wasn't one of us.

One day Julia Romano arrived at school with short pink hair. We all assumed she'd be suspended, but it turned out that in the litany of rules about what one had to wear at Wheeler, coiffure was conspicuously absent. It made me wonder why there wasn't a single guy in the school with dreadlocks, and I realized it wasn't because we couldn't stand out; it's because we didn't want to. At lunch that day she passed the table where I was sitting with a bunch of guys on the sailing team and some of their girlfriends. “Hey,” one girl said, “did it hurt?”

Julia slowed down. “Did what hurt?”

“Falling into the cotton candy machine?”

She didn't even blink. “Sorry, I can't afford to get my hair done at Wash, Cut and Blow Jobs 'R' Us.” Then she walked off to the corner of the cafeteria where she always ate by herself, playing solitaire with a deck of cards that had pictures of patron saints on the backs.

“Shit,” one of my friends said, “that's one girl I wouldn't mess with.” I laughed, because everyone else did. But I also watched her sit down, push the tray of food away from her, and begin to lay out her cards. I wondered what it would be like to not give a damn about what people thought of you.

One afternoon, / went AWQL from the sailing team where I was captain, and followed her. I made sure to stay far enough behind that she wouldn't realize I was there. She headed down Blackstone Boulevard, turned into Swan Point Cemetery, and climbed to the highest point. She opened her knapsack, took out her textbooks and binder, and spread herself in front of a grave. “You might as well come out,” she said then, and I nearly swallowed my tongue, expecting a ghost, until I realized she was talking to me. “If you pay an extra quarter, you can even stare up close.”

I stepped out from behind a big oak, my hands dug into my pockets. Now . that I was there, I had no idea why I'd come. I nodded toward the grave. “That a relative?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. My grandma had the seat right next to him on the Mayflower.” She stared at me, all right angles and edges. “Don't you have some cricket match to go to?”

“Polo,” I said, breaking a smile. “I'm just waiting for my horse to get here.”

She didn't get the joke… or maybe she didn't find it funny. “What do you want?”

I couldn't admit that I was following her. “Help,” I said. “Homework.”

In truth I had not looked over our English assignment. I grabbed a paper on top of her binder and read aloud: You come across a horrible four-car accident. There are people moaning in pain, and bodies strewn all over the place. Do you have an obligation to stop?

“Why should I help?” she said.

“Well, legally, you shouldn't. If you pull someone out and hurt them more, you could get sued.”

“I meant why should I help you.”

The paper floated to the ground. “You don't think very much of me, do you?”

“I don't think about any of you, period. You're a bunch of superficial idiots who wouldn't be caught dead with someone who's different from you.”

“Isn't that what you're doing, too?”

She stared at me for a long second. Then she started stuffing her backpack. “You've got a trust fund, right? If you need help, go pay a tutor.”

I put my foot down on top of a textbook. “Would you do it?”

“Tutor you? No way.”

“Stop. At the car accident.”

Her hands quieted. “Yeah. Because even if the law says that no one is responsible for anyone else, helping someone who needs it is the right thing to do.”

I sat down beside her, close enough that the skin of her arm hummed right next to mine. “You really believe that?”

She looked down at her lap. “Yeah.”

“Then how,” I asked, “can you walk away from me?”

Afterward, I wipe my face with paper towels from the dispenser and fix my tie. Judge pads in tight circles beside me, the way he always does. “You did good,” I tell him, patting the thick ruff of his neck.

When I get back into my office, Julia is gone. Kerri sits at the computer in a rare moment of productivity, typing. “She said that if you needed her, you could damn well come find her. Her words, not mine. And she asked for all the medical records.” Kerri glances over her shoulder at me. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.” An orange Post-it on her desk catches my attention. “Is this where she wants the records sent?”

“Yeah.”

I slip the address into my pocket. “I'll take care of it,” I say.

A week later, in front of the same grave, I unlaced Julia Romano's combat boots. I peeled away her camouflage jacket. Her feet were narrow and as pink as the inside of a tulip. Her collarbone was a mystery. “I knew you were beautiful under there,” I said, and this was the first spot on her that I kissed.

The Fitzgeralds live in Upper Darby, in a house that could belong to any typical American family. Two-car garage; aluminum siding; Totfmder stickers in the windows for the fire department. By the time I get there, the sun is setting behind the roofline.

The whole drive over, I've tried to convince myself that what Julia said has absolutely no bearing on why I've decided to visit my client. That I was always planning to take this little detour before I headed home for the night.

But the truth is, in all the years I've been practicing, this is the first time I've paid a house call.

Anna opens the door when I ring the bell. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking up on you.”

“Does that cost extra?”

“No,” I say dryly. “It's part of a special promotion I'm doing this month.”

“Oh.” She crosses her arms. “Have you talked to my mother?”

“I'm trying my best not to. I assume she's not home?”

Anna shakes her head. “She's at the hospital. Kate got admitted again. I thought you might have gone over there.”

“Kate's not my client.”

This actually seems to disappoint her. She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Did you, like, want to come in?”

I follow her into the living room and sit down on the couch, a palette of cheery blue stripes. Judge sniffs the edges of the furniture. “I heard you met the guardian ad litem.”

“Julia. She took me to the zoo. She seems all right.” Her eyes dart to mine. “Did she say something about me?”

“She's worried that your mother might be talking to you about this case.”

“Other than Kate,” Anna says, “what else is there to talk about?”

We stare at each other for a moment. Beyond a client-attorney relationship, I am at a loss.

I could ask to see her room, except that there's no way in hell any male defense attorney would ever go upstairs alone with a thirteen-year-old girl. I could take her out to dinner, but I doubt she'd appreciate Cafe Nuovo, one of my favorite haunts, and I don't think I could stomach a Whopper. I could ask her about school, but it isn't in session.

“Do you have kids?” Anna asks.

I laugh. “What do you think?”

“It's probably a good thing,” she admits. “No offense, but you don't exactly look like a parent.”

That fascinates me. “What do parents look like?”

She seems to think about this. “You know how the tightrope guy at the circus wants everyone to believe his act is an art, but deep down you can see that he's really just hoping he makes it all the way across? Like that.” She glances at me. “You can relax, you know. I'm not going to tie you up and make you listen to gangsta rap.”

“Oh, well,” I joke. “In that case.” I loosen my tie and sit back on the pillows.

It makes a smile dart briefly across her face. “You don't have to pretend to be my friend or anything.”

“I don't want to pretend.” I run my hand through my hair. “The thing is, this is new to me.”

“What is?”

I gesture around the living room. “Visiting a client. Shooting the breeze. Not leaving a case at the office at the end of the day.”

“Well, this is new to me, too,” Anna confesses.

“What is?”

She twists a strand of hair around her pinky. “Hoping,” she says.

The part of town where Julia's apartment is located is an upscale area with a reputation for divorced bachelors, a point that irritates me the whole time I am trying to find a parking spot. Then the doorman takes one look at Judge and bars my path. “No dogs allowed,” he says. “Sorry.”

“This is a service dog.” When that doesn't seem to ring a bell, I spell it out for him. “You know. Like Seeing Eye.”

“You don't look blind.”

“I'm a recovering alcoholic,” I tell him. “The dog gets between me and a beer.”

Julia's apartment is on the seventh floor. I knock on her door and then see an eye checking me out through the peephole. She opens it a crack, but leaves the chain in place. She has a kerchief wrapped around her head, and she looks like she's been crying.

“Hi,” I say. “Can we start over?”

She wipes her nose. “Who the hell are you?”

“Okay. Maybe I deserve that.” I glance at the chain. “Let me in, will you?”

She gives me a look, like I'm crazy or something. “Are you on crack?”

There is a scuffle, and another voice, and then the door opens wide and stupidly I think: There are two of her. “Campbell,” the real Julia says, “what are you doing here?”

I hold up the medical records, still getting over the shock. How the hell is it that she never managed to mention, that entire year at Wheeler, having a twin?

“Izzy, this is Campbell Alexander. Campbell, this is my sister.”

“Campbell…” I watch Izzy turn my name over on her tongue. At second glance, she really looks nothing like Julia at all. Her nose is a bit longer, her complexion not nearly the same shade of gold. Not to mention the fact that watching her mouth move doesn't make me hard. “Not the Campbell?” she says, turning to Julia. “From…”

“Yeah,” she sighs.

Izzy's gaze narrows. “I knew I shouldn't let him in.”

“It's fine,” Julia insists, and she takes the files from me. “Thanks for bringing these.”

Izzy waggles her fingers. “You can leave now.”

“Stop.” Julia swats her sister's arm. “Campbell is the attorney I'm working with this week.”

“But wasn't he the guy who—”

“Yes, thanks, I have a fully functioning memory.”

“So!” I interrupt. “I stopped off at Anna's house.” Julia turns to me. “And?”

“Earth to Julia,” Izzy says. “This is self-destructive behavior.”

“Not when it involves a paycheck, Izzy. We have a case together, that's it. Okay? And I really don't feel like being lectured by you about self-destructive behavior. Who called Janet for a mercy fuck the night after she dumped you?”

“Hey.” I turn to Judge. “How about those Red Sox?” Izzy stamps down the hall. “It's your suicide,” she yells, and then I hear a door slam.

“I think she really likes me,” I say, but Julia doesn't crack as mile.

“Thanks for the medical records. Bye.”

“Julia—”

“Hey, I'm just saving you the trouble. It must've been hard training a dog to drag you out of a room when you need rescuing from some emotionally volatile situation, like an old girlfriend who's telling the truth. How does it work, Campbell? Hand signals? Word commands? A high-pitched whistle?”

I look wistfully down the empty hallway. “Can I have Izzy back instead?”

Julia tries to push me out the door.

“All right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off today in the office. But… it was an emergency.”

She stares at me. “What did you say the dog's for?”

“I didn't.” When she turns, Judge and I follow her deeper into the apartment, closing the door behind us. “So I went to see Anna Fitzgerald. You were right—before I took out a restraining order against her mother, I needed to talk to her.”

“And?”

I think back to the two of us, sitting on that striped couch, stretching a web of trust between us. “I think we're on the same page.” Julia doesn't respond, just picks up a glass of white wine on the kitchen counter. “Why yes, I'd love some,” I say.

She shrugs. “It's in Smilla.”

The fridge, of course. For its sense of snow. When I walk there and take out the bottle, I can feel her trying not to smile. “You forget that I know you.”

“Knew,” she corrects.

“Then educate me. What have you been doing for fifteen years?” I nod down the hallway toward Izzy's room. “I mean, other than cloning yourself.” A thought occurs to me, and before I can even voice it Julia answers.

“My brothers all became builders and chefs and plumbers. My parents wanted their girls to go to college, and figured attending Wheeler senior year might stack the odds. I had good enough grades to get a partial scholarship there; Izzy didn't. My parents could only afford to send one of us to private school.”

“Did she go to college?”

“RISD,” Julia says. "She's a jewelry designer.”

“A hostile jewelry designer-

“Having your heart broken can do that.” Our eyes meet, and Julia realizes what she's said. “She just moved in today.”

My eyes canvass the apartment, looking for a hockey stick, a Sports Illustrated magazine, a La-Z-Boy chair, anything telltale and male. “Is it hard getting used to a roommate?”

“I was living alone before, Campbell, if that's what you're asking.” She looks at me over the edge of her wine glass. “How about you?”

“I have six wives, fifteen children, and an assortment of sheep.” Her lips curve. “People like you always make me feel like I'm underachieving.”

“Oh yeah, you're a real waste of space on the planet. Harvard undergrad, Harvard Law, a bleeding heart guardian ad litem__”

"How'd you know where I went to law school?”

“Judge DeSalvo," I lie, and she buys it.

I wonder if Julia feels like it has been moments, not years, since we've been together. If sitting at this counter with me feels as effortless for her as it does for me. It's like picking up an unfamiliar piece of sheet music and starting to stumble through it, only to realize it is a melody you'd once learned by heart, one you can play without even trying.

“I didn't think you'd become a guardian ad litem,” I admit.

“Neither did I.” Julia smiles. “I still have moments where I fantasize about standing on a soapbox in Boston Common, railing against a patriarchal society. Unfortunately, you can't pay a landlord in dogma.” She glances at me. “Of course, I also mistakenly believed you'd be President of the United States by now.”

“I inhaled,” I confess. “Had to set my sights a little lower. And you—well, actually, I figured you'd be living in the suburbs, doing the soccer mom thing with a bunch of kids and some lucky guy.”

Julia shakes her head. “I think you're confusing me with Muffy or Bitsie or Toto or whatever the hell the names of the girls in Wheeler were.”

“No. I just thought that… that I might be the guy.”

There is a thick, viscous silence. “You didn't want to be that guy,” Julia says finally. “You made that pretty clear.”

That's not true, I want to argue. But how else would it look to her, when afterward, I wanted nothing to do with her. When, afterward, I acted just like everyone else. “Do you remember—” I begin.