n the moments after, Patrick wonders how he could know that Nina's favorite number is 13, that the scar on her chin came from a sledding crash, that she wished for a pet alligator for three Christmases straight-yet not know that inside her, all this time, was a grenade waiting to explode. “I did what I had to,” she murmurs, all the way across the slick and bloodied court. In his arms, she trembles. She feels light as a cloud. Patrick's head whirls. Nina still smells of apples, her shampoo; she still can't walk a straight line-but she is babbling incoherently, not at all in control the way Patrick is accustomed to seeing her. As they cross the threshold into the holding cell, Patrick looks behind him into the courtroom. Pandemonium. He's always thought that word sounds like a circus, but here it is now. Brain matter covers the front of the defense attorney's suit. A litter of paper and pocketbooks covers the gallery, as some reporters sob, and others direct their cameramen to film. Caleb stands still as a statue. Bobby, one of the bailiffs, is talking into the radio at his shoulder: “Yeah, shots were fired, and we need an ambulance.” Roanoke, the other bailiff, hustles a white-faced Judge Bartlett into chambers. “Clear the court!” the judge yells, and Roanoke answers: “But we can't, Your Honor. They're all witnesses.”

On the floor, being completely ignored, is the body of Father Szyszynski. Killing him was the right thing, Patrick thinks before he can stop himself . And then immediately afterward: Oh, God, what has she done?

“Patrick,” Nina murmurs.

He cannot look at her. “Don't speak to me.” He will be a witness at-Christ-Nina's murder trial. Whatever she tells him, he will have to tell a court. As an aggressive photographer makes her way toward the holding cell, Patrick moves slightly to block the camera's view of Nina. His job, right now, is to protect her. He just wishes there were someone to protect him. He jostles her in his arms so that he can shut the door. It will be easier to wait out the arrival of the Biddeford Police Department that way. As it swings closed, he sees the paramedics arriving, leaning down over the body.

“Is he dead?” Nina asks. “I just need you to tell me, Patrick. I killed him, right? How many shots did I get off? I had to do it, you know I had to do it. He's dead, isn't he? The paramedics can't revive him, can they? Tell me they won't. Please, just tell me he's dead. I promise, I'll sit right here and not move if you just go look and see if he's dead.”

“He's dead, Nina,” Patrick says quietly.

She closes her eyes, sways a little. “Thank God. Oh, God, God, thank God.” She sinks down onto the metal bunk in the small cell.

Patrick turns his back on her. In the courtroom, his colleagues have arrived . Evan Chao, another detective-lieutenant in the department, supervises the securing of the crime scene, yelling over the crescendo of shrieks and sobs. Policemen crouch, dusting for fingerprints, taking photos of the spreading pool of blood and the broken railing where Patrick tackled Nina to get the gun out of her hand. The Maine state police SWAT team arrives, thundering down the center aisle like a tornado. One woman, a reporter sequestered for questioning, glances at what is left of the priest and vomits. It is a grim, chaotic scene; it is the stuff of nightmares, and yet Patrick stares fixedly, far more willing to face this reality than the one crying quietly behind him. What Nathaniel hates about this particular board game is that all you have to do is spin the spinner the wrong way, and that's it, your little game piece is coasting down that big long slide in the middle. It's true that if you spin the right way, you can climb that extra tall ladder . . . but it doesn't always work like that, and before you know it, you've lost.

Monica lets him win, but Nathaniel doesn't like that as much as he thought he would. It makes him feel the way he did when he fell off his bike and had this totally gross cut all across his chin. People looked at him and pretended that there was nothing wrong with him but you could see in their eyes that they really wanted to turn away.

“Are you going to spin, or do I have to wait until you turn six?” Monica teases.

Nathaniel flicks the spinner. Four. He moves his little man the right number of spaces and, it figures, winds up on one of those slides. He pauses at the top, knowing that if he only moves three instead, Monica won't say a word. But before he can decide whether or not to cheat, something catches his attention behind her shoulder. Through the wide glass window of the playroom, he sees one policeman . . . no, two . . . five . . . racing through the hallway. They don't look like Patrick does when he works-all rum-ply, in a regular shirt and tie. They are wearing shiny boots and silver badges, and their hands are on their guns, just like Nathaniel sees late at night on TV when he comes downstairs to get a drink and his parents don't change the channel fast enough.

“Shoot,” he says softly.

Monica smiles at him. “That's right, a chute. But you'll have better luck next time, Nathaniel.”

“No . . . shoot.” He curves his fingers into a gun, the sign for the letter G.

“You know. Bang.”

He realizes the moment Monica understands him. She looks behind her at the sound of all those running feet, and her eyes go wide. But she turns back to Nathaniel with a smile glued over the question that shivers on her lips.

“It's your spin, right?” Monica says, although they both know his turn has come and gone.

When feeling returns to Caleb's fingers and feet, it comes slowly, an emotional frostbite that leaves his extremities swollen and unfamiliar. He stumbles forward, past the spot where Nina has just shot a man in cold blood, past the people jostling for position so that they can do the jobs they were trained to do. Caleb gives the body of Father Szyszynski a wide berth. His body jerks toward the door where he last saw Nina, being shoved forward into a cell.

Jesus, a cell.

A detective who does not recognize him grabs his arm. “Where do you think you're going?” Silent, Caleb pushes past the man, and then he sees Patrick's face in the small window of the door. Caleb knocks, but Patrick seems to be deciding whether or not to open the door.

At that point, Caleb realizes that all these people, all these detectives, think he might be Nina's accomplice.

His mouth goes dry as sand, so that when Patrick finally does open the door a crack, he can't even request to see his wife. “Get Nathaniel and go home,” Patrick suggests quietly. “I'll call you, Caleb.”

Yes, Nathaniel. Nathaniel. The very thought of his son, a floor below while all this has been going on, makes Caleb's stomach cramp. He moves with a speed and grace unlikely for someone his size, barreling past people until he reaches the far end of the courtroom, the door at the rear of the aisle. A bailiff stands guard, watching Caleb approach. “My son, he's downstairs. Please. You have to let me get to him.”

Maybe it is the pain carved into Caleb's face; maybe it is the way his words come out in the color of grief-for whatever reason, the bailiff wavers. “I swear I'll come right back. But I have to make sure he's all right.” A nod, one that Caleb isn't meant to see. When the bailiff looks away, Caleb slips out the door behind him. He takes the stairs two at a time and runs down the hall to the playroom.

For a moment, he stands outside the plate-glass window, watching his son play and letting it bring him back to center. Then Nathaniel sees him and beams, jumping up to open the door and throw himself into Caleb's arms. Monica's tight face swims into the sea of his vision. “What happened up there?” she mouths silently.

But Caleb only buries his face against his son's neck, as silent as Nathaniel had been when something happened that he could not explain. Nina once told Patrick that she used to stand at the side of Nathaniel's crib and watch him sleep. It's amazing, she'd said. Innocence in a blanket. He understands, now. Watching Nina sleep, you'd never know what had happened just two hours before. You'd never know from that smooth brow what thoughts lay underneath the surface.

Patrick, on the other hand, is absolutely ill. He cannot seem to catch his breath; his stomach knots with each step. And every time he looks at Nina's face, he cannot decide what he'd rather find out: that this morning, she simply went crazy ... or that she didn't.

As soon as the door opens, I'm wide-awake. I jackknife to a sitting position on the bunk, my hand smoothing the jacket Patrick gave me as a makeshift pillow. It is wool, scratchy; it has left lines pressed into my cheek. A policeman I don't know sticks his head inside. “Lieutenant,” he says form ally, “we need you to come give a statement.”

Of course. Patrick's seen it too.

The policeman's eyes are insects on my skin. As Patrick moves toward the do or I stand, grab onto the bars of the cell. "Can you find out if he's dead?

Please? I have to know. I have to. I just have to know if he's dead." My words hit Patrick between the shoulder blades, slow him down. But he doesn't look at me, not as he walks away from the holding cell, past the other policeman, and opens the door.

In the slice of room revealed, I see the activity that Patrick's kept hidden from me for the past few hours. The Murder Winnebago must have arrived-a state police mobile unit that contains everything the cops need to investigate a homicide and the key personnel to do it. Now they cover the courtroom like a mass of maggots, dusting for fingerprints and taking down the names and statements of eyewitnesses. A person shifts, revealing a crimson smear that outlines a splayed, graying hand. As I watch, a photographer leans down, captures the spatter pattern of the blood. My heart trips tight. And I think: I did this; I did this.

It is a God's honest fact that Quentin Brown does not fancy driving anywhere, especially long distances, particularly from Augusta to York County. By the time he's in Brunswick he's certain that another moment and his six-foot-five frame will be permanently stunted into the position demanded by this ridiculously tiny Ford Probe. By the time he reaches Portland, he needs to be put into traction. But as an assistant attorney general on the murder team, he has to go where he is summoned. And if someone offs a priest in Biddeford, then Biddeford is where he has to go.

Still, by the time he reaches the district court, he is in a formidable mood, and that's saying something. By normal standards, Quentin Brown is overpow ering-add together his shaved head, his unusual height, and his more unusual skin color, given this lily-whire state, and most people assume he is either a felon or a vacationing NBA draft pick. But a lawyer? A black lawyer? Not heah, as the locals say.

In fact, the University of Maine law school heavily recruits students of color, to make up for their rainbow deficiency. Like Quentin, many come; unlike Quentin, they all leave. He's spent twenty years walking into provincial courts and surprising the hell out of the defense attorneys who come expecting someone-or something-different. And truth be told, Quentin likes it that way.

As always, a path parts for him when he strides into the Biddeford District Court, as people fall back to gape. He walks into the courtroom with the police tape crossing the doors, and continues up the aisle, past the bar. Fully aware that movement has slowed and conversation has stopped, Quentin leans down and examines the dead man. “For a crazy woman,” he murmurs, appraising, “she was a damn good shot.” Then Quentin eyeballs the cop who is staring at him as if he's arrived from Mars. “What's the matter?” he deadpans. “You never seen someone six-foot-five before?” A detective walks up to him, swaggering with authority. “Can I help you?”

“Quentin Brown. From the AG's office.” He extends a hand.

“Evan Chao,” the detective says, working his damnedest not to do a double-take. God, how Quentin loves this moment.

“How many witnesses do we have to the shooting?”

Chao does some arithmetic on a pad. “We're up to thirty-six, but we've got about fifty people in the back room who haven't given us statements yet. They're all saying the same thing, though. And we have the whole shooting on tape; WCSH was filming the arraignment for the five o'clock news.”

“Where's the gun?”

“Bobby grabbed it, bagged it.”

Quentin nods. “And the perp?”

“In the holding cell.”

“Good. Let's draft up a complaint for murder.” He glances around, assessing the state of the investigation. “Where's her husband?”

“With all the other people, waiting to be questioned, I suppose.”

“Do we have any evidence linking him to the crime? Did he participate in any way?”

Chao exchanges a glance with a few police officers, who murmur among themselves and shrug. “He hasn't been questioned yet, apparently.”

“Then get him in here,” Quentin says. “Let's ask him.” Chao turns to one of the bailiffs. “Roanoke, find Caleb Frost, will you?” The older man looks at Quentin and quails. “He, uh, ain't in there.”

“You know this for a fact,” Quentin says slowly.

"Ayuh. He, well, he asked me if he could go get his kid, but he told me he'd come back."

“He said what?” This is little more than a whisper, but coming from Quentin's great height, it is threatening. “You let him walk out the door after his wife murdered the man who's charged with molesting his son? What is this, the Keystone Kops?”

“No, sir,” the bailiff replies solemnly. “It's the Biddeford District Court.” A muscle jumps in Quentin's jaw. “Get someone to go find this guy and interview him,” he tells Chao. “I don't know what he knows; I don't know whether he's involved, but if he needs to be arrested, do it.”

Chao bristles. “Don't pin this on the police force; it was the bailiff's mistake. Nobody even told me he was in the courtroom.”

And where else would he be, if his son's abuser was being arraigned? But Quentin only takes a deep breath. “Well, we need to deal with the shooter, anyway. Is the judge still here? Maybe we can get him to arraign her.”

“The judge is ... indisposed.”

“Indisposed,” Quentin repeats.

“Took three Valium after the shots flew, and hasn't woken up yet.” There is a possibility of getting another judge in, but it is late in the day. And the last thing Quentin wants is to have this woman released because of some stupid bail commissioner. “Charge her. We'll hold her overnight and arraign her in the morning.”

“Overnight?” Chao asks.

“Yes. Last time I checked, there was still a York County Jail in Alfred.” The detective looks down at his shoes for a moment. “Yeah, but . . . well, you know she's a DA?”

Of course he knows, he's known since the moment his office was called to investigate. “What I know,” Quentin answers, “is that she's a murderer.” Evan Chao knows Nina Frost; every detective in Biddeford has worked with her at some time or another. And like every other guy on the force, he doesn't even blame her for what she's done. Hell, half of them wish they'd have the guts to do the same thing, were they in her position.

He doesn't want to be the one to do this, but then again, better him than that asshole Brown. At least he can make sure the next step is as painless as possible for her.

He relieves the officer guarding her and takes up the position himself outside the holding cell. In a more ideal situation, he would take her to a conference room, offer her a cup of coffee, make her comfortable so that she'd be more likely to talk. But the court doesn't have a secure conference room, so this interview will have to be conducted on opposite sides of the bars. Nina's hair is wild around her face; her eyes are so green they glow. On her arm are deep scratches; it looks as though she's done that to herself. Evan shakes his head. “Nina, I'm really sorry . . . but I have to charge you with the murder of Glen Szyszynski.”

“I killed him?” she whispers.

“Yes.”

She is transformed by the smile that unwinds across her face. “Can I see him, please?” she asks politely. “I promise I won't touch anything, but please, I have to see him.”

“He's gone already, Nina. You can't see him.”

“But I killed him?”

Evan exhales heavily. The last time he'd seen Nina Frost, she'd been arguing one of his own cases in court-a date rape. She had gotten up in front of the perp and wrung him dry on the witness stand. She had made him look the way she looks, right now. “Will you give me a statement, Nina?”

“No, I can't. I can't. I did what I had to do, I can't do any more.” He pulls out a Miranda form. “I need to read you your rights.”

“I did what I had to do.”

Evan has to raise his voice over hers. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the righ t ...”

“I can't do any more. I did what I had to do,” Nina babbles. Finally Evan finishes reading. Through the bars he hands her a pen to sign the paper, but it drops from her fingers. She whispers, “I can't do any more.”

“Come on, Nina,” Evan says softly. He unlocks the holding cell, leads her through the hallways of the sheriff's office, and outside to a police cruiser. He opens the door for her and helps her inside. “We can't arraign you till tomorrow, so I've got to take you down to the jail overnight. You're gonna get your own cell, and I'll make sure they take care of you. Okay?” But Nina Frost has curled up in a fetal position on the backseat of the cruiser and doesn't seem to hear him at all.

The correctional officer at the booking desk of the jail sucks on a Halls Men tho-Lyptus cough drop while he asks me to narrow my life down to the only things they need to know in a jail: name, date of birth, height, weight. Eye color, allergies, medications, regular physician. I answer softly, fascinated by the questions. I usually enter this play in the second act; to see it at its beginning is new for me.

A blast of medicinal mint comes my way, as the sergeant taps his pencil again. “Distinguishing characteristics?” he asks.

He means birthmarks, moles, tattoos. I have a scar, I think silently, on my heart.

But before I can answer, another correctional officer unzips my black purse and empties its contents on the desk. Chewing gum, three furry Life Savers, a checkbook, my wallet. The detritus of motherhood: photographs of Nathaniel from last year, a long-forgotten teething ring, a four-pack of crayons pinched from a Chili's restaurant. Two more rounds of ammunition for the handgun.

I grab my arms, suddenly shivering. “I can't do it. I can't do any more,” I whisper, and try to curl into a ball.

“Well, we're not done yet,” the correctional officer says. He rolls my fingers across an ink pad and makes three sets of prints. He props me up against a wall, hands me a placard. I follow his directions like a zombie; I do not meet his eyes. He doesn't tell me when the flash is going to go off; now I know why in every mug shot a criminal seems to have been caught unaware. When my vision adjusts after the burst of light, a female guard is standing in front of me. She has one long eyebrow across her forehead and the build of a linebacker. I stumble in her wake into a room not much bigger than a closet, which holds shelves full of neatly folded hazard-orange jail scrubs . The Connecticut prisons had to sell all their brand-new forest-green jump suits, I suddenly remember, because the convicts kept escaping into the woods. The guard hands me a pair of scrubs. “Get undressed,” she orders.

I have to do this, I think, as I hear her snap on the rubber gloves. I have to do whatever it takes to get out of here. So I force my mind to go blank, like a screen at the close of a movie. I feel the guard's fingers probe my mouth and my ears, my nostrils, my vagina, my anus. With a jolt, I think of my son. When it is over, the guard takes my clothes, still damp with the blood of the priest, and bags them. I slowly put on the scrubs, tying them so tight at the waist that I find myself gasping for breath. My eyes dart back and forth as we walk back down the hall. The walls, they're watching me. In the booking room at the front of the jail again, the female guard leaves me standing in front of a phone. “Go ahead,” she instructs. “Make your call.” I have a constitutional right to a private phone call, but I can feel the weight of their stares. I pick up the receiver and play with it, stroking its long neck. I stare at it as if I have never seen a telephone before.

Whatever they hear, they won't admit to hearing. I have tried to pressure enough correctional officers to come testify, and they never will, because they have to go back and guard these prisoners every day.

For the first time, this works to my advantage.

I meet the gaze of the nearest correctional officer, then slowly shake off the act. Dialing, I wait to be connected to something outside of here. “Hello?” Caleb says, the most beautiful word in the English language.

“How's Nathaniel?”

“Nina. Jesus Christ, what were you doing?”

“How's Nathaniel?” I repeat.

“How the hell do you think he is? His mother's been arrested for killing someone!”

I close my eyes. “Caleb, you need to listen to me. I'll explain everything when I see you. Have you talked to the police?”

“No-”

“Don't. Right now, I'm at the jail. They're holding me here overnight, and I'm going to be arraigned tomorrow.“ There are tears coming. ”I need you to call Fisher Carrington.”

“Who?”

“He's a defense attorney. And he's the only person who can get me out of this. I don't care what you have to do, but get him to represent me.”

“What am I supposed to tell Nathaniel?”

I take a deep breath. “That I'm okay, and that I'll be home tomorrow. ” Caleb is angry; I can hear it in his pause. “Why should I do this for you, after what you just did to us?”

“If you want there to be anus.” I say, “you'd better do it.” After Caleb hangs up on me, I hold the phone to my ear, pretending he is still on the other end of the line. Then I replace the receiver, turn around, and look at the correctional officer who is waiting to take me to a cell. “I had to do it,” I explain. “He doesn't understand. I can't make him understand. You would have done it, wouldn't you? If it was your kid, wouldn't you have do ne it?” I make my eyes flicker from left to right, lighting on nothing. I chew my fingernail till the cuticle bleeds.

I make myself crazy, because this is what I want them to see. It is no surprise when I am led to the solitary cells. In the first place, new prisoners are often put on a suicide watch; in the second place, I put half the women in this jail. The correctional officer slams the door shut behind me, and this becomes my new world: six feet by eight feet, a metal bunk, a stained mattress, a toilet.

The guard moves off, and for the first time this day, I let myself unravel. I have killed a man. I have walked right up to his lying face and shot four bullets into it. The recollection comes in bits and pieces-the click of the trigger past the point of no return; the thunder of the gun; the backward leap of my hand as the gun recoiled, as if it were trying, too late, to stop itself.

His blood was warm where it struck my shirt.

Oh, my God, I have killed a man. I did it for all the right reasons; I did it for Nathaniel; but I did it.

My body starts shaking uncontrollably, and this time, it is no act. It is one thing to seem insane for the sake of the witnesses that will be called to testify against me; it is another thing entirely to sift through my own mind and realize what I have been capable of all along. Father Szyszynski will not preside over Mass on Sunday. He will not have his nightly cup of tea or say an evening prayer. I have killed a priest who was not given Last Rites; and I will follow him straight to Hell.

My knees draw up, my chin tucks tight. In the overheated belly of this jail, I am freezing.

“Are you all right, girlfriend?”

The voice floats from across the hall, the second solitary confinement cell. Whoever has been in there watching me has been doing it from the shadows. I feel heat rise to my face and look up to see a tall black woman, her scrubs knotted above her bellybutton, her toenails painted to orange to match her jail uniform.

“My name's Adrienne, and I'm a real good listener. I don't get to talk to many people.”

Does she think I'm going to fall for that setup? Stoolpigeons are as common in here as professions of innocence, and I should know-I have listened to both. I open my mouth to tell her this, but at second glance, realize I've been mistaken. The long feet, the rippled abdomen, the veins on the backs of the hands-Adrienne isn't a woman at all.

“Your secret,” the transvestite says. “It's safe with me.” I stare right at her-his-considerable chest. “Got a Kleenex?” I ask flatly. For just a moment, there is a beat of silence. “That's just a technicality,” Adrienne responds.

I turn away again. “Yeah, well, I'm still not talking to you.” Above us, there is the call for lights out. But it never gets dark in jail. It is eternally dusk, a time when creatures crawl from swamps and crickets take over the earth. In the shadows, I can see Adrienne's smooth skin, a lighter shade of night between the bars of her cell. “What did you do?” Adrienne asks, and there is no mistaking her question.

“What did you do?”

“It's the drugs, it's always the drugs, honey. But I'm trying to get off them, I truly am.”

“A drug conviction? Then why did they put you in solitary?” Adrienne shrugs. “Well, the boys, I don't belong with them; they just want t o beat me up, you know? I'd like to be in with the girls, but they won't let me, because I haven't had the operation yet. I been taking my medicine regular, but they say it don't matter, so long as I've got the wrong kind of plumbing.” She sighs. “Quite frankly, honey, they don't know what to do with me in here.”

I stare at the cinderblock walls, at the dim safety light on the ceiling, at my own lethal hands. “They don't know what to do with me either,” I say. The AG's office puts Quentin up at a Residence Inn that has a small efficiency kitchen, cable TV, and a carpet that smells like cats. “Thank you,” he says dryly, handing the teenager who doubles as bellman a dollar. “It's a palace.”

“Whatever,” the kid responds.

It amazes Quentin, the way adolescents are the only group that doesn't blink twice upon seeing him. Then again, he sometimes believes they wouldn't blink twice if a herd of mustangs tore past inches from their Skechered feet. He doesn't understand them, either as a breed or individually. Quentin opens the refrigerator, which gives off a dubious odor, and then sinks onto the spongy mattress. Well, it could be the Ritz-Carlton and he'd hate it. Biddeford, in general, makes him edgy.

Sighing, he picks up his car keys and leaves the hotel. Might as well get this over with. He drives without really thinking about where he's going. He knows she's there, of course. The address for the checks has stayed the same all this time.

There is a basketball hoop in the driveway; this surprises him. Somehow, he hasn't thought past last year's debacle to consider that Gideon might have a hobby less embarrassing to a prosecutor. A beat-up Isuzu Trooper with too many rust holes in the running board is parked in the garage. Quentin tak es a deep breath, draws himself up to his full height, and knocks on the door. When Tanya answers, it still hits him like a blow to the chest-her cognac skin; her chocolate eyes, as if this woman is a treat to be savored. But, Quentin reminds himself, even the most exquisite truffles can be bitter on the inside. He takes small comfort in the fact that she steps back when she sees him, too. “Quentin Brown,” Tanya murmurs, shaking her head. “To what do I owe this honor?”

“I'm here on a case,” he says. “Indefinitely.” He's trying to peer behind her, to see what her home looks like inside. Without him in it. “Thought I'd stop by, since you'd probably be hearing my name around town.”

“Along with other, four letter words,” Tanya mutters.

“Didn't catch that.”

She smiles at him, and he forgets what they were discussing. “Gideon around?”

“No,” she says, too quickly.

“I don't believe you.”

“And I don't like you, so why don't you take your sorry self back to your little car and-”

“Ma?” The loping voice precedes Gideon, who suddenly appears behind his mother. He is nearly Quentin's height, although he's just turned sixteen. His dark face draws even more closed as he sees who's standing at the doorway. “Gideon,” Quentin says. “Hello again.”

“You come to haul my ass back to rehab?” He snorts. “Don't do me any favors.”

Quentin feels his hands balling into fists. “I did do you a favor. I pulled enough strings with a judge to keep you out of a juvenile detention facility, even though I took heat for it in my own department.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for that?” Gideon laughs. “Just like I get down on my knees every night and thank you for being my daddy?”

“Gideon,” Tanya warns, but he shoves past her.

“Later.” He pushes Quentin hard, a threat, as he passes down the steps and gets into the Isuzu. Moments later, the car peels down the street.

“Is he still clean?” Quentin asks.

“Are you asking because you care, or because you don't want that stainon your career again?”

“That's not fair, Tanya-”

“Life never is, Quentin.” For the slightest moment, there is a sadness caught in the corners of her eyes, like the seeds of a dream. “Go figure.” She closes the door before he can respond. Moments later Quentin backs carefully out of the driveway. He drives for a full five minutes before he realizes that he has no idea where he is headed.

Lying on his side, Caleb can see the night sky. The moon is so slender it might not even be there the next time he blinks, but those stars, they're flung wide. One bright beacon catches his eye. It's fifty, maybe a hundred light-years away from here. Looking at it, Caleb is staring right into the past. An explosion that happened ages ago, but took this long to affect him. He rolls onto his back. If only they were all like that.

All that day he's been thinking that Nina is sick; that she needs help, the way someone with a virus or a broken leg needs help. If something in her min d has snapped, Caleb will be the first to understand-he has come close to that himself, when thinking of what has been done to Nathaniel. But when Nina called, she was rational, calm, insistent. She meant to kill Father Szyszynski.

That, in and of itself, doesn't shock Caleb. People are able to hold the grea test scope of emotions inside them-love, joy, determination. It only stands to reason that negative feelings just as staggering can elbow their way in and take over. No, what surprises him is the way she did it. And the fact that she actually thinks this is something she did for Nathaniel.

This is about Nina, through and through.

Caleb closes his eyes to that star, but he still sees it etched on the backs of his eyelids. He tries to remember the moment that Nina told him she was pregnant. “This wasn't supposed to happen,” she said to him. “So we can't ever forget that it has.”

There is a rustle of blankets and sheets, and then Caleb feels heat pressed along the length of his body. He turns, hopeful, praying that this has all been a bad dream and that he can wake up to find Nina safe and sleeping. But on her pillow lies Nathaniel, his eyes shining with tears. “I want M ommy back,” he whispers.

Caleb thinks of Nina's face when she was carrying Nathaniel, how it was as bright as any star. Maybe that glory faded long ago, maybe it has taken all these light-years to only reach him now. He turns to his son and says, “I wan t that too.”

Fisher Carrington stands with his back to the door of the conference room, looking out onto the exercise courtyard. When the correctional officer closes the door behind himself, leaving me there, he turns slowly. He looks jus t the way he did the last time I saw him, during Rachel's competency hearing: Armani suit, Bruno Magli shoes, thick head of white hair combed away from his sympathetic blue eyes. Those eyes take in my oversize jail scrubs, then immediately return to my face. “Well,” he says gravely. “I never imagined I'd talk to you here.”

I walk to one of the chairs in the room and throw myself into it. “You know what, Fisher? Stranger things have happened.”

We stare at each other, trying to adjust to this role reversal. He is not the enemy anymore; he is my only hope. He is calling the shots; I am just along for the ride. And over this is a veneer of professional understanding: that he will not ask me what I've done, and that I will not have to tell him.

“You need to get me home, Fisher. I want to be back by the time my son sits down for lunch.”

Fisher just nods. He's heard this before. And it doesn't really matter what I want, when all is said and done. “You know they're going to ask for a Harnish hearing,” he says.

Of course I know this; it is what I would do if I were prosecuting. In Maine, if the state can show probable cause that a capital crime was committed, then the defendant can be held without bail. In jail until the trial. For months.

“Nina,” Fisher says, the first time he has called me anything other than coun selor. “Listen to me.”

But I don't want to listen to him. I want him to listen to me. With great selfcontrol I raise a blank face to his. “What's next, Fisher?” He can see right through me, but Fisher Carrington is a gentleman. And so he pretends, just the way I am pretending. He smiles, as if we are old friends . “Next,” he replies, “we go to court.”

Patrick stands in the back, behind the throngs of reporters that have come to film the arraignment of the prosecutor who shot a priest in cold blood. This is the stuff of TV movies, of fiction. It is a story to debate at the water cooler with colleagues. In fact, Patrick has been listening to the commentary on more than one channel. Words like retribution and reprisal slide like snakes from these journalists' mouths. Sometimes, they don't even mention Nina's name.

They talk about the angle of the bullet, the number of paces it took to cross from her seat to the priest's. They give a history of child molestation convictions involving a priest. They do not say that Nina learned the difference between a front-end loader and a grader to satisfy the curiosity of her son. They do not mention that the contents of her pocketbook, catalogued at the jail, included a Matchbox car and a plastic glow-in-the-dark spider ring. They don't know her, Patrick thinks. And therefore, they don't know why. A reporter in front of him with a helmet of blond hair nods vigorously as her cameraman films her impromptu interview of a physiologist. “The amygdala influences aggression via a pathway of neurons that leads to the hypothalamus,“ he says. ”It sends bursts of electrical excitation down the stria terminalis, and that's the trigger of rage. Certainly, there are environmental factors, but without the preexisting pattern ...”

Patrick tunes them out. A tangible awareness sweeps the gallery, and people begin to take their seats. Cyclopsian cameras blink. Hanging behind, Patrick tucks himself against the wall of the courtroom. He does not want to be recognized, and he isn't quite sure why. Is he ashamed of bearing witness at Nina's shame? Or is he afraid of what she might see in his face?

He should not have come. Patrick tells himself this as the door to the holding cell opens and two bailiffs appear, flanking Nina. She looks tiny and frightened, and he remembers how she shivered against him, her back to his front, as he pushed her from the fray yesterday afternoon.

Nina closes her eyes and then moves forward. On her face is the exact expression she wore at age eleven, a few feet up from the base on a ski lift, the moment before Patrick convinced the operator to let Nina off lest she pass out.

He should not have come, but Patrick also knows he could not have stayed away.

I am to be arraigned in the same courtroom where, yesterday, I murdered a man. The bailiff puts his hand on my shoulder and escorts me through the door. Hands cuffed behind my back, I walk where the priest walked. If I look hard enough, I can see his footsteps glowing.

We march past the prosecutor's table. Five times as many reporters are present today; there are even faces I recognize from Dateline and CNN. Did you know that television cameras running in unison sound like the song of cicadas?

I turn to the gallery to find Caleb, but behind Fisher Carrington's table there is only a row of empty seats.

I am wearing my prison scrubs and low-heeled pumps. They cannot give you shoes in jail, so you wear whatever you were arrested in. And just yesterday, a lifetime ago, I was a professional woman. But as the heel of my shoe catches on the natty nap of a mat, I stumble and glance down. We are at the spot where the priest lay dead, yesterday. Where, presumably, the cleaning people who scoured this courtroom could not completely remove the stain of blood from the floor, and covered it with an industrial carpet remnant.

Suddenly I cannot take a single step.

The bailiff grabs my arm more firmly and drags me across the mat to Fisher Carrington's side. There, I remember myself. I sit down in the same seat the priest was sitting in yesterday when I walked up and shot him. It's warm beneath my thighs-lights beating down on the wood from the courtroom ceiling, or maybe just an old soul that hasn't had the time to move on. The moment the bailiff steps away, I feel a rush of air at the nape of my neck, and I whip around, certain there will be someone waiting with a bullet for me. But there is no bullet, no sudden death. There are only the eyes of everyone in that courtroom, burning like acid. For their viewing pleasure, I start to bite my nails, twitch in my seat. Nervousness can pass for crazy.

“Where is Caleb?” I whisper to Fisher.

“I have no idea, but he came to my office this morning with the retainer. Keep your head straight.” Before I can answer, the judge raps his gavel. I do not know this judge. Presumably, they've brought him in from Lewiston. I do not know the AG either, sitting in my usual spot at the prosecution desk. He is enormous, bald, fearsome. He glances at me only once, and then his eyes move on-he has already dismissed me for crossing over to the dark side.

What I want to do at that moment is walk over to this prosecutor and tug on his sleeve. Don't judge me, I'd say, until you've seen the view from here. You are only as invincible as your smallest weakness, and those are tiny inde ed-the length of a sleeping baby's eyelash, the span of a child's hand. Life turns on a dime, and-it turns out-so does one's conscience.

“Is the state ready to proceed?” the judge asks.

The assistant attorney general nods. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“Is the defense attorney ready to proceed?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Fisher says.

“Will the defendant please come forward?”

I don't stand, at first. It is not a conscious rebuff; I'm just not used to being the one who rises at this point in the arraignment. The bailiff hauls me out of my seat, wrenching my arm in the process.

Fisher Carrington remains in his chair, and my whole body grows cold. This i s his chance to insult me. When a defendant stands and the attorney stays seated, it is a clear sign to insiders that he doesn't give a damn about the client. As I lift my chin and turn away, resolved, Fisher slowly unfolds from his chair. He is a solid presence along my right side, a fortifying wall. He turns to me and raises an eyebrow, questioning my faith.

“Please state your name?”

I take a deep breath. “Nina Maurier Frost.”

“Will the clerk please read the charge?” the judge asks.

“The state of Maine hereby charges that on or about the thirtieth day of October, 2001, the defendant, Nina Maurier Frost, did slay and murder Glen Szyszynski in Biddeford, in the County of York, Maine. How do you plead?“ Fisher smooths a hand down his tie. ”We're going to enter a plea of not guilty, Your Honor. And I'm putting the court and state on notice that we may be entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity at a later date.“ None of this surprises the judge. It does not surprise me either, although Fisher and I have not discussed an insanity defense. ”Mr. Brown,“ the judge says, ”when would you like to schedule a Harnish hearing?” This is expected, too. In the past I have seen Statev. Harnish as a godsend, keeping felons temporarily off the street while I'm working to permanently lock them up. After all, do you really want someone who's committed a capital crime walking free?

Then again, in the past, I have not been the criminal in question. Quentin Brown looks at me, then turns to the judge. His eyes, obsidian, do not give anything away. “Your Honor, at this time, due to the seventy of the crime and the open nature in which it was committed in this very courtroom, the state is asking for bail in the amount of $500,000 with surety.” The judge blinks at him. Stunned, Fisher turns to Brown. I want to stare at him, too, but I can't, because then he will know that I'm sane enough to under stand this unexpected gift. “Am I understanding, Mr. Brown, that the state is waiving its right for a Harnish hearing?” the judge clarifies. “That you wish to set bail in this case, as opposed to denying it?”

Brown nods tightly. “May we approach, please?”

He takes a step forward, and so does Fisher. Out of long habit, I take a step forward too, but the bailiffs standing behind me grab my arms. The judge puts his hand over the microphone so that the cameras cannot hear the conversation, but I can, even from a few feet away. “Mr. Brown, I understood that your evidence in this case was rather good.”

“Judge, to tell you the truth, I don't know whether she has a successful insanity plea or not . . . but I can't in good faith ask this court to hold her without bail. She's been a prosecutor for ten years. I don't think she's going to flee, and I don't think she's a risk to society. With all due respect, Your Honor, I've run that past my boss and her boss, and I'm asking the court to please do this without making it an issue for the press to devour.“ Fisher immediately turns with a gracious smile. ”Your Honor, I'd like to let Mr. Brown know that my client and I appreciate his sensitivity. This is a difficult case for everyone involved.”

Me, I feel like dancing. To have the Harnish hearing waived is a tiny miracle. “The state is asking for bail in the amount of $500,000. What are the defendant's ties to this state, Mr. Carrington?” the judge asks.

“Your Honor, she's a lifelong resident of Maine. She has a small child here. The defendant would be happy to turn in her passport and agree to not leave the state.”

The judge nods. “Given the fact that she's worked as a prosecutor for so long, as a condition of the defendant's bail I am also going to bar her from speaking with any employees currently working at the York County District Attorney's office until the completion of this case, to ensure that she doesn't have any access to information.”

“That's fine, Your Honor,” Fisher says on my behalf. Quentin Brown jumps in. “In addition to bail, Judge, we're asking for a special condition of a psychiatric evaluation.”

“We have no problem with that,” Fisher answers. “We'd like one of our own, with a private psychiatrist.”

“Does it matter to the state whether a private or a state psychiatrist is used, Mr. Brown?” the judge asks.

“We want a state psychiatrist.”

“Fine. I'll make that a condition of bail, as well.” The judge writes something down in his file. “But I don't believe $500,000 is necessary to keep this wo man in the state. I'm setting bail at $100,000 with surety.” What happens next is a whirlwind: hands on my arms, pushing me back in the direction of the holding cell; Fisher's face telling me he'll call Caleb about the bail; reporters stampeding up the aisles and into the hall to phone their affiliates. I am left in the company of a deputy sheriff so thin his belt is not ched like a pegboard. He locks me into the cell and then buries his face in Sports Illustrated.

I'm going to get out. I'm going to be back home, having lunch with Nathaniel, just like I told Fisher Carrington yesterday.

Hugging my knees to my chest, I start to cry. And let myself believe I just might get away with this.

The day it first happened, they had been learning about the Ark. It was this huge boat, Mrs. Fiore told Nathaniel and the others. Big enough to fit all of them, their parents, and their pets. She gave everyone a crayon and a piece of paper to draw their favorite animal. “Let's see what we come up with,” she had said, “and we'll show them all to Father Glen before his story.” Nathaniel sat next to Amelia Underwood that day, a girl who always smelled of spaghetti sauce and the stuff that gets caught in bathtub drains. “Did elephants go on the boat?” she asked, and Mrs. Fiore nodded. “Everything.”

“Raccoons?”

“Yes.”

“Narwhals?” That from Oren Whitford, who was already reading chapter books when Nathaniel wasn't even sure which way the loop went on a b and a d.

“Uh-huh.”

“Cockroaches?”

“Unfortunately,” Mrs. Fiore said.

Phil Filbert raised his hand. “How about the holy goats?” Mrs. Fiore frowned. “That's the Holy Ghost, Philip, which is something totally different.” But then she reconsidered. “I suppose it was there too, though.”

Nathaniel raised his hand. The teacher smiled at him. “What animal are you thinking of?”

But he wasn't thinking of an animal at all. “I need to go pee,” he said, and all the other kids laughed. Heat spread across his face, and he grabbed the block of wood that Mrs. Fiore gave him for a bathroom pass and darted out the door. The bathroom was at the end of the hall, and Nathaniel lingered in there, flushing the toilet a bunch of times just to hear the sound of it; wa shing his hands with so much soap bubbles rose in the sink like a mountain. He was in no rush to get back to Sunday school. In the first place, everyone would still be laughing at him, and in the second place, Amelia Underwood s tank worse than the little cakes inside the bathroom urinals. So he wandered down the hall a little farther, to Father Glen's office. The door was usual ly locked, but right now, there was a crack just big enough for someone like Nathaniel to slip through. Without hesitation, he crept inside.

The room smelled of lemons, just like the main part of the church. Nathaniel 's mother said that was because a lot of ladies volunteered to scrub the pews until they were shining, so he figured they probably came into the office and scrubbed too. There were no pews, though-only row after row of bookshelves. There were so many letters jammed onto the spines of the books that it made Nathaniel dizzy to try to sort them all out. He turned his attention instead to a picture hanging on the wall, of a man riding a white stallion, and spearing a dragon through its heart.

Maybe dragons hadn't fit onto the Ark, which was why no one ever saw them anymore.

“St. George was awfully brave,” a voice said behind him, and Nathaniel realized he was not alone. “And you?” the priest asked with a slow smile. “Are you brave too?”

If Nina had been his wife, Patrick would have sat in the front row of the gallery. He would have made eye contact with her the second she walked through the door of the courtroom, to let her know that no matter what, he was there for her. He wouldn't have needed someone to come to his house and spoon-feed him the outcome of the arraignment.

By the time Caleb answers the doorbell, Patrick is furious at him all over again.

“She's out on bail,” Patrick says without preamble. “You'll have to get a check for ten thousand dollars to the courthouse.” He stares Caleb down, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket. “I assume you can do that. Or were you planning to leave your wife high and dry twice in one day?”

“You mean the way she left me?” Caleb retorts. “I couldn't go. I had no one to watch Nathaniel.”

“That's bullshit. You could have asked me. In fact, I'll watch him right now. You go ahead, get Nina. She's waiting.” He crosses his arms, calling Caleb's bluff.

“I'm not going,” Caleb says, and in less than a breath Patrick pins him against the doorframe.

“What the fuck is the matter with you?” he grits out. “She needs you now.” Caleb, bigger and stronger, pushes back. He balls a fist, sends Patrick flying into the hedge on the path. “Don't you tell me what my wife needs.” In the background is the sound of a tiny voice, calling for his father. Caleb turns, walks inside, closes the door behind him.

Sprawled in the bushes, Patrick tries to catch his breath. He gets to his feet slowly, extricating leaves from his clothing. What is he supposed to do now? He cannot leave Nina in jail, and he doesn't have the cash to bail her out himself.

Suddenly the door opens again. Caleb stands there, a check in hand. Patrick takes it and Caleb nods in gratitude, neither one alluding to the fact that only minutes ago, they were willing to kill. This is the currency of apology; a deal transacted in the name of the woman who has unbalanced both of their lives.

I'm ready to give Caleb a piece of my mind for missing the arraignment, but it's going to have to wait until after I've held Nathaniel so close that he starts to melt into me. Fidgety, I wait for the deputy to unlock the holding cell and escort me into the anteroom of the sheriff's department. There is a famili ar face there, but it's the wrong one.

“I posted bail,” Patrick says. “Caleb gave me a check.”

“He . . .”I start to speak, and then remember who is standing in front of me. It may be Patrick, but still. I turn to him, wide-eyed, as he leads me out the service entrance of the courthouse, to avoid the press. “Is he really dead ? Do you promise me he's really dead?”

Patrick grabs my arm and turns me toward him. “Stop.” Pain pulls his features tight. “Please, Nina. Just stop.”

He knows; of course he knows. This is Patrick. In a way it is a relief to no longer have to pretend with him; to have the opportunity to talk to someone who will understand. He leads me through the bowels of the building to a service entrance, and ducks me into his waiting Taurus. The parking lot is filled with news vans, satellite dishes mounted on top like strange birds. Patrick tosses something heavy in my lap, a thick edition of the Boston Globe. ABOVE the LAW, the headline reads. And a subtitle: Priest Murdered in Maine; A District Attorney's Biblical Justice. There is a full-color photo of me being tackled by Patrick and the bailiffs. In the right-hand corner is Father Szyszynski, lying in a pool of his own blood. I trace Patrick's grainy profile. “You're famous,” I say softly.

Patrick doesn't answer. He stares out at the road, focused on what lies ahead. I used to be able to talk to him about anything. That cannot have changed, just because of what I've done. But as I look out the window I see it is a different world-two-legged cats prance down the street, Gypsies twirl up driveways, zombies knock on doors. Somehow I've forgotten about Halloween; today nobody is the person he was just a day ago. “Patrick,” I begin. He cuts me off with a slash of his hand. “Nina, it's already bad enough. Every time I think about what you did, I remember the night before, at Tequil a Mockingbird. What I said to you.”

People like that, they ought to be shot. I hadn't remembered his words until now. Or had I? I reach across the seat to touch his shoulder, to reassure him that this isn't his fault, but he recoils from me. “Whatever you're thinking, you're wrong. I-”

Suddenly Patrick wrenches the car to the shoulder of the road. “Please, don't tell me anything. I'm going to have to testify during your trial.” But I have always confided in Patrick. To crawl back behind my shell of insanity seems even crazier; a costume two sizes too small. I turn with a question in my eyes, and as usual, he responds before I can even put it into words. “Talk to Caleb instead,” he says, and he pulls back into the midday trickle of traffic.

Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood-finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without. It is the feeling you get when you place the last scrap of the thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle; it is the last footfall in a photo-finish race; exhilaration and homecoming and stunned wonder, caught between those stubby fingers and the spaces where baby teeth have given way. Nathaniel barrels into my arms with the force of a hurricane, and just as easily sweeps me off my feet. “Mommy!”

Oh, I think, this is why.

Over my son's head, I notice Caleb. He stands at a distance, his face impassive. I say, “Thank you for the check.”

“You're famous,” Nathaniel tells me. “Your picture was in the paper.”

“Buddy,” Caleb asks, “you want to pick out a video and watch it in my room?”

Nathaniel shakes his head. “Can Mommy come?”

“In a little while. I have to talk to Daddy first.” So we go through the motions of parenting; Caleb settling Nathaniel on the great ocean of our bedspread, while I push the buttons that set a Disney tape into motion. It seems natural that while he waits here, entranced by fantasy, Caleb and I go into his little boy's room to make sense of what's real. We sit on the narrow bed, surrounded by a bevy of appliqued Amazon tree frogs, a rainbow of poisonous color. Overhead, a caterpillar mobile drifts without a care in the world. “What the hell were you doing, Nina?” Caleb says, the opening thrust. “What were you thinking?”

“Have the police talked to you? Are you in trouble?”

“Why would I be?”

“Because the police don't know you weren't planning this with me.” Caleb folds in on himself. “Is that what you did? Plan it?”

“I planned to make it look unplanned,” I explain. “Caleb, he hurt Nathaniel . He hurt him. And he was going to get away with it.”

“You don't know that-”

“I do. I see it every day. But this time, it was my baby. Our baby. How many years do you think Nathaniel will have nightmares about this? How many years will he be in therapy? Our son is never going to be the way he was. Szyszynski took away a piece of him that we'll never get back. So why shouldn't I have done the same to him?” Do unto others, I think, as you would have them do unto you.

“But Nina. You . . .” He cannot even say it.

“When you found out, when Nathaniel said his name, what was the first thought that ran through your mind?”

Caleb looks into his lap. “I wanted to kill him.”

“Yes.”

He shakes his head. “Szyszynski was headed to a trial. He would have been punished for what he did.”

“Not enough. There is no sentence a judge could pass down that would make up for this and you know it. I did what any parent would want to do. I just have to look crazy to get away with it.”

“What makes you think you can?”

“Because I know what it takes to be declared legally insane. I watch these defendants come in and I can tell you right away who's going to get convicted and who's going to walk. I know what you have to say, what you have to do.” I look Caleb right in the eye. “I am an attorney. But I shot a man in front of a judge, in front of a whole court. Why would I do that, if I weren't crazy?”

Caleb is quiet for a moment, turning the truth over in his hands. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks softly.

“Because you're my husband. You can't testify against me during my trial. You're the only one I can tell.”

“Then why didn't you tell me what you were going to do?”

“Because,” I reply, “you would have stopped me.” When Caleb gets up and walks to the window, I follow him. I place my hand gently on his back, in the hollow that seems so vulnerable, even in a man full-grown. “Nathaniel deserves this,” I whisper.

Caleb shakes his head. “No one deserves this.”

As it turns out, you can function while your heart is being torn to shreds. Blood pumps, breath flows, neurons fire. What goes missing is the affect; a curious flatness to voice and actions that, if noted, speak of a hole so deep inside there's no visible end to it. Caleb stares at this woman who just yesterday was his wife and sees a stranger in her place. He listens to her explanations and wonders when she took up this foreign language, this tongue that makes no sense.

Of course, it is what any parent would want to do to the devil who preys upo n a child. But 99-9 percent of those parents don't act on it. Maybe Nina thinks she was avenging Nathaniel, but it was at the reckless expense of her own life. If Szyszynski had gone to jail, they would be patchwork and piecemeal, but they would still be a family. If Nina goes to jail, Caleb loses a wife. Nathaniel loses his mother.

Caleb feels fire pooling like acid in the muscles of his shoulders. He is furious and stunned and maybe a little bit awed. He has traveled every inch of this woman, he understands what makes her cry and what brings her to rapture; he recognizes every cut and curve of her body; but he doesn't know her at all.

Nina stands expectantly beside him, waiting for him to tell her she did the right thing. Funny, that she would flout the law, but still need his approval. For this reason, and all the others, the words she wants to hear from him will not come.

When Nathaniel walks into the room with the dining room tablecloth wrapped around his shoulders, Caleb latches onto him. In this storm of strangeness, Nathaniel is the one thing he can recognize. “Hey!” Caleb cries with too much enthusiasm, and he tosses the boy into the air. “That's some cape!” Nina turns too, a smile placed on her face where the earnestness was a moment before. She reaches for Nathaniel, too, and out of pure spite, Caleb hefts the child high on his shoulders where she cannot reach.

“It's getting dark,” Nathaniel says. “Can we go?”

“Go where?”

In answer, Nathaniel points out the window. On the street below is a battalion of tiny goblins, miniature monsters, fairy princesses. Caleb notices, for the first time, that the leaves have all fallen; that grinning pumpkins roost like lazy hens on the stone walls of his neighbor's home. How could he have missed the signs of Halloween?

He looks at Nina, but she has been just as preoccupied. As if on cue, the doorbell rings. Nathaniel wriggles on Caleb's shoulders. “Get it! Get it!”

“We'll have to get it later.” Nina tosses him a helpless look; there is no candy in this house. There is nothing left that's sweet.

Worse, yet, there is no costume. Caleb and Nina realize this at the same moment, and it sews them close. They both recall Nathaniel's previous Halloweens in descending order: knight in shining armor, astronaut, pumpkin, crocodile, and, as an infant, caterpillar. “What would you like to be?” Nina asks. Nathaniel tosses his magical tablecloth over his shoulder. “A superhero,” he says. “A new one.”

Caleb is fairly sure they could muster up Superman on short notice. “What's wrong with the old ones?”

Everything, it turns out. Nathaniel doesn't like Superman because he can be felled by Kryptonite. Green Lantern's ring doesn't work on anything yellow. The Incredible Hulk is too stupid. Even Captain Marvel runs the risk of being tricked into saying the word Shazam! and turning himself back into young Billy Batson.

“How about Ironman?” Caleb suggests.

Nathaniel shakes his head. “He could rust.”

“Aquaman?”

“Needs water.”

“Nathaniel,” Nina says gently, “nobody's perfect.”

“But they're supposed to be,” Nathaniel explains, and Caleb understands. Tonight, Nathaniel needs to be invincible. He needs to know that what happened to him could never, ever happen again.

“What we need,” Nina muses, “is a superhero with no Achilles' heel.”

“A what?” Nathaniel says.

She takes his hand. “Let's see.” From his closet, she extracts a pirate's bandanna, and wraps this rakishly around Nathaniel's head. She crisscrosses a spool of yellow crime-scene tape Patrick once brought around Nathaniel's chest. She gives him swimming goggles, tinted blue, for X-ray vision, and pulls a pair of red shorts over his sweatpants because this is Maine, after all, and she is not about to let him go out half-dressed in the cold. Then she surreptitiously motions to Caleb, so that he pulls off his red thermal shirt and hand sit to her. This she ties around Nathaniel's neck, a second cape. “Oh, my gosh, do you see who he looks like?”

Caleb has no idea, but he plays along. “I can't believe it.”

“Who? Who!” Nathaniel is fairly dancing with excitement.

“Well, IncrediBoy, of course,” Nina answers. “Didn't you ever see his comic book?”

“No ...”

“Oh, he's the most super superhero. He's got these two capes, see, which allow him to fly farther and faster.”

“Cool!”

“And he can pull people's thoughts right out of their heads, before they even speak them. In fact, you look so much like him, I bet you've got that superpower already. Go ahead.” Nina squinches her eyes shut. “Guess what I'm thinking.”

Nathaniel frowns, concentrating. “Um . . . that I'm as good at this as IncrediBoy?”

She slaps her forehead. “Oh my gosh! Nathaniel, how'd you do that!” “I think I got his X-ray vision, too,” Nathaniel crows. “I can see through houses and know what candy people are giving out!” He dashes forward, heading for the stairs. “Hurry up, okay?”

With the buffer of their son gone, Caleb and Nina smile uncomfortably at each other again. “What are you going to do when he can't see through doors ?” Caleb asks.

“Tell him it's a glitch in his optical sensor that needs to be checked out.” Nina walks out of the room, but Caleb stays upstairs a moment longer. From the window, he watches his ragtag son leap off the porch in a single bound-grace born of confidence. Even from up here, Caleb can see Nathaniel's smile, can hear the sharp start of his laugh. And he wonders if maybe Nina is right; if a superhero is nothing but an ordinary person who believes that she cannot fail.

"The next thing after love?"

She is holding the gun that's a blow-dryer up to her head, when I ask. "What's the next thing after love?"

“What?”

The stuff I need to say is all tangled. “You love Mason, right?” The dog hears his name and smiles. “Well, sure,” she says.

“And you love Daddy more than that?”

She looks down at me. “Yes.”

“And you love me even higher?”

Her eyebrows fly. “True”

“So what comes after that?”

She lifts me and puts me on the edge of the sink. The countertop is warm where the blow-dryer has been sitting; it just might be alive. For a minute, she thinks hard. “The next thing after love,” she tells me, “is being a mom”.