OW WAS YOUR DATE WITH CHARLEY Spirito the other night?” Parker asks. “Nicky, not so high, honey.”

I watch as Nicky pumps his little legs harder, trying to make the swing wrap around the bar from which the chains dangle. Seems like he inherited Ethan’s thrill-seeker gene.

Corinne, wee Emma, Parker, Nicky and I are at Ellington Park, a safe two hundred yards from the cemetery entrance. It’s one of those perfect September days, the sky so brilliantly blue it makes your heart ache. The yeasty, welcoming smell of Bunny’s morning bread still flavors the air. I have forty-one minutes until the next batch is due out, but for now, I’m on my midday break. Emma smacks contentedly away at Corinne’s breast. My sister wears the serene face of pain that I’m coming to recognize as “nursing mother.” Or “saint dying a martyr’s death.” Same idea.

“You went out with Charley Spirito?” Corinne asks, snapping out of her haze to give me a dubious look. “No sir!”

“Mmm,” I say. “It was…well. Charley. You know.”

“Didn’t he put gum in your hair once?” Corinne asks.

“Wow, good memory,” I comment. “It was fine. I don’t know.”

“Just a whole lot of nothing?” Parker guesses.

“That’s about it,” I agree, tilting my face to the sunshine.

“Which is what you want,” my friend adds. “Nick, no, don’t jump. You’re too high. Good boy. Thanks.” Nicky waves, then jumps. Parker sighs as her son comes running over. “Nick, what would I tell Daddy if you snapped both your little ankles, huh? You want to go to the E.R.?”

“You shouldn’t scare children with the thought of getting health care,” Corinne advises in the singsong voice she uses whenever lecturing those of us who don’t have all of life’s answers. Parker rolls her eyes.

“Can we go to the E.R., Mommy?” Nicky asks. “I love the E.R.”

Parker tries to suppress a grin. “You were hurt when we went there, remember? When they sewed your hand?”

“It was fun,” Nicky insists. “I got a balloon, Wucy.”

“I remember,” I say, reaching out to tap his adorable nose with my index finger.

“Wucy, did you see me jump off the swing?”

“I sure did, honey,” I say, looking into his gorgeous brown eyes. Honestly, the boys always get the lashes, don’t they? “You looked like you were flying, but you know, Mommy’s right. That could hurt, if you landed wrong.”

“I didn’t land wrong. I landed up! Bye!” He canters over to the slide.

“He’s so beautiful,” I say. Jimmy’s nephew. Sad that Nicky is the closest thing to Jimmy’s child I’ll ever have. I think we would’ve made such gorgeous kids. The thought is a reflex by now, the pain worn to a nub with overuse.

“So, back to the date,” Corinne says. “Is Charley a contender?”

I pause. In truth, Charley’s not that bad. Just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Honestly, he does match a lot of my requirements. Fairly recession-proof job. As a physed teacher, he’s in great shape, which is not only aesthetically pleasing but a huge plus with the Low Risk of Early Death requirement. Charley seems good-hearted, I guess. He obviously likes kids (though being a gym teacher, one could argue that in fact, he hates kids). It’s just that the idea of sex with Charley…

Saturday night, Charley took me to Cuckoo’s Grille in Kingstown. The waitress was the mother of a woman we’d been to school with, so it was a typical Rhode Island two-degrees-of-separation night. When the pleasantries and updates were completed and the order for stuffed clams, or stuffies, as we like to call them, had been placed, Charley and I stared awkwardly at each other across the table. Then he launched into a discussion of the Red Sox, passionately making the case that without Varitek’s “goddamn torn ligament,” there was no way in hell that those “goddamn Yankees” would be in “first goddamn place,” and furthermore, what was wrong with Boston’s new shortstop, the guy was a “goddamn zombie.”

At the word Yankees, I recalled my fond fantasy of Joe Torre as my stepfather. If such were the case, I wouldn’t be on a date with Charley…not when dear old Joe would fix up his beloved stepdaughter with a millionaire baseball player who was single, didn’t do steroids, visit prostitutes, date Madonna, throw his helmet, chew tobacco, spit or scratch his groin in public, if such a creature indeed existed.

When our food came, Charley turned his attention to his steak and didn’t lift his head until his plate was clean. It was this sort of thing that made me think I could probably sleep through sex with Charley without him noticing.

The last time Ethan and I, er, had relations, it was roughly ten minutes after he’d returned from a trip to Montreal, and I’d jumped him the second he walked through my door. We’d done it standing up in the hallway, me against the wall, legs wrapped around him and quite vocal, as I recall. A framed picture fell to the floor, the glass breaking, but we didn’t stop until we, um, stopped.

No one slept through anything.

“Guess what?” Parker interrupts.

“What?” I yelp guiltily. Cripes, am I blushing?

“Ethan dropped by last night,” she says.

My cheeks burn hotter. “So? He’s the father of your child. He drops by a lot.” I look at my hands.

Parker gives me an odd look. “Well, hush and let me finish.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. Corinne pats Emma on the back, eliciting a shockingly loud belch for so tiny a package.

“So he asked if I wanted to go out. On a date. He said that maybe we should try having a real relationship, rather than just be the two parents of our son. Nicky, get down, honey. That’s too high. Good boy.”

“That’s sweet,” Corinne says.

“Sweet,” I echo. My knees tingle with adrenaline, though I don’t know why (the little hallway memory probably has a lot to do with it). Sober up, Lucy, I tell myself firmly. I’ve always thought there was more potential to Ethan and Parker than either of them did. “So? Are you gonna try?” I ask.

She grimaces. “I don’t know. It seems good on paper. It’s just not…I don’t know.”

“You should. You should marry him,” I say. God knows I’d love to have someone I liked, respected, admired, would father adorable children and who didn’t make my knees weak. And while my voice sounds normal, my heart is convulsing like a striper pulled out of the water.

Parker sighs. “Maybe I should,” she agrees with a considerable lack of enthusiasm. “But—”

At that moment, my sister’s cell phone rings, and she jumps like it’s the red phone in the Oval Office. “Hello? Chris? Are you okay? Honey?” She’s quiet a minute. “Sure! I’m fine! Oh, she’s wonderful! Beautiful! Perfect! How are you, sweetheart? I love you so much.”

“For Christ’s sake, they have medication for that,” Parker mumbles.

Glad for the change of subject, I feel my shoulders relax a little. “My mother’s last words to my dad were, and I quote here, Parker…‘Get the hell out of the bathroom, Rob, I have my period and I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.’” My friend snorts with horrified laughter, and I grin. “So give poor Cory a break. She’s just a screwball, as are we all.”

“You’re too nice, Lucy.” Parker grins.

“True. More people should be like me. You, for instance.”

Nicky, who seems to have more energy than a herd of ferrets, dangles from the jungle gym by one hand. Corinne, finished assuring Chris that the world is a wonderful, wonderful place, hangs up and says, “Parker, shouldn’t you direct his play a little more?”

“I don’t even know what that means,” Parker answers. “He’s a kid, Corinne! He’s having fun.”

Corinne gives her a dubious look. “Well, he’s your son, I suppose. Lucy, I’m going to check Dad’s grave. Want to come?”

It’s my sister’s habit to invite me on grave-weeding excursions. Someday, she’s convinced, my little phobia will crack and I’ll come along. She may be right, but today is not that day.

“Oh, no, thanks, Cory. Not today,” I say. “How about if I take my little niece for a stroll while you do your thing over there?”

She hesitates, nervous about letting me, a know-nothing agent of death, hold her child without supervision. “Please?” I beg. “Pretty please?”

“Well, okay,” she says, unable to find a way out of it. “Just make sure you keep a blanket over her head so she doesn’t burn. She doesn’t like to get sweaty, though, so make sure she can feel the breeze. Also, support her neck. And make sure she can breathe okay.”

“No smothering, Lucy, understand?” Parker quips.

“Got it.” I take the little bundle of love from my sister, who gives a reluctant grin.

“Sorry,” she says. “I know she’s safe with you.”

“Thank you,” I answer, breathing in the sweet and salty scent of infant.

“Nicky looks stuck,” Parker says. “Back in a flash.” She trots over to her child, who is now upside down at the top of the crow’s nest on the jungle gym.

“Want me to water Jimmy’s grave?” my sister offers.

“That would be nice. Thank you.” I smile up at my sister. She’s a sweetheart, despite her neuroses. And I’m in no position to cast stones.

Who will water Jimmy’s grave after his parents move? Ethan, I suppose. Or me. It could happen.

Emma turns her head so her face is tucked against my neck in the sweetest snuggle imaginable. Her slight weight is reassuring against my shoulder, her cheek so soft. I adjust her blanket, making sure she’s protected from the bright sun. She sighs, and my heart swells with love.

Ellington Park’s lovely wide paths are shaded by elm and maple trees. “Isn’t the shade nice?” I ask as we walk, dropping a kiss on her downy head. “And there’s a bird, a crow. They’re pretty. And very smart.” Never too early to start teaching. That’s what I’ve read, anyway. Talk to your baby. Read to them. That’s what I’d do if I were a mommy.

Though I’ve been resisting it, I give in to the temptation, and just for a moment, I pretend that Emma is mine. My daughter. That this miracle of cells grew in me, that it was my tummy that grew round and taut, causing Jimmy and me to just about burst with pride. That I’d grown ripe and glowing, a happy, laughing mother-to-be, never complaining, never swollen, never exhausted. And when the time came, I’d heroically tolerate the pains of childbirth without any drugs. I’d push and push, and when the doctor said, “It’s a girl!” I’d turn to my husband, who’d be smiling down at me, his laughing brown eyes bright with—

Stop.

Jimmy’s eyes were not brown.

Nor was it Jimmy’s face I pictured.

My legs are suddenly weak with terror, watery and useless. Suddenly my teeth are chattering. Dear God, it’s a panic attack, the likes of which I haven’t had since the first year after Jimmy’s death. I’m going to faint. I’m holding a baby and I’m going to faint. A bench waits nearby, and somehow I wobble toward it and sit heavily. Don’t faint, don’t faint, don’t faint, I chant silently to myself. I take a deep breath and hold it, then release it slowly, as I was taught in grief group after Jimmy died. My heart shudders and flops.

“I won’t drop you, Emma,” I whisper, and talking to her helps. I’m her auntie. I can’t let anything bad happen. I love her too much. My racing heart slows, my teeth stop chattering.

“Auntie’s okay,” I say, and my voice is stronger now. “Auntie loves you, angel.” She makes a small sound, and my eyes fill with tears. I’m okay now. That image meant nothing. The face I pictured…okay, yes, yes, it was Ethan’s face…that didn’t mean anything. My breath jerks in and out, eventually calming.

I won’t be having children with Ethan, God knows. Let’s be honest. It’s not Ethan’s link to Parker—or Jimmy—that stops me from being with him.

It’s the knowledge that I could really fall in love with Ethan. That I could love him in a way that would rip me in half if anything happened to him. That losing Ethan as I lost Jimmy could ruin me, and that this time, I might not make it back.

And whatever I could maybe feel for Ethan, however much he’s done for me—nothing is worth that kind of pain again.

“Auntie’s fine,” I whisper again, stroking Emma’s head with one hand. “Auntie is just fine.”