RACE?”

Angus growled fiercely then bounded off to attack a moth. I looked up from the pansies I was potting on the back patio. It was Sunday morning, and Callahan O’ Shea was back, standing in the kitchen at the sliding glass door. He’d gotten right to work this morning; Margaret was off for a run (she ran marathons, so there was no telling when she’d be back) so apparently Cal had no reason to hang around and flirt.

“I need to move the bookcase in front of the window. Do you want to move your little…things?”

“Sure,” I said, getting up and brushing off my hands.

My “things” were mostly DVDs and collectibles. Wordlessly, I placed the items on the couch…a tobacco tin from the 1880s, a tiny cannon, a porcelain figure of Scarlett O’ Hara in her green velvet curtain dress and a framed Confederate dollar.

“I guess you like the Civil War,” he commented as he glanced at the movie cases. Glory, Cold Mountain, The Red Badge of Courage, Shenandoah, North and South, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Gods and Generals, Gettysburg, and the Ken Burns documentary, special edition DVD, a Christmas gift from Natalie.

“I’m a history teacher,” I said.

“Right. That explains it,” he said, looking more closely at the movies. “Gone With the Wind’s never been opened. You have more than one copy?”

“Oh, that. My mom gave this to me, but I always thought I should see it on the big screen first, you know? Give the movie its due.”

“So you’ve never seen it?”

“No. I’ve read the book fourteen times, though. Have you?”

“I’ve seen the movie.” He smiled a little.

“On the big screen?”

“Nope. On TV.”

“That doesn’t count,” I said.

“I see.” He smiled a little, and my stomach tightened. We moved the bookcase. He picked up his saw and waited for me to move out of the way. I didn’t.

“So, Cal…why did you embezzle a million dollars?” I asked.

“One point six million,” he said, plugging the saw in. “Why does anyone steal anything?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Why did you?”

He looked at me with those dark blue eyes, weighing his answer. I waited, too. There was something in his face that told a story, and I wanted to hear it. He was sizing me up, wondering what to tell me, how to say it. I waited.

“Hi, honey, I’m home!” The front door banged open. Margaret stood there, sweaty and flushed and gorgeous. “Bad news, campers. Mom’s on her way. I saw her car at Lala’s Bakery. Hurry. I almost set a world record getting here before she did.”

My sister and I bolted for the cellar. “Callahan, give us some help!” Margs ordered.

“What’s wrong?” Cal asked, following us. At the foot of the cellar stairs, he stumbled to a halt. “Oh, my God.” He looked slowly around.

My cellar was the sculpture repository. Mom, alas, was generous with her art, and so my cellar was littered with glass girl parts.

“I love it here,” Callahan said distantly.

“Hush, you. Grab some sculptures and get upstairs. No time for chitchat,” Margaret ordered. “Our mom will have a fit if she knows Grace hides her stuff. I speak from experience.” Grabbing The Home of Life (a uterus) and Nest #12 (ovary), my sister ran lightly back upstairs.

“Do you rent this place out?” Callahan asked.

“Stop,” I said, unable to suppress a grin. “Just bring that upstairs and put it on a shelf or something. Make it look like it belongs.” I shoved Breast in Blue into his hands. It was heavy—I should’ve warned him, and for a second, he bobbled the breast, and I grabbed for it, and so did he, and the end result was that we both were sort of holding it, our hands overlapping as we both supported the sculpture. I looked up into his eyes, and he smiled.

Kablammy.

My knees practically buckled. He smelled like wood and soap and coffee, and his hands were big and warm, and God, the way those blue eyes slanted down, the heat from his body beckoning me to lean in over Breast in Blue and just…you know…just…Really, who cared if he was an ex-con? Stealing, shmealing. Though I was distantly aware that I should probably change my expression from unadulterated lust to something more along the lines of cheerful neighbor, I was paralyzed.

A car horn sounded. Upstairs, Angus burst into a tinny thunderstorm of barking, hurling his body against the front door, from the thumping sound of it.

“Hurry up down there!” Margaret barked. “You know what she’s like!”

The spell was broken. Cal took the sculpture, grabbed another one and went upstairs. I did the same, still blushing.

I shoved Hidden Treasure onto the bookcase and lay Portal in Green on the coffee table, where it splayed most obscenely.

“Hello, there!” Mom called from the porch. “Angus, down. Down. Quiet, honey. No. Stop. Quiet, dear. No barking.”

I picked up my dog and opened the door, my heart still thumping. “Hi, Mom! What brings you here?”

“I have pastries!” she chirped. “Hello, Angus! Who’s a sweet baby? Hi, Margaret, honey. Stuart said we’d find you here. And oh, hello. Who are you?”

I glanced back. Cal stood in the kitchen doorway. “Mom, this is my neighbor, Callahan O’ Shea. Callahan, my mother, the renowned sculptor, Nancy Emerson.”

“A pleasure. I’m a big fan of your work.” Cal shook my mother’s hand, and Mom turned a questioning gaze on me.

“Dad hired him to put in some new windows,” I explained.

“I see,” said Mom suspiciously.

“I need to run next door and then head to the hardware store, Grace. Anything you need?” Cal said, turning to me.

I need to be kissed. “Um, nope. Not that I can think of,” I said, blushing yet again.

“See you later, then. Nice meeting you, Mrs. Emerson.” The three of us watched as he went out the front door.

Mom snapped out of it first. “Well. Margaret, we need to talk. Come on, girls. Let’s sit in the kitchen. Oh, Grace, this shouldn’t go here! It’s not funny. This is serious artwork, honey.”

Callahan O’ Shea had placed Breast in Blue in my fruit bowl amid the oranges and pears. I grinned. Margaret snorted with laughter and opened the pastry bag. “Oh, goody. Poppy seed rolls. Want one, Grace?”

“Sit, girls. Margaret. What’s this about you leaving Stuart, for heaven’s sake?”

I sighed. Mom wasn’t here to see me. I was her trouble-free daughter. Growing up, Margaret had been (and proudly still was) the drama queen, full of adolescent rebellion, collegiate certainty, academic excellence and a gift for confrontation. Natalie, of course, was the golden one from the moment of her birth and since her brush with death, her every feat had been viewed as miraculous.

So far, the only exceptional thing that had happened to me was my breakup with Andrew. Sure, my parents loved me, though they viewed becoming a teacher as a bit of an easy route. (“Those who can, do,” Dad had said when I announced I’d forgo law school and get a master’s in American History with the hope of becoming a teacher. “And those who can’t, teach.”) My summers off were treated as an affront to those who “really worked.” The fact that I slaved endlessly during the school year—tutoring and correcting and designing lesson plans, staying well past school hours to meet with students in my office, coaching the debate team, going to school events, chaperoning dances and field trips, boning up on new developments in teaching and handling the sensitive parents, all of whom expected their children to excel in every way—was viewed as irrelevant when compared with all of my delicious vacation time.

Mom sat back in her chair and eyed her eldest child. “So? Spit it out, Margaret!”

“I haven’t left him completely,” Margaret said, taking a huge bite of pastry. “I’m just…lurking here.”

“Well, it’s ridiculous,” Mom huffed. “Your father and I certainly have our problems. You don’t see me running off to Aunt Mavis’s house, do you?”

“That’s because Aunt Mavis is such a pain in the ass,” Margaret countered. “Grace is barely even half of the pain that Mavis is, right, Gracie?”

“Oh, thanks, Margs. And let me say what a privilege it was to see your dirty clothes scattered all over my guest room this morning. Shall I do your laundry for you, Majesty?”

“Well, since you don’t have a real job, sure,” she said.

“Real job? It’s better than getting a bunch of drug dealers—”

“Girls, enough. Are you really leaving Stuart?” Mom asked.

Margaret closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Well, I think that’s ridiculous. You married him, Margaret. You don’t just leave. You stay and work things out till you’re happy again.”

“Like you and Dad?” Margaret suggested. “Kill me now, then. Grace, would you do the honors?”

“Your father and I are perfectly…” Her voice trailed off, and she studied her coffee cup as if a light was abruptly dawning.

“Maybe you should move in with Grace, too,” Margaret suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay, very funny. No. You can’t, Mom.” I shot Margs a threatening look. “Seriously, Mom,” I said slowly. “You and Dad love each other, right? You just like to bicker.”

“Oh, Grace,” she sighed. “What’s love got to do with it?”

“Thank you, Tina Turner,” Margaret quipped.

“I’m hoping love has a lot to do with it,” I protested.

Mom sighed. “Who knows what love is?” She waved her hand dismissively.

“Love is a battlefield,” Margaret murmured.

“All you need is love,” I countered.

“Love stinks,” she returned.

“Shut up, Margs,” I said. “Mom? You were saying?”

She sighed. “You get so used to someone…I don’t know. Some days, I want to kill your father with a dull knife. He’s a boring old tax attorney, for heaven’s sake. His idea of fun is to lay down and play dead at one of those stupid Civil War battles.”

“Hey. I love those stupid battles,” I interjected, but she ignored me.

“But I don’t just walk away, either, Margaret. We did, after all, vow to love and cherish each other, even if it kills us.”

“Gosh. That’s beautiful,” Margaret said.

“But my word, he gets on my nerves, making fun of my art! What does he do? Runs around in dress-up clothes, firing guns. I create. I celebrate the female form. I am capable of expressing myself by more than grunts and sarcasm. I—”

“More coffee, Mom?” Margs asked.

“No. I have to go.” Still, she remained in her chair.

“Mom,” I asked cautiously, “why do you, uh, celebrate the female form, as you put it? How did that get started?” Margaret gave me a dark look, but I was a little curious. I was in graduate school when Mom discovered herself, as it were.

She smiled. “The truth is, it was an accident. I was trying to make one of those little glass balls that hang in the window or on a Christmas tree, you know? And I was having trouble tying off the end, and your father came in and said it looked like a nipple. So I told him it was, and he turned absolutely purple and I thought, why not? If your father had that kind of a reaction to it, what would someone else think? So I took it down to Chimera, and they loved it.”

“Mmm,” I murmured. “What’s not to love?”

“I mean it, Grace. The Hartford Courant called me a postmodern feminist with the aesthetic appeal of Mapplethorpe and O’ Keeffe on acid.”

“All from a screwed up Christmas ornament,” Margaret interjected.

“The first one was accidental, Margaret. The rest are a celebration of the physiological miracle that is Woman,” Mom pronounced. “I love what I do, even if you girls are too Puritanical to properly appreciate my art. I have a new career and people admire me. And if it tortures your father, that’s just gravy.”

“Yes,” Margs said. “Why not torture Dad? He’s only given you everything.”

“Well, Margaret, dear, I’d counter that by saying he’s the one who got everything, and you of all people should appreciate my position. I became wallpaper, girls. He was more than happy to come home, be served a martini and a dinner I slaved over for hours in a house that was immaculate with children who were smart, well-behaved and gorgeous, then pop into bed for some rowdy sex.”

Margaret and I recoiled in identical horror.

Mom turned a hard eye on Margaret. “He was completely spoiled, and I was invisible. So if I’m torturing him, Margaret, darling firstborn of my loins, you of all people might say, ‘Well done, Mother.’ Because at least he’s noticing me now, and I didn’t even have to go running to my sister’s house.”

“Youch,” Margaret said. “I’m bleeding, Grace.” Oddly, she was smiling.

“Please stop fighting, you two,” I said. “Mom, we’re very proud of you. You’re, um, a visionary. Really.”

“Thank you, dear,” Mom said, standing up. “Well, I have to run now. I’m giving a talk at the library on my art and inspiration.”

“Adults only, I’m guessing,” Margaret murmured, taking Angus from my lap to make kissing faces at him.

Mom sighed and looked at the ceiling. “Grace, you have cobwebs up there. And don’t shlunch, honey. Walk me to the car, all right?”

I obeyed, leaving Margaret, who was hand-feeding Angus bits of her roll.

“Grace,” my mother said, “who was that man who was here?”

“Callahan?” I asked. She nodded. “My neighbor. Like I told you.”

“Well. Don’t go screwing up a good thing by falling for a manual laborer, dear.”

“God, Mom!” I yelped. “You don’t even know him! He’s very nice.”

“I’m just pointing out that you have a lovely thing going with that nice doctor, don’t you?”

“I’m not going to date Callahan, Mother,” I said tersely. “He’s just some guy Dad hired.”

Ah, shit. There he was, getting into his truck. He heard, of course. Judging from his expression, he heard the “just some guy Dad hired,” not the “very nice” bit.

“Well, fine,” Mom said in a quieter voice. “It’s just that ever since Andrew and you broke up, you’ve been wandering around like a ghost, honey. And it’s nice to see your young man has put some roses back in your cheeks.”

“I thought you were a feminist,” I said.

“I am,” she said.

“Well, you could’ve fooled me! Maybe it’s just that enough time passed and I actually got over him on my own. Maybe it’s springtime. Maybe I’m just having a really good time at work these days. Did you hear that I’m up for the chairmanship of the department? Maybe I’m just doing fine on my own and it has nothing to do with Wyatt Dunn.”

“Mmm. Well. Whatever,” Mom said. “I have to go, dear. Bye! Don’t shlunch.”

“She’ll be the death of me,” I announced as I went back inside. “If I don’t kill her first, that is.”

Margaret burst into tears.

“God’s nightgown!” I said. “I didn’t mean it! Margs, what’s wrong?”

“My idiot husband!” she sobbed, slashing her hand across her face to wipe away the tears.

“Okay, okay, honey. Settle down.” I handed her a napkin to blow her nose and patted her shoulder as Angus happily licked away her tears. “What’s really going on, Margs?”

She took a shaky breath. “He wants us to have a baby.”

My mouth dropped open. “Oh,” I said.

Margaret never wanted kids. Actually, she said that the memory of Natalie hooked up to a respirator was enough to crush any maternal instincts she might’ve had. She always seemed to like kids well enough—gamely holding our cousins’ babies at family gatherings, talking to older kids in a pleasingly adult way. But she also was the first to say she was too selfish to ever be a mother.

“So is this up for discussion?” I asked. “How do you feel?”

“Pretty fucking awful, Grace,” she snapped. “I’m hiding at your house, flirting with your hunky neighbor, not speaking to my husband, and Mom is giving me lectures on marriage! Isn’t it obvious how I feel?”

“No,” I said firmly. “You’re also bawling into my dog’s fur. So spill, honey. I won’t tell anyone.”

She shot me a watery, grateful look. “I feel kind of…betrayed,” she admitted. “Like he’s saying I’m not enough. And you know, he’s…he can be really irritating, you know?” Her breath started hitching out of her again. “He’s not the most exciting person in the world, is he?”

I murmured that, no, of course he wasn’t.

“And so I feel like he just hit me upside the head.”

“So what do you think, Margs? Do you think you might want a baby?” I asked.

“No! I don’t know! Maybe! Oh, shit. I’m gonna take a shower.” She stood up, handed me my doggy, who snagged the last bit of poppy seed roll from my plate and burped. And thus ended the sisterly heart-to-heart.