t was the middle of the night, but Annie couldn’t sleep. Though she was no longer technically a patient, the hospital had given her a room so she could be near Katie. She’d tried reading and eating and writing, anything to take her mind off of Katie, but nothing worked.

She’d spent hours hunched alongside the incubator, reading, singing, praying. She’d expressed milk into a bottle, but when she looked at the creamy-colored liquid, she wondered if her baby would ever get a chance to drink it. Or a chance to grow strong and move out of this sterile world, a chance to grow and start school and snuggle with her mommy....

We’ll get through this, she said to herself, straightening her spine, but every time a machine buzzed, Annie thought this is it, she’s stopped breathing.

Blake had tried to help, in his own way, but it hadn’t worked. He’d said, She’ll be okay, in a quiet voice, over and over again, but when he spoke, his eyes were blank and afraid.

In truth, Annie had been glad when he left the hospital.

I just can’t stay here, he’d said.

Okay. That was her answer, and even then, in the quiet darkness, the single word seemed coiled in sorrow and regret.

He’d tried to laugh it off. I don’t have to sleep in a chair to prove my love—do I?

Of course not, she’d answered, knowing that it was a lie. Go get Natalie. Her plane lands at nine o’clock.

He’d jumped on the opportunity, just as she’d known he would. He’d rather be anywhere than in this cold, unfamiliar world where his wife cried all day.

She climbed out of bed and moved slowly to the window. Her stitches hurt, but she welcomed the pain. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against the window’s cold glass. Below, the parking lot was a huge gray square, dotted with a few shadowy black cars.

Finally, she turned away. She’d just gotten back into bed when the phone rang. She picked it up. “Hello?”

“Annie? It’s me, Nick.”

“Nick.” His name came out on a whisper of longing.

“I thought you might need me.”

It sounded so simple, those few little words, but they wound around her heart and squeezed. She’d spent a lifetime going through crises alone, always being the strong one, always being in control, and she hadn’t realized until just now how much she yearned to be comforted.

“How is she doing?” he asked.

She ran a shaking hand through her short hair. “She’s holding on. The neonatologist says she’ll be okay if she can just... hold on another few weeks....” Quietly, she began to cry again. “I’m sorry, Nick. I’m tired and scared. All I seem to do is cry.”

“You want to hear a story?”

She wanted desperately to be whisked away from reality on the wings of his voice. “Yes, please...”

“It’s about a man who started life as poor white trash, a kid who ate out of Dumpsters and lived in the backseat of an old Impala. After his mom died, the world gave this young boy a singular chance, and he moved to a soggy little town he’d never heard of, where they didn’t know about his ugly past. He went to high school there, and he fell in love with two girls. One was the sun and the other was the moon. He was young, and he reached for the moon, figuring it was a safe, quiet place—and he knew that if you reached for the sun it could burn you away to nothing. When his wife died, he lost his soul. He turned his back on his child and his dreams and he crawled into a bottle of booze. All he wanted was to die, but he didn’t have the guts.”

“Nick, don’t...”

“So this drunk waited for someone to end his life for him. He waited for someone to take his child away. Then, he thought, then he’d have the guts to kill himself. Only none of that happened, because a fairy princess came into his life. He still remembers what it was like that day, the way the rain was just starting to fall and the lake was as still as glass. He remembers everything about the day she came into his life.”

“Nick, please...” She wanted him to stop, now, before the story spun its gossamer strands around her heart and romanced her beyond repair.

“She changed his world, this woman who wandered uninvited into his life and demanded the very best of him. Before he knew it, he had stopped drinking and he’d taken the first steps toward becoming a parent again, and he’d fallen in love—for the second and last time in his life.”

“You’re drowning me, Nick,” she whispered brokenly.

“I don’t mean to. I just wanted to let you know that you aren’t alone. Love can rise above tragedy and give us a way home. You taught me that, and now you need me to remind you.”

Annie’s days bled one into the next in a monotonous flow of hours spent huddled alongside the incubator in a helpless, hopeless confusion. The hospital had given her a new room, so she was always close to Katie, but at night, when she lay alone on her narrow bed, she felt miles away from the people she loved.

She counted the passing of time in little things: Natalie was here on the weekends and at school during the week; Hank showed up unannounced and came daily to the hospital. Terri and Blake both visited each day after work. The clock ticked. Every day, Rosie O’Donnell showed up on the television screen in the corner of the room, and with each new segment, Annie knew that a day had passed. Thanksgiving came and went; they ate pressed turkey and canned gravy off yellow plastic trays in the frighteningly empty cafeteria.

But Annie barely noticed any of it. Sometimes, when she sat beside the incubator, Natalie became Adrian and Adrian became Katie, and in those moments, when Annie closed her eyes, she couldn’t see anything except that tiny coffin draped in flowers. But then an alarm would go off, or a nurse would come in, and Annie would remember. With Katie, there was hope.

She talked to her baby constantly. (I am sitting beside you now. Can you feel me? Can you hear my breathing? Can you feel me touching you?)

“Mom?”

Annie wiped her eyes and glanced at the door. Natalie and Hank stood there. Her dad looked ten years older than he was.

“We brought Yahtzee,” he said.

Annie smiled tiredly. It must be another week gone by; Natalie was home again. “Hey guys. How did the Psych test go, Nana?”

Natalie pulled up a chair. “That was two weeks ago, Mom, and I already told you I aced it. Remember?”

Annie sighed. She had no memory of that conversation at all. “Oh. Sorry.”

Natalie and Hank sat beside the bed and started unpacking the game. They kept up a steady stream of chatter, but Annie couldn’t concentrate.

All she could do was stare at the side of her bed. It was where the bassinet belonged, where they put it when the tiny, pink-swaddled baby inside of it was healthy. She remembered that the bassinet had been there with Natalie— and never with Adrian.

Hank leaned toward her, touched her cheek. “She’s going to be fine, Annie. You’ve got to believe that.”

“She’s gaining weight steadily, Mom. I talked to Mona— you know, the ICU night charge nurse—and she said Katie’s a champ.”

Annie didn’t look at either of them. “She hasn’t been held yet... does anyone realize that but me?” It plagued her, that thought, kept her up at night. Her baby, stuck full of needles and tubes, had never felt the comfort of her mommy’s arms, had never been soothed to sleep by a lullaby....

“She will, Mom,” Natalie said, squeezing her wrist. “She’s going to be fine. Maybe—”

There was a knock at the door, and Dr. North pushed through the opening. Dr. Overton, the neonatologist, was standing beside her, wearing green surgical scrubs.

Annie’s heart stopped at the sight of them. Blindly, she reached out for Natalie’s hand, squeezing the slim fingers until she could feel the birdlike bones shift. Hank shot to his feet and squeezed Annie’s shoulder.

“Oh, God,” she whispered.

The door opened again and a stout, white-clad nurse named Helena swept into the room on a tide of rustling polyester. In her arms she held a small pink-swaddled bundle.

Dr. North came to the end of the bed. “Would you like to hold your daughter?”

“Would I—” Annie couldn’t seem to draw a solid breath. She hadn’t believed in this moment; hoped, yes, but she hadn’t really believed. She’d been afraid to believe; afraid that if she believed and lost, she would never find the surface again.

Unable to say anything, she reached out.

The nurse moved toward her and placed her daughter in Annie’s arms.

The newborn smell filled her nostrils, at once familiar and exotic. She peeled back the pink blanket and stroked her daughter’s forehead, marveling at the softness of the skin.

Katie’s rosebud mouth puckered and yawned, and a little pink fist shot out from the blanket. Smiling, cooing, Annie peeled back the cotton fabric and stared down at her little girl, dressed in a tiny doll’s diaper. A network of blue veins crisscrossed her pale chest and dappled her thin arms and legs.

Katie opened her mouth and made an angry squeaking sound.

Annie’s breasts tingled; moisture seeped through her nightgown. Quickly, she untied her gown and eased Katie toward the nipple. There was a moment of fumbling around, a few repositionings, and then Katie latched on.

“Oh, Katie,” she whispered, stroking her daughter’s soft, soft head, laughing quietly at the miracle of it all. “Welcome home.”

The first days home were crazy. Hank and Terri hovered beside Annie, demanding to help, refusing to take no for an answer. They decorated the house for Christmas, dragging box after box from the attic and squealing as each new treasure was found. They put up a ten-foot tree in the living room and proceeded to add an obsessive number of gifts beneath it. Natalie called home between every class and asked how Katie was doing. Annie couldn’t handle it all, not when all she wanted to do was stare at the miracle of her child. At last, Hank went home—but only after he vowed to return at Christmas.

Alone again, Blake and Annie tried to find their way back to the familiar routine, but it wasn’t as easy as before. Annie spent all her time huddled on the sofa with Katie, and Blake spent more and more time at the office.

In the third week of December, Hank met Natalie at the San Francisco airport, and they flew down to LAX together. The family shared a tense, quiet holiday dinner that only reminded Annie of how shredded their relationships had become. Even opening the presents on Christmas morning had been a subdued affair.

Hank watched Blake every minute. Annie had heard the questions he jabbed at her husband: Where are you going? Why won’t you be home tonight? Have you spoken to Annie about that?

Annie had known that Blake felt like a stranger in his own home. Natalie watched him warily, waiting for him to pick up Katie, but he never did. Annie understood; she’d been through it before. Blake simply wasn’t one who fell head-over-heels in love with newborns. They frightened and confused him, and he was not a man who liked either emotion. But Natalie didn’t understand that, and Annie saw her daughter’s disappointment again and again as she handed her baby sister to their father, only to watch Blake shake his head and turn away.

Now, Annie lay huddled along the mattress’s edge. Beside her, Blake was stretched out, one arm flung her way, one knee cocked against her hip, hogging the bed in his characteristic fashion. She could hear his breathing; the rhythmic score had accompanied her own sleep for so many years.

She gently peeled out of the bed and went to the French doors, opening them. Sheer white silk curtains billowed with night’s breath along her bare leg.

She woke so often, alone, desperate to reach out for comfort in the darkness, but there was no comfort in her marriage. Oh, they’d tried, each of them in their own way. Him, with gifts and promises and quiet conversations about things that mattered to Annie; her, with brittle smiles and rented movies and elegant dinners for two. But it wasn’t working. They were like butterflies caught on separate sides of a window, each trying with fluttered desperation to break through the glass.

With a tired sigh, Blake pushed the Dictaphone aside and shoved the depositions back into their folder. He was having trouble concentrating lately, and his work was beginning to suffer. Katie only slept a few hours at a time, and whenever she woke up, crying or whimpering, Blake couldn’t get back to sleep.

He got to his feet and poured himself a scotch. Swirling the amber liquid around in the Waterford tumbler, he walked to the window and stared outside. The city was a blurry wash of January gray. A few ragged New Year’s decorations swung forgotten from the streetlights.

He didn’t want to go home to his strangely unfamiliar wife and his squalling newborn daughter. As he’d expected, Annie’s whole existence revolved around the baby’s needs. There was no time left for Blake, and when she did finally get the child to sleep, Annie stumbled blindly to bed, too exhausted for anything beyond a quick peck on the cheek and a mumbled good night.

He was too damned old to be a father again. He’d been no good at it when he was young, and he had even less interest now.

There was a knock at the door.

Blake set the glass down. “Come in.”

The door swung open and Tom Abramson and Ted Swain, two of Blake’s partners, stood in the opening. “Hey, bud—it’s six-thirty,” Ted said with a wicked grin. “What do you say we head on down to the bar and celebrate the Martinson decision?”

Blake knew he should say no. In the back of his mind was the thought that he had something to do at home, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was.

“Sure,” he said, reaching for his coat. “But just one. I have to get home.”

“No problem,” Tommy said. “We’ve all got families.” It was true, of course. All three of them had wives and children at home, waiting for them. But somehow they were still at the bar at eleven o’clock that night, laughing and shouting and clanking toasts.

Ted went home at eleven-thirty, and Tom followed him out. That left Blake, sitting alone on the bar stool. He’d told his friends that he wanted to finish his drink, but the truth was, he’d been nursing the same cocktail for about an hour. He kept looking at the door, thinking, I should go; then he’d think of that big bed at home, and the way his wife slept huddled along the mattress’s edge, and he stayed where he was.

Annie had set the table beautifully. Candlelight flickered above the Battenberg lace cloth, casting slippery shadows on the sterling silver dishes that held all of Natalie’s favorite dishes: homemade macaroni and cheese, hot crescent rolls with honey and butter, and corn on the cob. There was a small stack of multicolored, foil-wrapped presents at one end of the table, and bright, helium-filled balloons were tied above each chair.

Tonight was Natalie’s eighteenth birthday party, and they were all coming together to celebrate. Annie was determined to fit this family back into its groove, at least for these few hours.

Annie glanced once again at the table, her critical eye missing no detail. Hank came up beside her, put an arm around her shoulder and drew her close. Through the open archway to the kitchen, they could hear Natalie and Terri laughing. Annie leaned against her dad. “I’m glad you could come down for the holidays, Dad. It means a lot to Natalie and me.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He glanced around. “So, where’s that busy husband of yours? We’re ready to party.”

“He’s only fifteen minutes late. For Blake, that’s nothing. I told him six-thirty so he’d be here by seven.”

Slowly, Hank withdrew his arm. Turning slightly, he went to the window that overlooked the driveway.

She followed him. “Dad?”

It was a full minute before he spoke, and then his voice was softer than she’d ever heard it. “When you first brought Blake home, I was impressed. Sure, he was young and skinny and poor, but I could see the man emerging inside him. He was what every father dreams of for his daughter, intelligent and ambitious. Not like the boys I knew in Mystic. I thought to myself, now here’s a boy who will take care of my little girl—”

“I know the story, Dad....”

He turned to her. “I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What you’d brought home was just someone else for you to take care of.” He frowned. “I should have worried about your heart instead of your financial comfort. If your mother had been alive... she would have known what to look for. It’s just that I wanted you to have better than I could give you.”

“I know, Dad.”

“It...” His voice trembled and he wouldn’t meet her gaze. “It hurts me to see how you are now. Last spring you were so happy. I miss hearing you laugh. I think... when you were in Mystic, I gave you some bad advice. Hell, I gave you bad advice your whole life. I should have told you that you’d make a wonderful bookseller. I should have been telling you that kind of thing for years.” He turned to her at last. “I should have told you that you were the smartest, most talented, most incredibly gifted person I’ve ever known... and that I was proud of you. That’s what your mama would have said.”

“Oh, Daddy...”Annie knew that if she tried to say anything more, she’d start to cry.

“A dad... he teaches responsibility and accountability, but a mom... ah, a mom teaches her child to dream, to reach for the stars and to believe in fairy tales. At least, that’s what Sarah would have given you. But me? What does an uneducated old millworker like me know about fairy tales and possibilities and dreams?” He sighed, and when he looked at her there were tears in his eyes. “I wish I had it to do over again, Annie Virginia....”

She stepped into her father’s big, strong arms and clung to him. “I love you, Dad,” she whispered against his warm neck.

When she finally drew back, her mascara was running down her face. She grinned. “I must look like something out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I’d better run to the bathroom and freshen up.”

She spun away and hurried through the kitchen. She passed Terri and Natalie, who were busy arranging candles on the cake.

Natalie looked up. “Are you okay?”

Annie nodded. “Fine. My mascara is bothering me.”

“Is Dad home yet?”

“I’m going to try his car phone right now. He’s probably pulling up the driveway.”

Above Natalie’s head, Terri shot Annie an irritated look. Annie shrugged helplessly and went to the phone, punching in Blake’s cellular number. It didn’t even ring; it just patched her through to his voice mail.

Annie turned, faced their expectant looks. “He’s not in the car.”

They waited another forty minutes for Blake, and then by tacit consent, they started the party without him. They came together at the table, the adults talking furiously to cover the awkwardness and disappointment. Still, the empty chair at the head of the table couldn’t be ignored.

Annie forced a bright smile all through the meal. Terri regaled them with funny anecdotes about life on the soaps—and death in the air—until everyone was laughing. After dinner, they sat around the fireplace and opened gifts.

At ten o’clock, Terri reluctantly went home. She hugged Natalie tightly, then held Annie’s hand as they walked to the front door. “He’s a real shithead,” she whispered furiously.

There was no point in answering. Annie hugged her friend and said good-bye, and then walked slowly back to the living room.

Hank rose immediately. “I think I’ll go to bed. Us old guys need our beauty sleep.” He squeezed Natalie’s shoulder and bent to kiss her cheek. “Happy birthday, honey.” Straightening, he threw Annie a frustrated look and strode from the room.

Silence fell.

Natalie went to the window. Annie came up beside her. “I’m sorry, Nana. I wish I could change it.”

“I don’t know why I keep expecting him to be different....”

“He loves you. It’s just...” Words failed Annie. She’d said the same tired thing too many times and she couldn’t even pretend tonight that it made a difference.

She turned to Annie. “What good does his love do me?”

The softly spoken question raised a red, stinging welt on Annie’s heart. “It’s his loss, Natalie.”

Natalie’s eyes filled slowly, heartbreakingly, with tears. “When I was a little girl, I used to pretend that he wasn’t my real dad. Did you know that?”

“Oh, Nana...”

“Why do you stay with him?”

Annie sighed. She wasn’t up to this conversation. Not tonight. “You’re young and passionate, honey. Some day you’ll understand. Obligations and commitments build up around you—sort of like plaque. You have to do the right thing. I have other people to think about.”

Natalie snorted. “I may be young and passionate, but you’re naive, Mom. You always have been. Sometimes I feel like the grown-up around you. You always think everything will work out for the best.”

“I used to think that. Not so much anymore.”

Natalie’s gaze was solemn. “You should have heard yourself last spring, Mom. You sounded so... happy. Now, I know why. He wasn’t around, making you jump every time he came into the room and scurry around to do his bidding.”

It took Annie a second to find her voice, and when she did it was soft and hurting. “Is that how you see me?”

“I see you for who you are, Mom. Someone who loves with all her heart and will do anything to make us happy. But last spring, something made you happy.”

Annie swallowed past the lump in her throat. She turned away, before Natalie could see the moisture gathering in her eyes.

“Tell me about Izzy. I bet you fixed her right up.”

“Izzy.” Although Annie knew it was opening the door on her pain, she let herself remember. Her thoughts scrolled back to the garden, to a handful of straggling shasta daisies, and a small, black-gloved hand. “She was something, Natalie. You would have loved her.”

“And what about him?”

Annie turned slowly back to Natalie. “Who?”

“Izzy’s dad.”

“He’s an old friend of mine from high school.” Annie could hear the way her voice softened, and though she knew it was dangerous, she couldn’t change it. She smiled at a memory. “He was the first boy I ever kissed.”

“There it is again, Mom.”

Annie frowned. “There’s what?”

“That voice. It’s the way you sounded while I was in London. Is he part of what made you happy, Mom?”

Annie felt vulnerable and exposed, a woman walking out on a thin, rickety bridge. She couldn’t tell her daughter the truth. Perhaps someday, when the bridge of their years had brought Natalie to full womanhood, when she’d seen something more of life and love. When she could understand. “A lot of things made me happy in Mystic.”

It was a long minute before Natalie spoke. “Maybe he and Izzy can come down here some time. Or maybe you and I can visit them.”

“No,” Annie said softly. She wanted to say something more, tack an excuse onto the simple word that seemed to make no sense. But she couldn’t manage it. Instead, she pulled Natalie into her arms and squeezed tightly. “I’m sorry your dad forgot your birthday.”

Natalie sniffled. “You’re the one I feel sorry for.”

“How come?”

“In eighteen years you’ll be saying the same thing to Katie.”