"We took dancing lessons," Emily told Dr. Paul Whitman, a young psychiatrist at General Hospital. Dr. Whitman had suggested that himself.

"See, so your boyfriend is willing to do it," Paul said, teasingly. "He likes you a bit, it seems."

Emily shrugged and smiled modestly.

"In spite of your issue, as you put it," he said. "And the supposed disadvantages of his sex life."

"You were right," Emily said. "Other things matter more. My GYN, she said I should talk to you about the surgery."

"You're wondering whether to do it?"

"I wasn't. I just thought it was too much. There are people dying out there."

"And they live because you don't get this surgery?"

"Maybe. Medical resources, that kind of thing."

"Improving your sex life doesn't matter?"

"Not in the big picture. I think it is all right as it is. As long as I have Wylie, that is. If he ever breaks up with me, then I'd have to deal with it again."

"You think he'd break up with you?"

"I'm afraid my family might do something. And anyway, a lot of people end up breaking up. I'd feel like I was doing the surgery in case we break up."

"You'll probably always have the option for the surgery," Paul said.

"I can see the other side, too. Get it over with. It just seems like a lot of trouble. How do I explain it to my parents? I'd have to go to another hospital."

"Dr. Singh would keep your confidence. Though with your parents being who they are, they'd know but are you sure they would be against you doing this?"

"It's just not something I can talk about to them," Emily said.

"Dr. Singh could probably do it at Mercy," Paul said. "I think you'd be more comfortable with that than with using another doctor. The logistics will work themselves out if you really want to do it. Many a woman would just do it right away. Doesn't make it right for you. So long as you don't feel guilty about it. Even then, why would you feel guilty?"

"I don't know," she said. "I just don't think – I don't know."

"Think about it," Paul said. "And it's always an option. If you don't do it for your own reasons, it's one thing, but if you think you're not worth it, or you feel guilty, you have an issue to work on."

"I think I understand," Emily said. "Things seems to be going better, and I don't want to rock the boat."

"Now, why shouldn't they go even better?" Paul asked her.

"Maybe they should," Emily said, smiling a little.

Rick Friel sat at a table at the Outback Restaurant, with V. Ardanowski.

"Amanda followed your advice," he said. "She started seeing a counselor."

"The one I recommended?"

"Yes. The Delaney."

"There's one of those for every purpose, isn't there?"

"Is there one who is a cop?"

"No, as a matter of fact. Miracle, isn't it?"

"Amy wants to see your art studio," Rick said. "Amanda was talking about it. So you have a partner, of sorts? That's unusual for artists."

"Yes. You could say that. Elizabeth and I do have a supportive effect on each other. We're also a free counseling service. People can talk to you while you're painting, and so we get visitors."

"That must be interesting," Rick said.

"Yes, and they sometimes pay the price of ending up as models," V. said.

"Amy won't mind that," Rick said.

"I'm sure she wouldn't," V. said.

Through dinner, she told him about her mother's garden and her mother's life since her father had died.

"Still trying to fix me up with her?" he grinned.

"I'm glad your sense of humor is intact," she answered. "And my mother's garden has no weeds, either."

He smiled.

"I'm going to take Amy to see it," V. said. "If that's OK with you. I think she was interested, and if she can continue the garden, it would be a legacy of her mother's that she can carry on. It's not a really long drive, and my mother will love to meet her."

"You've done so much to help us," he said, as the waitress cleared everything away. Rick asked her for the check. "Since we lost Joyce, we've been – floundering, for lack of a better word."

"Naturally," V. said. "Why wouldn't a thing like that affect you greatly?"

"It has," he said. When the waitress came with the check, Rick took it.

"Give me that," V. said, in her best tone of command. "I asked."

"No, I insist."

"Male chauvinist," V. said, with mock accusation. "I asked you out."

"No," Rick said. "It's just that you've done so much for us. I don't see it would hurt to bend the rules a little."

V. relented. "So long as it's not because the woman never pays."

"Don't worry," he said, teasingly. "If I have ideas about women only being able to do certain things, Amy will set me straight."

"OK," she said, as Rick signed the credit card slip. "So that means you were just busy, when you never called me, and figured I would call you."

He looked up. "No, I was really hesitating whether I should."

"Come outside," she said, "Arguments take place outside."

"I hope this does not involve guns," he said, trying to make a joke. "I don't have mine with me." He didn't own one, even.

Outside, she wanted to walk him to his car. He tried to protest, but realized she was the cop, and she carried the gun, and she dealt with criminals as a career, so maybe it really was she who was the protector here.

"You don't have to go out with me," V. said. "If you're not interested. I won't get hurt. And I'll still be friends with Amy and Amanda. I can be just friends with you. Amy will understand it."

"That wasn't how I was thinking," he protested.

"What were you thinking?"

"That – well. That – I'm so – losing Joyce has me so - I don't really think I'm very optimistic. And I can't think of replacing her any much more than just a date. Even that feels traitorous. It's hard to explain. I know it's been a lot of years. I have all these – problems in my head. You are wonderful. A marvelous woman. You deserve better."

"You know what, buddy?" V. said, just the slightest edge creeping into her voice, though she tried to keep it out. "So do you."

She walked off to her car then, quickly. He swung his arm out as if to catch her, but she was much too far away. He tried to call her back, but his voice failed him. He watched her walk to her car, get into it, pull out of the parking space, drive to the road, and turn onto it.

Laraine decided she would drop by the London Underground for a few minutes. Just on her own. She felt emboldened enough, but still a bit nervous, as she walked up to the bar. She'd have one drink, visit, and then go.

She did not see Mikhail, but Clay Delaney was there.

"He went outside on the docks – break time," Clay said, already knowing who she was looking for, inexplicably. Laraine hadn't even had to ask Clay where Mikhail was.

Clay showed her the door as if he expected her to go out and see Mikhail.

Encouraged by Clay's attitude, she went out. .

"Hey," she said, when she found him. He was leaning on the rail. He had that shocked look again. She wondered if she could do something about the fact that he never expected to see her.

She looked up at the moon.

"How do you say moon in Russian?" She leaned toward him.

"Luna," he said, needing a second to come up with the word for that astronomical body even in his native language.

"Luna," she repeated. "Just like Spanish, but the stress on the other syllable. What's sky?"

"Nyeba," and his lips curved into his slight smile.

She repeated that. "How am I doing?"

"Very good," he said. His eyes showed he was more relaxed, starting to recover.

She laughed. "A start."

She looked at the moon a while again. They were both quiet, but it still felt comfortable. Laraine was amazed at this.

"What is hard for Quinn when she tries to learn Russian?" she asked, thinking her sentence through first before she said it.

"How the words change," he said. "In English words change less themselves, but get used too many different ways. Or sound same and spelled different way. Whoever made English wants every word to get used all the way up."

Laraine smiled, thinking she could tell what he was getting at. "Like the way you have the number eight and the past tense of eat, ate?"

He nodded.

"And the way there is a saying for everything, like talking about baseball when there is no baseball game going on?"

"Yes," he said. "What Quinn says - Russian – is hard - different things."

Laraine was realizing how tiring it must get to keep grappling with a new language. "It must be good to be able to go home and just talk to your family in Russian."

"Too easy," he said, grinning. "Zander relentless. Zander is relentless," he corrected.

Laraine remembered Zander saying that Russians skip the verb to be in the present tense.

"Yes," she said. "Zander told me about that. Don't worry if you forget 'is'. You still make sense."

He looked at her with what she figured was half amazement and half gratitude.

"'Raine," he said. "You come to our house? Any time. Always there is someone there, talking."

"Thank you," she said. "I will. You family is so kind. You live there?"

"I want my own, but Oksana talks me into, stay with her, staying?"

Laraine nodded.

"So we have more time, because of time we don't have – before."

"Oh, of course, when you lived there and she lived here."

"Yes. She never see Irina until Irina five. Is five. Was five."

"Oksana never saw Irina until Irina was five."

"Yes," he said, as if Laraine were the one who had tried to get it right and finally did.

"Oksana never met Tatiana?"

"No. Not until now."

"Oksana never met Tatiana until Tatiana came here, to the US?"

"Right, exactly."

Laraine started to get a feeling for how it had been for that family. She remembered meeting them in the park. She felt for them. She took her brothers for granted. Now Oksana wanted her brother around. To make up for lost time.

"You always live here, this town?" he was asking her.

"Yes," she said, suddenly paying attention. Usually, he didn't ask the questions. Laraine had a realization she knew him better than he knew her. "Born and raised. I was born here, in that hospital, where Quinn works as a nurse."

He nodded.

"I went to school here, and I got a job here and grew up here. Very boring."

"Not boring." He nodded toward the door of the bar. He had to go back to work.

"I'll find a way to tell you about it," she said.

She watched him walk back in, staying where she was.

Laraine found she was thinking about the millions of metaphors people used in English that had to do with sex.

Well, Zander wasn't going to be the one to teach him those.