"So how's your son doing?" Ahmir asks over coffee. We're still all sitting around the dinner table, as we have been for the past two hours, and my leg is starting to bounce up and down with the need to move and stretch. I wonder that Ahmir looks so calm and sedate; he used to hate sitting in one place for too long, even more than I do. The coffee doesn't help, either.

"Well, thank you," Charles says, nodding to Ahmir in appreciation for his consideration.

"What happened exactly?" Adam looks around the table quizzically, "I was in your house when it happened, Mrs Musgrove, but I don't know the whole story."

"Charlie was climbing a tree in the backyard, and he fell," says Mrs Musgrove, shaking her head slightly. "Honestly, you take your eyes off him for one minute…dislocated his shoulder and sprained his ankle, but luckily Anne was there and she put everything back where it should have been."

The whole table turns to look at me for the first time since we sat down in the living room, and I feel strangely apprehensive, like I'm in front of a firing squad and not in the company of friends and almost-friends. Ahmir's looking at me again, and I catch his eye for a second before I turn a nervous smile around the table, then look down at my plate, extremely uncomfortable. "It was nothing big, really," I manage quietly.

Mary corroborates this immediately. "It really wasn't. I would have done it if I wasn't so sick, but the way it was…and seeing Charlie…it was too much." The table makes sympathetic noises, but I don't have to look at Ahmir to feel his contempt for Mary. I don't have to look at Ahmir, but I do, of course, and I see him nonchalantly sipping coffee, catching first Lou's eyes and then Hen's and smiling. Then Nadya leans over and says, "You fixed his dislocated shoulder yourself? That's impressive."

I smile, glad to have a distraction from the flirtation across from me. "It really was nothing big. I've done it a bunch of times."

"So you have some medical training, then? Don't tell me dislocated shoulders are big in Kellynch." Her mouth has the pleasant habit of turning up at the end of sentences, and I find myself smiling shyly back, shaking my head, "No, not the most popular injury here. People don't tend to be active enough here to dislocate anything."

"So you're a med student, then?" She's genuinely interested, and I find myself flattered by her attention.

"No, but I used to be an EMT and a lifeguard, so I still have that training. Things like that are a quick fix. If it'd been anything more serious, I wouldn't have been able to do much for him. As it was, it was—"

"—was at just the right level of badness for you to deal with."

"Exactly." Nadya turns across the table and calls to Ahmir, "Hey, Cap, did you hear that? Anne here used to be an EMT and a lifeguard, and—"

"No she didn't," says Mary immediately, "no you didn't," she looks at me accusatorially, like I've just lied to the Pope or something.

"Yeah, I did, actually," I say, aware of how uncomfortable an argument between us will make the group. "It was four years ago, so maybe you don't remember."

"You're right, I don't," she says, turning to smile beatifically at the rest of the group, "but if you say you were than it must be true." There is a small silence in which Lou pantomimes cutting Mary into tiny pieces by way of proposition and everyone else just looks awkward. I shake my head slightly at Lou, smiling down at my plate. Mr Croft speaks up.

"Well, however long ago it was, it was an excellent thing for you to do, Anne; you should be proud of yourself." He then leaps into an over enthusiastic conversation about golf with Charles, pulling the focus away from Mary's quiet seething and the fight we will not have when we get home. Mrs Croft smiles at me again, and I decide again that I like them a lot.

I feel Ahmir's eyes on me again, and when I turn to look at him this time he looks away quickly. I hope this won't be the way it is between us forever. I don't want to do this stupid dance for very much longer. I sit for a few more minutes, listening silently to why nine-irons can't be used as putters in a golf-club crisis, then excuse myself. I probably shouldn't be wandering the halls of someone else's home, since that's what it is now, but I doubt the Crofts will mind, and it gives me something to do. I walk past rooms that used to be redundant, filled with extra armchairs and mirrors and things. The Crofts have better use for them. Now I see papers and books filling the shelves of what I guess to be Nadya's office/writing space, and a white board and TV in Adam's. Now there's an exercise room, too, and a den, too, that looks a whole lot cozier than the living room-cum-drawing room where we had been sitting before.

I stop at the piano room. They haven't touched this place, I see. It's hard to remodel or repurpose a room when there's a full grand in the way. I walk over and softly touch the keys, brushing a little dust off the tops.

I can't really play the piano well. I can't read music at all, actually. The fact that a piano even occupies any room in my father's house is ironic, as both he and Elizabeth hate music. But I love sitting in front of pianos, and making up something with no consideration for theory or time. As long as a music major's not within hearing distance, I can play as much as I want without having to actually learn anything new.

I plink out a few chords, and then some more. I touch the pedals and stop, listening to the way the notes sound as they die. I press seven keys at once, hearing what goes together and what doesn't without actually knowing what goes together and what doesn't. And I don't bother to find out. This isn't a path of discovery for me.

I play for what I think is half an hour, before Nadya tracks me down. Mrs Croft opens the door quietly, and though I see her, I don't stop playing until I feel like I should. Then the hideously dissonant notes fade into silence as we look at each other.

Then I say, "So that was my first masterpiece. What did you think?"

"Can't play the piano?"

"Nope."

"Ah. Listen, I wanted to apologize," I'm confused, and my face tells her so. "I knew it would be weird for you, being here, but I thought it wouldn't be too bad. I'm sorry."

Great, now she thinks I'm a total spaz loser with severe issues. Plunking away randomly on her piano like some deranged Miss Havisham? Way to go, Anne, way to go. Now you've managed to convince her that you're completely unhinged. Sweet.

"No, it's really not that bad. I really do like how you've changed it, and besides, you didn't force me to come here. I chose to, and I'm glad I did. It was nice to meet you and your husband. This," I continue, indicating the piano, "is something I always do when I sit down at a piano. You just had the good luck to come in at an especially Beethoven moment. Not that I think I'm up to snuff with Beethoven; I mean, he could read music, but the point is," I ramble, wishing again that I wasn't so awkward, "it sounded a bit angsty. Which was not my intent. It just happens when you press a lot of keys at the same time." I move over to make room for her on the piano bench, and she sits down without hesitation. "It's actually very therapeutic. You should try it some time." Now I'm smiling at her, and she's smiling back, with no trace of concern. She plays a few keys at random, letting them go like a novice. I show her my technique of holding them out for longer and adding new notes, and it looks like she's enjoying herself. So maybe I'm not a spaz loser after all.

"I'm sorry my sister's so rude," I say, finding that I can venture to break the silence between us with very little discomfort. "She doesn't mean to be rude, but she lacks tact. I'm sorry if she made you uncomfortable." I play a D and an A# together, focusing on the way my fingers are vaguely reflected in the shiny black of the piano face.

"I was actually more worried about you being offended," Mrs Croft says, and I look up at her in surprise. "From what I gathered at dinner, she doesn't seem to know a lot about you."

"She doesn't really. But she's so certain that she does know what she doesn't know that it's almost impossible to tell her anything that she doesn't know. It is the way it is," I say ruefully, shaking my head a little.

"Uh huh. Lou doesn't like her much, I see."

"You are extremely perceptive. I can't imagine how you picked that up."

"Must be my amazing powers of deduction."

"Absolutely fantastic."

"Brilliant emotional gumshoeing."

"Especially since Lou conceals her feelings so well."

"Indeed." I smile down at my hands, and strike a quiet chord before laying them still in my lap.

"Must be hard, to be caught in the middle of a family battle." I look at her again warily. She has an interested, cutting look in her eyes that I recognize instantly. There is family resemblance, after all.

But I don't tell her that. "You trying to get a good story out of this? Maybe add it to your repertoire of human struggle?" I lean in a little, "I have a sneaking suspicion you don't need me to answer your questions at all. You've got this figured the way you want it to be figured, and anything I say will just go into your character study of me and my faults."

"I'm characterizing your faults?"

"Everyone has them. It's what we notice, along with the strengths. No one's perfect."

"What are your faults, then?"

I freeze. Does she know? Is this how she's going to tell me she knows? But no, she can't know, not if she loves her brother as much as she obviously does. If she knew, she wouldn't waste time trying to get to know me or being nice to me, or take the time to apologize. Maybe she was just interested in me for some other reason.

So I smile innocently at her, and press a few keys. "Well, for one thing, I barge into other people's houses uninvited," I changed the chords now, "at mess around with their musical instruments. Not very mature, I know, but I'm working on it." I give her one more glance before I get up off the bench and leave the room quietly, joining my group out in the foyer.

"Anne, where have you been?" Mary snaps at me, "I've have the worst headache, and we couldn't leave without you!" I grab my jacket and fling it over my shoulders, almost braining Mr Croft, who luckily has his back turned. Lou and Hen are standing at an uncomfortably close distance to Ahmir, who doesn't look like he objects to it. I look at him closely for a second before he looks up, trying to see if he prefers one over the other, if he has any kind of intention toward any one in particular. I can't see it. But he's enjoying it, and it bothers me.

Then he looks up, looks directly at me, and I freeze for a moment before I look away, adjusting my jacket collar and winding my scarf around my neck. He looks past me, and without turning around, I see from the corner of my eye that Mrs Croft has followed me out to the foyer. Hopefully Ahmir won't make the connection until we leave. After a quick goodbye, we are gone, and I'm putting as much distance between that house and me.

Strange how two siblings can get under my skin in completely different ways. If I were smart, I'd leave right now, get back to dad and Elizabeth, or find a place of my own and just do my own thing. That would be the smartest thing of all. But I'm not smart, apparently, because I like them. I like them all, and I love him, and instead of ringing those warning bells in my head, I find myself looking forward to the next time we meet each other. I find myself wishing I could confide in her, and spend time with them.

Which is dumb, by the way, I remind myself. Which I know. I know it, I do. I can't be friends with them, so I have to put distance between us, and hope we don't see each other often. Hope that Lou and Hen won't invite Ahmir to spend a lot of time with them during their year off. Hope I'll be too busy to be worried about it.

Hope that Mrs Croft's questions about Mary and my family won't insinuate themselves too deeply in my memory. Because out of everything else, that is the most disastrous thing that can come of all this.