Chapter Seven

"Thank you for calling the National Park Service, how may I direct your call?" a female voice greeted crisply.

"I don't exactly know. I'm trying to reach the staff at Redwood National Park," Tony replied, the receiver tucked into the crook of his neck as he stood at the sink, neurotically scouring a dish that had been clean for quite some time now.

"Gotcha. I don't have a direct number for that particular park. This office is for Region One. The North Atlantic Appalachian. You'll want to talk with our Region Ten office, for the California and Great Basin area. Can you hold while I dig up the number?"

"Sure thing. Thanks, lady." With nothing left to distract him, he had to face up to reality. The dish was as clean as it was ever going to get. He set to work drying it, very thoroughly.

Mona staggered in, looking like death warmed over. "Tony, can you spare a little breakfast for the victim of a horrible vampire attack?"

"No, I can't. 'Cause it's lunchtime now." He reached into the fridge and took out a ready-made plate of orange wedges, veggie sticks with yogurt dip, and a thick meatloaf sandwich.

"Now, that's what I call service!" Mona crowed. "You got any-?"

"Potato chips?" Tony reached into a box on the top of the fridge and retrieved a single-serving bag of Ruffles.

"You're a god," Mona took them gratefully.

"Sir, are you still on the line?" the operator asked. "I have the number you were looking for. Are you ready to take it down?"

"Yeah, I'm still here." He grabbed a pencil from the junk drawer and a blank recipe card. "I'm ready. Shoot." He nodded. "415-734-3988, got it. Thanks, lady."

"Why are you calling San Francisco, Tony?" Mona wondered through a mouthful of meatloaf and homemade bread. "Do you have money on the Giants? Or are you just stocking up on Rice-A-Roni?"

"Rice-A-Roni is lazy man's food, and baseball season ain't even started yet," Tony scoffed. "I'm trying to hunt down Michael."

"Ugh. If you ask me, this family would be better served if you went about it in the traditional way, with a crossbow and an axe. We could mount his head on my wall, where Jonathan wouldn't have to look at it."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Come on, Mona. I don't like the guy no more than you do. But we're both fathers, and if the situations were reversed, I'd want someone to try and get ahold of me."

"If the situations were reversed, you wouldn't have abandoned your child for the unforgivable crime of puking on you." She rolled her eyes.

Tony grinned. The memory of Jonathan spewing all over that bimbo's overpriced shoes never failed to bring a smile to his face, and today was no exception. "He ain't gonna win father of the year, I'll give you that. But Jonathan's still his son. And when he turns up, it won't all be on Angela. She'll have someone to help her share the responsibilities and make decisions."

"I don't know. I think you've been doing a pretty good job of that so far, Stepfather Tony."

"Glad you think so, Aunt Mona," Tony fired back at her. He poured her a glass of orange juice, then set to work digging up the enormous lunchbox he'd carried with him in his days as a truck driver. More of a small cooler than a lunchbox, actually. In addition to his lunch, it had also held snacks, sodas, bottled water, and depending on how early his shift had started, sometimes breakfast. These days, it mostly got used for family road trips. And today, it was going on a picnic to the hospital. He stuffed in a couple of frozen blue gel packs from the freezer, then loaded it up with turkey salad sandwiches, apple slices, and veggie sticks.

"What's with the compulsive need we human beings have to feed each other in times of tragedy?" Mona wondered. "After my husband passed away, people were dumping casseroles and Jello molds on us for weeks. Angela must have gained ten pounds in the first week alone! Oh well. At least, now that she's older, the human compulsion for boning in times of tragedy can help her burn off some of those calories." Mona cackled, reaching for another sandwich.

Tony froze in his tracks, giving her a wary look. "What do you know, Mona?"

"Huh?" She gave him a double-take. "What's to know?" Her nose started to twitch. "Wait a minute, something's up here…" She rose from the table, took his face in her hands, and peered intently into his eyes. "Oh my God! You slept with Angela!" It didn't sound like a question.

"Shh!" Tony hissed.

Mona seemed terribly upset. Luckily, most of her anger was directed at herself. "I can't believe it took me this long to pick up on it! And I needed a hint!" She smacked herself in the head. "Am I losing my sixth sense? Do you think it's stress? Or, no! Probably the blood loss." Looking much comforted, Mona swung an arm Tony. "Well, it's about time you finally reeled her in, stud. Took you long enough."

"Mona, please!" He put a finger to her lips. "We're trying to keep it quiet."

"You're doing a lousy job so far, spilling it to a blabbermouth like me."

Tony Micelli had never been this close to hitting a woman in all his days. "This ain't a joke!"

Mona didn't appear to have any idea how close to death she was. "Not if you do it right."

"I'm serious, goddamn it! If you know what's good for you, you'll do like us and forget about it."

Mona seemed unimpressed with the unholy rage threatening to blow his skull apart at any minute. "Nope, you didn't do it right," she concluded.

She was correct, though not in the sense she'd meant. "I could've told you that."

"Tony, lighten up. You're taking all the fun out of this for me, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Oh, I'm plenty ashamed of myself. I took advantage of Angela while she was angry, sleep-deprived and scared for her son."

"Did you?" Mona quirked an eyebrow. "Or did she take advantage of you while you were angry, sleep-deprived, and scared for a child you love like your own?"

"Ay-oh, oh-ay, that's totally different."

"How?"

"I'm a guy!" Well, it sounded stupid when he put it like that. "I mean, I'm bigger and stronger than she is. I could have fought her off." Coulda, shoulda, didn't.

"If you chose to, Madman Micelli." Mona gave one of his biceps a squeeze. "But that might be foolhardy. After all, she's your boss. You depend on her to keep a roof over your head. Over your daughter's head. No one would fault you for being afraid to tell her no."

Tony thought of his first night in Angela's home, and their confrontation over her so-called relationship with Grant. The thought that her boss might have been taking advantage of her hadn't even seemed to occur to Angela, until he'd brought it up. The idea that she'd sink to pull such a stunt herself was laughable. "Stop talking crazy. Angela ain't like that. And I ain't afraid of her."

"Good. You shouldn't be. And she's not afraid of you, muscles or no muscles. That's why she went to you for comfort in the first place. She knew she could trust you not to hurt her or judge her. So will you stop wallowing?" She smacked him upside the head. "Honestly, Tony, get over yourself! Do you think you and Angela are the first two people on this planet to respond to stress and grief by boning?"

"Well, no, of course not," he had to admit. "Actually, my pal Philly hooked up with his first wife at his grandma's funeral. This girl saw him crying over granny's coffin, mistook him for the sensitive type, and they ended up sneaking off to the backseat of his car in the middle of the Eucharist prayer. They swore nothing had happened, but when she ended up giving birth to a nine-and-a-half pound baby exactly nine months after that funeral, there wasn't a soul left on Pitkin Avenue who was buying that story." Tony managed to laugh at the memory.

Mona laughed with him. "Exactly. It's a perfectly normal coping mechanism. Nature's antidepressant."

"Yeah. You're right. I guess it is," he conceded, hoping to get her off his back. The words "you're right," were enough to do that, nine times out of ten.

"And yet, you're still miserable," Mona observed. "Dare I ask why?"

"That's my business."

"I'm making it mine."

This was getting tiresome. "How the hell do you figure, Mona?"

Mona's sky-blue eyes darkened to the color of a stormy sea. She grabbed him by the collar and tugged his head down. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

"Yes, ma'am," Tony squeaked.

"Don't push me, bub!" She tightened her grip, not enough to cut off his air, but enough to make breathing a challenge. "My daughter is trudging through the darkest hell she's seen since her daddy died! I wasn't there for her then, because I was too wrapped up in my own pain to notice hers."

Tony was beginning to realize just how screwed he was. He knew the tone in her voice, and the look in her eyes. They were the same ones Angela had been sporting yesterday when she'd stared down the junkie who had hit Jonathan. This was a Robinson woman protecting her child, and a Robinson woman protecting her child was one of the scariest creatures in the entire animal kingdom.

"But I'm here now," Mona continued. "And I'll be damned if I'm going stand by and watch you make the same mistake I did." She shook him, rattling his teeth. "Now, I'll ask again, and you're going to answer honestly. Why are you so miserable about this?"

"Because I wanted it to be different!" Tony screamed back at her. "I didn't want to use her as a coping mechanism, and I didn't want her to use me as one! I wanted it to happen because she loved me the way—" He realized what was about to spill out of his mouth, and bit his tongue out of sheer habit.

"Yes?" said Mona knowingly.

"The way I love her," Tony whispered like a frightened little mouse.

At that, she finally released him, leaning back against the kitchen counter, the warmth returning to her eyes. "Well, look at that. You finally managed to say it out loud and while conscious."

"She told you what I said while I was drugged up?"

"Of course she did. She wouldn't last five minutes without my wisdom, just like you."

"What'd she say?" Tony had to know.

She gave him a worried look. "That you said you loved her while you were drugged up. I just said that. Tony, are you going prematurely senile?"

"No! I mean, what did she think about what I said?"

"Tony, this isn't junior high school and I'm not passing notes to and from your crush for you. You're a grown man. If you want to know how she feels about you, ask her. If you want to tell her you're in love with her, the fact that you boned her last night isn't preventing that. Arguably, it makes a nice icebreaker. And if you like playing her husband so much, quit pussyfooting around and make it official."

Tony stared at Mona in uncomprehending silence for a moment. Had she just…given him her blessing? Yes, she had, and only slightly sarcastically. "Mona, give me a break." Tony sighed. "I've got a lot of work to do on myself before I'd have a snowball's chance in hell with a woman like that."

"Yeah, right. That must be why she jumped your bones this morning." She studied his face again for a moment. "Twice."

This was getting scary. In more ways than one. "Are we done, here, Mona?"

"With the lecture, yes. But if you're referring to lunch, I'm still hungry."

"I suppose a young lady with dangerously low blood sugar is entitled to something special." Relieved that conversation was over, he dug into the back of the vegetable crisper and came up with an overlarge Rice Krispie square, studded with chocolate chips and drizzled with caramel on top. "Just don't tell Angela where I'm hiding them." He stopped short, holding the treat just out of reach. "Or about the other thing!"

Unfortunately, Samantha chose that moment to walk into the kitchen, and Mona grabbed the sticky sweet while he was distracted. "Haha! Got it!"

"Ooh, yummy!" Samantha licked her lips.

"These are for after dinner." Well, technically, they had been for after last night's dinner, but that was beside the point. "Mona's only getting one because she subjected herself to a vampire attack." He reached into the fridge and produced another ready-made plate. "Here. Eat some real food."

"Mm, egg salad and pita chips! You got any-?"

"Celery and peanut butter to go with that?" Tony finished, producing a second plate.

She dug in eagerly. "Thanks, Dad. I couldn't choke down more than a bite or two last night, and I guess it's finally catching up with me."

"I've got a cooler full of food, here, and I've got travel Battleship, two decks of cards, and the travel checkerboard all packed and ready, along with some cozy fleece blankets." He winked at Mona. "And a couple of romance novels. Extra spicy, just the way you like 'em." He turned back to his daughter, who was already halfway through her meal. "When Angela wakes up, we're going to swing by your school and pick up your homework for the next couple of days. This time, we'll be all set to camp out as long as we need to."

"Angela's awake," said Samantha through a mouthful of peanut butter. "She nearly ran me over, coming down the stairs. Said she was going to catch a lift back over to the hospital with Mrs. Wittener."

"And she didn't come by to hit me up for coffee first?" Tony's heart sank. That was always her first stop in the morning. Or the afternoon, as the case may be. She was avoiding him. Just like he was avoiding her. For all our differences, sometimes Angela and I are way too much alike for our own good, he realized for the first time.

At any other time, he would have gladly given her space until the whole mess blew over. If something like this could ever blow over. Passionate, glorious lovemaking with the woman you've semi-secretly adored for years on end tended to be difficult to ignore, but he and Angela were skilled at ignoring things like that. They'd certainly had a lot of practice. They'd started by ignoring their passionate makeout session on her birthday, his first year in her employ. Then they'd moved on to ignoring more advanced stuff, like fact that they were long-lost childhood sweethearts who had shared their first kiss, and confession of love right to her face on his presumptive deathbed. If any two people in the world could have pulled this off, it would have been him and Angela.

But the fact was that they had one gravely injured child on their hands, and another who was deeply scared and upset. Jonathan and Samantha needed them, both of them, and going into hiding wasn't an option right now. Hopefully, she could agree with him on that, if nothing else.

"Thanks for playing chauffeur again, Wendy," Angela said as she climbed into the Witteners' station wagon.

"I told you I'm here for you. I'm glad you took me up on that." Wendy gave her a once-over as she shifted into drive. "You look a lot better than you did this morning. Got some color in your cheeks and some life back in your eyes. Must've been sleeping like a baby."

Well, eventually. As awful as she felt, emotionally, the tension in the back of her neck, which had been threatening to turn into a migraine, had disappeared after her little encounter with Tony. And he'd made an excellent soporific, as well. She'd slept for six hours, despite the glow of daylight and the immense stress she was under; both of which would normally render her insomniac. "Yeah."

"Listen, I'm glad I got the chance to talk to you," Wendy chattered on. "I wanted to get a little feedback from you on something. Jenny's worried about Jonathan."

"She's in good company."

"I'll just bet." Wendy smiled sympathetically. "Anyway, she was asking if she could go and visit him at the hospital. Do you know if they'd allow that while he's in the ICU? I know a lot of hospital wards have age limits for visitors."

"I saw a sign hanging up by the entrance," Angela vaguely recalled. "It said the cutoff is ten and up, so your daughter will make it in just under the wire." She glanced at the digital clock built into the console. "School's getting out in a few minutes. If you hurry, you can catch her before she gets on the bus. Why don't you stop and pick her up? She can come in with us and say hello. See for herself that her little friend is still breathing." Setting the child's fears at ease as soon as possible seemed the only humane thing to do.

Wendy seemed cautiously tempted. "You sure you wouldn't mind that?"

"I'm sure." She wouldn't have extended the invitation to just anyone. But Jenny was a quiet, well-behaved little thing, and not the type to make trouble. And between her close friendship with Jonathan and her precocious crush on Tony, Angela had to admire the kid's excellent taste in men. "Really, go get her. His injuries aren't pretty, but they're nothing compared to what a scared child's imagination will come up with, left to its own devices."

"Very true." Wendy gave her an odd look. "Did you leave the house in a hurry?"

Like Satan himself was chasing, what's it to you? "Oh, I guess you might say that. I was in a hurry to check on my son." It was the truth. The fact that she was afraid she might pounce on Tony again, now that she knew firsthand what he was capable of, had also been a factor. But that was nobody's business except her own. "Why?"

"Because your blouse is buttoned crookedly."

Angela started to check for herself, but caught herself just in time. "Hey, wait a minute." She narrowed her eyes at her friend. "I know what this is. It's another ruse get me to look down so you can poke me in the face."

"Are you still going on about that? It was only once that I pulled the 'you've got something on your shirt' gag."

"Ony one evening, but in the course of that evening, you played the same joke on me five times!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Angela, we were drunk!"

And right now, I'm upset, and you probably think a little practical joke is going to lift my spirits. "Nice try, Wendy, but I'm not falling for that again. Fool me five times, shame on you. Fool me half a dozen times, shame on me."

"Angela, for the last time, I'm not going to poke you in the face! My sense of humor is a lot more sophisticated when I'm sober." Wendy pulled over to the side of the road and reached over to help her, tugging at her skewed collar and undoing the first misaligned pair of buttons. "Honestly, Angela, you should know me better than—" Wendy suddenly froze, staring at Angela's cleavage.

What in the world was so fascinating? Angela wondered. Her breasts were certainly nothing to write home about. And it would have taken something akin to the chestburster scene in Alien to justify the way her friend was gaping. "Uh…my eyes are up here, Wendy."

"Yeah. But they're not as interesting as the giant purple hickey on your right boob."

Angela's blood turned to ice in her veins. Her first instinct was to be mad at Tony for the way he'd branded her. Her second instinct was to feel guilty for being mad at Tony. And her third instinct was to panic. "That's not a hickey!" she denied, the words coming out much louder and more frantic than she'd intended. "I was…I was…" How else was she supposed to explain a bruise to her cleavage? "Brushing up on my archery."

"Angela, at least think enough of me to come up with a better lie!"

"Okay, I made that up because I was embarrassed," she tried, feigning contrition. "The truth is, I slipped and in the shower and just happened to land on my chest." Wendy stared at her in disbelief. "What? If anyone could manage it, I could. You know how clumsy I am."

Wendy rolled her eyes. "I'm not even going to dignify that one with a response."

"I was helping Tony vacuum, and the hose got away from me?" she offered lamely.

Wendy wasn't buying that story either, but it did seem to spark her interest. "Ooh, we're getting closer to the truth now. You're admitting that Tony and an out-of-control hose were involved!"

"Wendy!" Angela screeched indignantly.

Wendy just laughed. "Oh, don't play the scandalized innocent on me! I know you too well. Come on, spill it, for both of our sakes," she pressed on, tugging at Angela's sleeve like a child demanding a treat. "You need someone to confide in, and I need someone to live vicariously through. How far did you go?"

Normally, Angela would have fought it harder, but her nerves were raw, her stamina depleted. And, loath as she was to admit it, Wendy was right. She desperately needed a shoulder to cry on. In times like this, she usually blubbered on Tony's, but he wasn't an option. Mother would have been her second choice, under any other circumstances. She was wise, and far more loving than she let on. But she was absolutely insufferable when it came to matters of sex, and even worse when it came to discussing Angela's relationship with Tony. Succumbing to Wendy was the best option she had right now. "All the way and then some."

As if Angela had just been declared Miss America, Wendy squealed, applauded, and then hugged her. "Way to go, sister! It couldn't have happened to a better woman. Well, it could have, but I'm hitched." Wendy sighed wistfully.

"I'm glad somebody's happy about it."

Wendy frowned. "What, your mom doesn't approve? But she adores Tony! What, did she want him for herself or something?"

"No! Mother doesn't even know."

"Oh. Well, Jonathan's in a coma, so it's not him…Samantha? Samantha doesn't approve?" She shook her head, as if the idea might make more sense if she rolled it around her brain. "That's even crazier! Samantha loves you, and she already thinks of you as a mother. Whenever she talks about you and Tony, she calls you guys her parents."

"No, it's not…" Angela stopped to consider Wendy's words, a brief ray of sunshine cutting through her gloomy mood. "Really? She said that?"

"Yeah. On multiple occasions. And remember New Years' Eve, when she was over here babysitting Jenny? When Herb and I got home that night, Jenny was bouncing around telling us how Sam's her favorite babysitter…"

"Sam's good with kids, isn't she?" Like her father.

"Oh, very. She actually talks to them and plays with them, instead of sitting in front of the TV like most teenaged babysitters. She made Jenny feel like she was at a slumber party—gave her a makeover, showed her how to do the moonwalk, and then taught her how to play 'Never Have I Ever.'"

"Aw. That's my girl." Well, not technically, but close enough.

"Anyway, that got Jenny to complaining about how I never let her do anything fun. Sam just laughed it off and told Jenny she could have it way worse. Said, 'I've got two moms breathing down my neck, one here on Earth and one up in heaven.'"

Hot tears pricked at Angela's eyes for what felt like the millionth time in the last twenty-four hours. "Oh my gosh, that's so sweet…and kind of insulting…but mostly sweet."

"I thought so."

"And no. It's not Sam that I'm worried about." Not in that sense, at least.

Wendy gasped. "Is it future family members you're worried about? Did you guys forget to use protection?"

"No!" Well, technically Angela had, but Tony hadn't. "There will be no new family members for the foreseeable future, unless one of the children brings home a dog. Or Mother does, again."

"Oh. What then? Is Tony a dud?" Wendy sounded terribly disappointed. "Wow, I never would have guessed it to look at him."

"Tony is not a dud!" Angela protested hotly. Strained as their relationship may be at the moment, that was the man she loved that Wendy was talking about.

Wendy pumped a fist. "Woo-hoo! Now we're getting down to the details! Dish, girlfriend!"

"I'm not going to demean him by picking his performance apart like a movie critic, Wendy. Suffice it to say, he's as considerate in the bedroom as he is outside it, and certain stereotypes about Italians are entirely true."

Wendy shook her head. "I'm sorry, but I'm not following. He cooks, he cleans, your family loves him, and he treats you well in and out of the sack. Angela, I know you're distraught about your son, and may be a little confused, but those things are generally considered good!" By the end of her statement, Wendy was yelling, and she punctuated the exclamation point with a smack to Angela's arm.

"Ow! Quit yelling at me!" Angela cried, hating how childish she sounded.

"Then quit pouting!" Wendy hollered unrepentantly, hitting her again. "Jeez, woman! You have a severely injured child on your hands. If you want to stew in your own angst, you have a legitimate reason. You don't have to manufacture drama."

"I'm not manufacturing anything! I didn't even want to talk about it! You're the one who kept pushing!" Angela was getting angry now.

"I was worried about you, and now that we've talked, I'm more worried than ever, 'cause I'm questioning your sanity!"

"Me too."

Wendy finally took pity on her and quit kidding around for a minute. "You really love him, don't you?"

Angela recoiled as if she'd been slapped. "You noticed?"

"You mean you thought you were keeping it a secret?" Wendy seemed genuinely surprised. "Angela, I have eyes, and I've seen the way you look at him. How protective you get when people crack jokes about his job. How proud you were when he won the election. And the way the two of you were dancing around the reception hall at Isabelle's wedding with no music, because you couldn't bear to let go of each other."

"I spent most of that wedding staring across the aisle at Tony, imagining that we were the bride and groom," Angela recalled. "All this time, I've kept hoping the fantasy would come true someday. That one day, he'd come to me and tell me he loved me, and we'd live happily ever after. And now he never will! I ruined everything!"

"Uh-oh. What did you do, call out the wrong name?" Wendy guessed. "Don't worry. It happens to the best of us. I once yelled Patrick Swayze's while Herb was on top of me. He pouted about it for a few days, but he got over it, and so will Tony."

Angela still couldn't figure out whether Wendy was being deliberately obtuse, or just trying to diffuse the situation with humor, as was her wont. "No! I mean, I took advantage of our friendship. I selfishly pressured him into something he didn't want."

"Oh my God, are you serious?" Wendy burst out laughing. "First of all, the man's been drooling over you even longer than you've been drooling over him. Second, Tony's not as easy as you seem to think he is. That man doesn't do anything, or anyone, he doesn't want to do. Remember what you told me, back when Diane was staying with you? About how she lured him down to the basement, ripped off her clothes and jumped him?"

"How could I forget? He was as flustered and indignant as my Nana in a strip club." Angela rolled her eyes affectionately. "If only I'd done a better job defending his honor."

"Tony can defend his own honor. Which brings me to my next point. The man's built like a brick house. If he were that traumatized by the sight of your naked body, he could've picked you up and thrown you out the window with one hand."

"It's not that simple, Wendy. I'm his employer."

"Oh. That."

"Yes, that!" Angela retorted. If only she and Tony could forget about it as easily as everyone else seemed to. "Despite what you, and Mother, and that overpriced therapist all think, my own insecurities aren't the only thing that's been holding me back, all this time. I respect him. And, after what happened with Grant, I know all too well how scary it is, not knowing whether you're allowed to say no. If I make the first move, and he doesn't feel free to tell me no, is a yes worth anything?"

Wendy seemed skeptical. "I don't know him like you do, Angela. But from what I've seen of your Tony, he's as bad as my Herb. Way more pride than sense. Am I wrong?"

A flashback of a shirtless Tony singing "My Way" hit her like a ton of bricks. He had made it clear what his stance on sexual harassment was. And he had done so loudly, violently, and fearlessly. Wendy was right. Tony wasn't easily cowed, or easily led. Which meant that whether or not he loved her like she loved him, whether or not he ever would, he'd slept with her because he wanted to. Which meant she hadn't pressured him into anything against his will. Which meant that, at the very least, they could still be friends. Which meant that he wasn't going to quit. Which meant that she wasn't going to be left on her own with a grievously ill child and a broken heart. She found herself slowly spiraling out of the panic she had been spiraling into since she'd woken up alone in Tony's bed. "No. You're not wrong."

"You're welcome," said Wendy cheerfully, starting up the car again and heading for Fairfield Elementary.

"Wendy, while I thank you for talking me out of the nervous breakdown I was on the verge of, Tony and I are in no position to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after." If only it were that simple.

"Why not?"

"We have two kids."

"What's your point? Do you want more? Because Tony could probably make that happen. Thanks to the first two, we know you're both fertile," Wendy teased.

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

"Angela, you're on step three, and you're worrying about step three thousand, five hundred and twenty-seven." As she pulled into the drop-off zone, Wendy spotted her daughter lined up at the bus dock, and honked her horn. "You can figure out your divorce settlement and custody arrangements if and when they're needed. For now, just talk to him. But visit your son first, so you can be a little calmer when you talk to him."

As Angela ruminated on her friend's advice, little Jenny climbed into the backseat. She had a knapsack on her back, her day planner tucked under her arm, and a large paper bag in hand. "Hi Mom. Hi, Mrs. Bower! How's Jonathan? Is he alive? Is he okay? Did he need stitches? Did he break any bones? Is he going to have to wear a cast? Can I sign it?"

"Breathe, babydoll, breathe!" Wendy urged her uncharacteristically-chatty daughter.

A much-needed smile found its way to Angela's face. "Thank you for asking and for caring, Jenny. Jonathan's going to live, but he's hurt very badly and he's going to be in the hospital for a while. He broke his spine and some ribs, but the doctor glued them back together, so he doesn't have to wear a cast. He does have a back brace and a special helmet to keep his head and spine safe while he's healing. His worst problem right now is that he hit his head and his brain is swollen. The best way to fix that is sleep, so the doctor gave him some medicine to knock him out for a while."

"Oh. That's good." Jenny nodded with approval. "He won't hurt if he's asleep."

"I hadn't thought about it like that," Angela realized. "But you're right." Thank goodness for small favors. "Your mother is taking me to the hospital to see him right now. She mentioned you might like to visit him. He's out like a light and not much fun right now, but if you don't mind, you're welcome to come along."

"Can I?" She held up the paper bag she had brought with her. "I'd like to give him these, if it's all right."

"What's in there, baby?" Wendy asked.

"Get well cards and construction paper flowers. I told Steve about how he got hit by a car, and Steve told everybody else. We wanted to do something nice for him, so the teacher had us make these. Since I live so close to you guys, she had everyone give them to me to give to you to give to him."

"What a lovely thought, Jenny," said Angela sincerely. "We can put them up in his room so that when he wakes up, he'll know his classmates were thinking about him."

"Since he doesn't have a cast for me to sign, can I sign his helmet?"

"Sure, sweetheart."

"Can I draw a little heart on it?"

Angela laughed. "Okay. But make it a small one. He's going to be wearing the helmet for a while, and he won't want it to look too girly. You know how men are. More pride than sense." She caught Wendy's eye and gave her a grateful nod.