“He did,” Pax agreed. “And if by some wildly unlikely coincidence he shows up over here or we run into him, we’re all going to be grown-ups and no blowups. Right?”

“Right,” she agreed. “I never meant for this to hurt you. I can live with whatever you want. If you want us to have a little family party, a reunion, I can go with that. But I’m not giving him my new phone number.”

“You weren’t wrong. He was out of line. But listen, all I want is to be a good brother, a good husband, a decent father to my girls. And I know you don’t think Genevieve is quite good enough for me, but she is my wingman.”

In spite of herself, Laine actually sucked in a breath. He was so devoted to Genevieve. But she was supposed to be his wingman!

“My other wingman,” he said patiently. “I rely on my wife to not only support this fellowship, this career choice that keeps me awake at night and gone on weekends and birthdays, but I’m counting on her to let me know when my girls need their father. And she’s made it clear—if I start to show signs of being the kind of father Senior is, with unreasonable expectations of our girls, I’m in serious trouble.”

“I give her a lot of credit for that,” Laine said. Laine had always felt their mother was too patient with Senior, excusing his impossible-to-please attitude toward Laine. Janice had occasionally said, “Shut up, Paxton!” But not often enough.

“I’ll be there Wednesday,” she said. “I’m only staying two days. Please let me have a sleepover with the girls. I’ll be unbearably nice to Genevieve.”

“You’ll stay with us, as usual,” he said. “No tattoos for the girls.”

Then she broke it to Eric. “I miss them so much,” she said. “I’m okay being away from them when I’m deep in some case, but when I was working four or five days a week I just couldn’t stand it if I couldn’t be with them on my days off. If it wasn’t such short notice, I’d ask you to come along. Next time, I promise.”

“What about your dad?” he asked. “You going to talk to him? Make up with him?”

She turned away from him.

He turned her back. “Level with me. What would your mother think of this situation?”

“My mother always said we were too much alike, equally stubborn and pigheaded—two people who had to be right. And when I lost my mother, I lost the buffer between us. I told you that when I was visiting Pax over the holidays, my father was even more cruel than I can remember. God,” she said, looking down. “It embarrasses me to even tell you this....”

“You can tell me anything,” he said.

“I told him I’d been recommended for a service award, for saving lives.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “He said I’d lost my mind and deserved an award for being the biggest idiot. That only a fool would take the risks I took routinely and if I wanted to save lives, there were more logical, safer and profitable ways.” She took a breath. “My arm was still in a sling, I was feeling pretty weak and vulnerable and not too sure of myself. Then he said if I expected him to celebrate the fact that I’d stopped a bullet I was dreaming. Didn’t I know doctors saved lives every day without putting themselves in mortal danger? And I lost it. I told him he was a self-centered bastard and I was finished with his criticism and his disrespectful treatment. He said I was the disrespectful one and he was bloody tired of my bragging and wearing my close calls like a badge of honor. There was a lot of arguing that evolved into yelling. It was horrible.”

There was a long moment of silence before Eric said, “Wow.”

“It disrupted the whole family. Pax was furious with him and worried about me. The girls were upset and scared. Genevieve was stunned. But for me, there was just no more going on. I was recovering from an injury that nearly cost me my life and he accused me of showing off! I haven’t spoken to him since. He’s a popular doctor, pretty well-liked as doctors go even if he can be a narcissistic dick sometimes.... But the way he talks to me? It’s terrible. And it hurts. It just...hurts.”

Eric was speechless. Finally he asked, “And your mother?”

“A goddess. One of the kindest, most generous women I’ve ever known. She was completely supportive. She hated that he wasn’t and most of the time she could shut him up before he said something really awful. She always said that Pax had more of her temperament, a much gentler nature, and I had more of my father’s. She said my father could have made a good operative—he’s fearless and stubborn and there’s no one more determined.”

“And she put up with that from your father?”

“They loved each other. He didn’t give her any shit and she could put him in his place with one word. But then she died and he was on the loose. There was no one to keep him in line.”

“He must not know how much this hurts you,” Eric said.

“Oh, I think he knows,” she said. “And he thinks his opinions are more important than my feelings. So I’m done. Unless he can change his attitude, I don’t need him in my life. The problem is—I’m thirty-three, I’ve been putting up with this my whole life, and it can still break my heart.”

Eric pulled her into his arms and held her. “I’m sorry, baby. I wish I knew of a solution....”

“This is the solution,” she said. “I have to let it go. Let him go. And carry on. I miss my mother every day.”

“Oh, she’s not all that far away,” he said, brushing her hair away from her face. “I’ve had your dumplings, remember.”

She smiled back at him. “Boy, have you ever.”

* * *

Laine remembered when her mother had said, “Do what makes your heart beat.” She said that right until she died. But she had also said, “You don’t need approval and you don’t need an excuse or explanation for living your own life. Remember that.”

Oh, she remembered. But it was easy for her mother, who had the approval of her parents and her husband and her children. Easy for Pax, who had done as he was expected to do. Laine was the only one who had really defied custom, gone her own way, quite successfully, and yet was considered by her father to be a failure.

She had Eric’s support and even though they were still new, that meant so much to her. She was so anxious to have Pax get to know him. In fact, Eric and Pax were a lot alike, when she thought about it.

She flew to San Francisco and took the red-eye into Boston. She had given Pax the flight details and said she would be waiting at his house when the girls came home from school and when he was done at the hospital. But when she deplaned at 8:30 a.m. there were two little blonde bombshells standing on the curb near the taxi line, jumping up and down, yelling at her. “Auntie Lainie! Auntie Lainie!”

It took her a moment to catch her breath. She put her hand to her chest and gasped in sheer, tear-gathering delight. She opened her arms to them and they rushed her, nearly knocking her over. “My babes, my angels! Are you angels? You promised you would be angels!”

They giggled and said, one at a time, “You said to be devils!” and “We were very bad, like you said!”

“Oh, thank goodness! I’m proud of you!”

“And we have blue polish for our toes,” Missy said.

“And I have silver,” Sissy said.

“But you have school!”

There was a fit of fake coughing. “We’re very sick!” Sissy said.

“I can see that, poor devils!”

Laine stood up and looked into the kind blue eyes of the sister-in-law she made work so hard for her affection. “I told Pax I’d grab a cab.”

“We can’t have that,” Genevieve said.

“I can’t believe you kept them home from school. You never do that!”

“You only have two days,” she said. “We don’t want to waste a second of it. The girls are so thrilled. You guys really have to use Skype more often.”

“How did you know to wait by the cab line?” Laine asked.

Genevieve just laughed. “You? Check a bag? For a couple of days? Laine, you’d take carry-on to Europe!”

Well, true enough, she thought. “Breakfast?” Laine asked.

“Whatever you want. Did you sleep on the plane?”

“I can sleep anywhere,” she lied. It used to be true.

“I wish I could,” Genevieve said. “Let’s get breakfast, then you can play.”

Play? It wasn’t exactly play as it completely wore Laine out, but it was fun. They started off with rehearsing—Missy on her cello and Sissy wearing her tutu and dancing around the family room. Before long Missy and Laine wore makeshift tutus and were learning dance steps from Sissy. Then it was time to do art in the kitchen—clay and paints. Then lunch, then makeovers—fingers and toes, mani-pedis. Baths and hair curling. Then off to a dress rehearsal for Sissy’s dance recital at four; Laine couldn’t miss it as she would miss the actual performance a week later. Then home for pizza and the elementary school strings concert at seven. Of course Genevieve’s two sisters and her parents were also there. Pax showed up at the last minute, wearing scrubs, of course. He had barely escaped the hospital and was on his way back the second it was over.

“How do you stand it?” Laine asked Genevieve.

“The concert? Or the doctor’s hours?”

“Well, since you mentioned it—either one.”

“I’ve learned not to hear too much of the music. It reminds me a lot of slaughter day at the farm. As for the hours, I think about what baby or little kid he might be operating on—that gets me past the jealousy. I complain, though. I don’t want to, I don’t mean to, but I complain.”

“You probably get lonely.”

“Lonely for adult company, even though the girls fill up the days and nights. We try to schedule time together,” she whispered. “But the doctor he works for is such a nasty dick and I think he enjoys messing up our little bit of family time!”

Laine chuckled behind her hand and whispered back, “I’ve never heard you use that word before.”

“Pax has never worked for such a dick before. Really, he’s impossible. He owns my husband. And he doesn’t deserve him.”

After the concert came ice cream, after ice cream it was pajamas and then it was back rubs with lotion. The girls would sleep in the guest room’s big king-size bed with Laine. It had been such a big day, they were both asleep in minutes.

Laine stumbled into the family room, where she heard the TV volume turned low. Her sister-in-law sat on the sofa, her feet propped up on an ottoman, a bottle of wine open and breathing on a tray that also held two glasses.

“Oh, my goodness,” Laine said happily. “How did you know I wouldn’t be passed out in the bed between two little blondes?”

“I think it was when you tried to order Cabernet ice cream at Baskin-Robbins,” she said, lifting the bottle. “Plus, you’re on West Coast time—you should be rockin’ until midnight, at least. But, I was prepared to drink alone if necessary. I got a text from Pax that he should be home in an hour, which usually means three. But I like to wait up if I can.”

Laine slumped in the corner of the sectional beside Genevieve. “I think that ice-cream guy was a little rude to me. He couldn’t take a joke.”

“You were joking?” Genevieve poured two glasses, handed one to Laine and toasted her. “Welcome home,” she said.

Laine took a sip and then was stilled for a moment. “This has been my home. This house more than the house I grew up in, at least since my mom died.”

“I told you when we got engaged—our home is always your home. It always will be. I know giving him up to me was hard for you.”