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But by the time she reached their side of the room, Laurel and Dolly were off ahead of her, down the dim hall leading to the bedrooms. Annie hesitated, then followed them.

She found them in Shainey’s room, perched on the edge of the bed atop a ruffled pink bedspread crowded with what looked like a whole zoo of stuffed animals. In the corner, stood what had been Shainey’s crib, which Rivka now kept for the times her grandchildren came visiting. Annie paused in the doorway, feeling awkward, as if she might be intruding. But how could that be? Didn’t she know Laurel best? Hadn’t she, more than anyone, been a mother to Laurel?

Dolly looked up at her with a bright, welcoming smile, making Annie feel guilty for feeling so critical. Laurel, in a pretty red maternity smock she’d made herself, didn’t even glance up. Annie longed to sit down beside her, but something held her back.

“Why, it’s enough to make anybody upset.” Dolly plunged into the awkward silence. “That poor little thing lying there on that table, getting snipped at like a butterflied leg of lamb. You’d have to be made of stone not to feel plenty bad for him. I don’t know how his mother-“

“That’s not it.” Laurel’s head snapped up, flags of red standing out on her pale cheeks. Softly, she repeated, “That’s not really it at all.”

“Why don’t you tell me, then?” Dolly asked gently, but firmly. “Maybe I can help.”

“It’s my baby.” Laurel locked her hands over her stomach, as if it were a balloon she had to anchor or it might float away. “I don’t want to give it up … but I’m afraid to keep it. I don’t feel ready to be a mother.” Her voice caught. “I don’t know what to do.”

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Annie opened her mouth to speak. She wanted to tell her sister not to worry. But no words came out. She felt so torn, both irritated with Laurel and sorry for her. For months she’d been trying to talk to Laurel about the baby, but always she’d thought that when Laurel did let go and confide in her, it would be in private, just the two of them. Why couldn’t Laurel have waited just a few hours longer until they were home?

“Oh, you poor, poor thing.” Now Dolly was fluffing up like a mother hen, tucking Laurel under her wing, while Annie watched, feeling helpless and frustrated. And then her annoyance with her aunt faded … there were tears in Dolly’s eyes. “I know I haven’t let on, but I’ve been so worried about you. About this … this awful choice you’re having to make. And I’ve been afraid, too … of giving you the wrong advice. Of … influencing you.”

“What do you think I should do?” Laurel asked, so quietly Annie had to strain to hear her.

Dolly chewed her lip as if she were wrestling with herself, then she seemed to come to a decision. “The mess I’ve made of my life, I wouldn’t dare tell another living soul what he or she ought to do. All I know is what I would do if I were in your shoes … how I’d feel if I were somehow blessed with the miracle of a baby. So maybe I am the wrong person to ask.”

“You think I should keep it?”

Dolly blinked away the brightness in her eyes, and a tear rolled down her heavily rouged cheek. “Oh, sugar, if you did … and I’m not saying you should … it would be the most loved little baby in the whole universe. Between you and me and Annie … why, I can’t think of a blessed thing it’d be wanting for.”

Annie felt a sob rising in her. Somehow, with all her bumbling, Dolly had bigheartedly found exactly the right thing to say. She’d put into words what Annie felt in her heart … that in spite of Laurel having no husband-not even a boyfriend that anyone knew of-and of how it would interfere with Laurel’s education, and how it would tie her down … it would be all wrong, terrible, to give this baby away.

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“Dolly’s right,” she told her sister, managing to keep her voice clear and steady. Now she found herself walking over, sinking down beside Laurel. She reached for her hand, cool and still under her fingers. “We’ll manage somehow. Haven’t we always?”

Laurel shot her an odd, flat look. “You have. You always manage somehow, Annie.” Her voice held a note of accusation, but only a faint one. Mostly, she sounded sad.

“Listen,” Dolly put in, “I know it’d be hard … but that doesn’t have to mean you dropping out of school. You could transfer to NYU, or Cooper Union, or better yet, Parsons. I could help … I could pay for a nanny.” She shot Annie a quick, defensive look. “Now, I don’t want to hear a word against it. You’ve done everything yourself, the hard way … just like you always said you would … and I admire you for it. Hell, I couldn’t have done what you did, not all on my own. But this is different. You’d be shortchanging Laurel … and the baby … by saying no.”

“It’s not up to Annie.” Laurel sat up straighter, and turned to Annie, giving her a look that cut through Annie like a sharp blade. “It’s up to me.” She stood up. “Excuse me, but I have to use the bathroom.” She gave a tiny flicker of a smile. “Seems like with this baby I have to pee about every five minutes.”

When she was gone, Annie stared at the crib in the corner. It had, Rivka had proudly told her, survived nine babies, and it showed. The headboard’s eggshell enamel was scratched and chipped, the teddy-bear decal on its footboard so faded it was barely visible, and its slats were gouged in places where teething mouths had gnawed them. She felt… defeated somehow. Though she’d never meant for this to be a contest, a struggle. Weren’t she and Laurel supposed to be on the same side?

She remembered when Laurel was a baby, and she just a kid herself, struggling with those stiff safety pins to change her diapers. One time she’d turned her back for a second … and Laurel was somehow tumbling off the changing table. Annie, terrified, lunged forward blindly,

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by some lucky stroke of fate grabbing hold of Laurel’s ankle just before she hit the floor. A hard little jounce, like a yo-yo makes at the end of its string. Then seeing that her head-her sweet little head with those squashy spots on top-was dangling about a quarter of an inch from her hard-cornered wooden choo-choo toy. Hearing a loud cry, she’d thought it was Laurel … and then realized it was she who was crying …

Annie felt like crying now.

She became aware of Dolly touching her arm.

Annie turned to face her. “Why didn’t you ever have kids?” she asked, suddenly curious. “I mean, you and your husband.”

“We tried and tried. But Dale … well, his heart was in the right place … and he had all the right equipment … but I guess there must’ve been a cog loose somewhere. And then later, with Henri, I thought maybe-” She broke off with a shrug, pressing a crimson-nailed finger against one eyebrow, as if talking about Henri was giving her a headache.

“You still love him, don’t you?” Annie said softly. It wasn’t a question, really. She knew how Dolly had to feel.

Dolly shrugged again, but Annie saw her lips tremble. “Oh, well, us Burdock gals, we don’t give up so easy.”

“Guess I’m pretty stubborn too,” Annie said with a dry little laugh.

Dolly turned so that she was directly facing Annie, taking Annie’s shoulders and holding them so tightly she could feel the tips of her aunt’s sharp fingernails digging into her shoulders. Platinum wisps had come loose from Dolly’s French bun, and in the orangey glow of the Donald Duck night-light plugged into the wall next to the crib, she looked almost wild. Dolly had never been beautiful, Annie thought. Pretty, yes. But never gorgeous like Dearie had been. Yet the loving feelings that flowed from her were more powerful even than beauty … and they drew people to her like magnets. Even Annie, who resisted her a lot of the time, now couldn’t help feeling moved by the powerful thrust of Dolly’s love.

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If only she could let herself lean on Dolly now and then, allow herself to be comforted by her. She remembered Joe’s words, You don’t need anyone, and felt something inside her loosen just the tiniest bit. If she could do that, let her stiff self-sufficiency bend just a little, then maybe she could find a way to mend what was wrong between her and Joe.

Annie felt as if she were pushing at a huge invisible stone right next to her … pushing with all her might. She could feel her arms, legs, her whole body, her mind too, straining to move it away. But no matter how hard she strained, it wouldn’t budge. Why, God, why? Could it be she was scared … scared that once she got the stone moving, she might lose control?

The stone was there, right in front of her … if she could feel it, then she could push it away, couldn’t she?

Annie gave her aunt a clumsy hug. Briefly, she allowed herself to be pulled into her aunt’s warm softness… but she somehow couldn’t let go and give in to Dolly’s loving embrace.

The chance, she realized with a sharp wrench of disappointment, had once again slipped away.

“You’re thinking of Laurey, aren’t you?” Dolly said. “It must be hard for you, taking the backseat this time when you’re used to being up there at the wheel.”

“Something like that.”

Dolly surprised her by clutching her, hard, squeezing so tightly Annie could hardly breathe.

“I made a mistake once,” Dolly said in a fierce, hoarse whisper. “And I’ll never forget the lesson it taught me. The most important lesson of all. You and your sister. Don’t let anything … or anyone … ever come between you, or you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

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Rudy stared at the bright mobile dangling over the empty crib. It was the most elaborate one in the store-an array of small gingham teddy bears, each one holding a tiny fishing pole with a nylon string attached to it from which another teddy bear dangled. At its base was a music box. He tugged its string, and listened as it began tinkling a tune that sounded like “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”

Beside him, Laurel said softly, “I like to come here sometimes in the afternoon, when I’m too tired to do any more drawing. It makes me feel … I don’t know, connected somehow. Like I’m really having this baby. Like I’m really going to be a mother.”

Rudy felt his heart catch. So beautiful, even more beautiful than before, if such a thing was possible, her eyes the clear, unclouded blue of the baby-boy blankets and crib quilts draped and folded all around him … but faded somehow, like something that’s been left too long in the sun. In her oversized man’s workshirt and denim skirt, the despair behind her stalwart expression not quite hidden, she reminded him suddenly of her mother-how Eve had looked when she was pregnant with Laurel.

A mother? Jesus, could she be serious about maybe keeping the kid? Last time he’d spoken with her, just two weeks ago over the phone, she’d been pretty definite, couldn’t see any way she’d be able to manage a baby.

Thinking of what he had to talk her into, why he’d rushed all the way to New York, leaving two big cases hanging on continuances, Rudy’s heart began to pound. He’d asked that she meet him in some neighborhood spot, figuring she’d pick a coffee shop or maybe that Chink restaurant around the corner where they’d gotten together the last time. Meet her here, she’d said. A baby store?

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He’d been surprised. But what the hell, in a way it made sense. A pregnant lady in a baby store? Who would ever notice?

Now, if he could just get her to see how much sense this made … how it would be so much better for her …

But he’d have to be careful as hell how he put it to her. Because if she knew he wanted the kid for himself, she’d never buy it.

“Hey, what’s with the long face?” He picked up a pink stuffed bunny rabbit from the crib and gently nudged her with it. “You’re gonna make all these ladies here think I’m treatin’ you bad or something.” He glanced around at the handful of women browsing among the racks of tiny clothes nearby.

“Oh, Uncle Rudy.” Laurel sighed. “It’s not you.”

As if she needed to tell him. Christ, he knew he wasn’t the biggest thing in her life. She liked him, was always glad to see him, but beyond that … hell, he was just like the genie in the bottle who pops up from time to time to grant wishes. Rudy remembered the time-she’d been sixteen, hadn’t she?—he’d wangled two tickets for her and a friend to see the Rolling Stones at Madison Square Garden. Cost him a hundred bucks each, from a scalper, and worth every penny just to see the glow it had brought to her eyes.

He felt a sharp longing, like a stitch in his side from too much running. A child. His own kid. Now that’d be a different story. Somebody who’d look at him and see, not a fat little pygmy, or a genie out of bottle, just … good old Dad.

“You like to come here just to look, or what?” he asked, praying she wouldn’t say she had already bought a bunch of this stuff and had it back at her apartment sitting there ready for the baby.

“Just looking.” She fingered a fuzzy blue sleeper the size of a half-grown kitten that was draped over the crib’s rail. “I mean, what’s the point of buying stuff if …” She stopped, sucking her breath in sharply. In a low voice, she added, “A couple of weeks ago, I made an appointment

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with this lady at an adoption agency, but at the last minute I I cancelled it. I started thinking-what if I kept it? The baby, I mean. I could still go to school part-time or something … and … and … oh, I know it’d probably be horribly selfish of me … I mean, a baby should have parents … a mother and a father, but, well … I can’t help wanting it, can I?” Her blue eyes shimmered, and she caught her lower lip in her teeth as if to keep her tears from spilling over.

Rudy leaned close. Jesus, here was his opening, his chance. “Listen,” he said. “I might be able to help.”

“You? But how?”

“Can we talk? In here?”

“Sure, why not? Nobody here knows me.”

“It’s no secret … it’s just . . “He took a breath, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet to make himself as tall as his five feet three inches would allow, the way he sometimes did in court when he was trying to appear more imposing to a witness. “Laurel, I have someone who would be interested … real interested.”

“You mean … in adopting?” Laurel’s voice dropped to a whisper. Her eyes looked back at him, huge, scared-looking.