"I know where Archie is." I jostled the boy on my arm to wake him. "Watch those two," I said to Claire. "Make sure they don't find any pills on the floor. I'll be right back." I ran down the hall, shaking the child as I went. "Don't sleep," I said. "No sleeping now." Every time I shook him his eyes would open before fluttering shut again. I ran up the stairs to the second floor and banged on Magda's door. "Archie," I said. "Open up, I have your son and he's overdosed on Nigel's medicine." The boy started crying and gagged as if he would vomit again. I held his shirt to his mouth.

The door opened and Archie stood there half dressed, eyes glazed, throwing his arms into his shirt. "What happened?" he asked, fingers trembling around buttons. "What happened!" he said again, louder, a madman in his distress, unable to button his shirt. "What happened!"

"He swallowed pills, I have no idea how many or what kind. Vera's on her way. The twins are in the office. Take him." I handed the child to Archie as Magda appeared behind him, pulling her long hair into a ponytail.

Downstairs one of the twins wandered the hall. "Really, Lily," Magda said, "what are you people doing down here?"

She'd picked the wrong moment to provoke me. I stopped in my tracks and stared at her. "What were you doing up there?" I hissed. "This is all your fault." I pointed at Magda. "You and Archie."

She closed her eyes.

In the office, Archie lit a cigarette with the hand not holding his son. A plume of gray smoke taunted Magda. "Is he going to be okay?" Archie asked. "Just a simple answer to a simple question," he said, frantic, his voice breaking. "Oh my God, baby," he said to the sobbing boy in his arms. "What did he swallow?" Archie asked me.

"I don't know," I said. "Nigel and Vera are on their way. "Don't let him sleep," I said.

Claire was still on the phone. "I'm speaking with the Poison people. They want to know what he took."

"Did you swallow any pills?" Archie asked the child tenderly.

"Did you eat the pills?" Magda asked, employing sign language with the child, bunching her fingers and touching her open mouth as she moved herself closer to the huddle, edging me out. I took the pillbox and my findings to another corner of the desk as Magda continued asking questions and Archie shushed her, putting his ear closer to the child's mouth. Actors and a few volunteers clustered outside our door, concerned expressions all around.

"Is his pulse okay?" Archie asked me, his cell phone hunched in his shoulder, trying to reach Sheila.

I touched the child's neck but I wasn't a nurse. The twin Magda held squirmed out of her arms and reached for Archie but Archie ignored the baby to focus exclusively on his oldest son, displacing everyone, including Magda. He dropped his cigarette into a paper cup half full of cold coffee where it emitted a quick hiss at Magda. She closed her eyes. I felt so angry at the two of them, or maybe all three.

"Does anybody know what exactly he swallowed?" Clare asked, her hand covering the receiver.

The other twin, Roger of the pointy head or Teddy of the freckled bum, jumped on the sofa as Nigel and Vera arrived and counted pills, hands trembling, struggling to clarify what the child had swallowed and what Nigel had already taken.

"Wake up, baby," Archie cried, prying the boy's eyelids open. "Oh God, where's Sheila. Don't die, baby. Don't die."

"But I forgot to take the Tuesday pills," Nigel said, clearly undone. "Why don't they go to the hospital?" he asked.

"Didn't you take them late?" Vera asked.

"Did I take today's pills?" Nigel asked.

"Yes. Remember? Right after you took the call from Tate. That's why we have the box," Vera shrugged.

Claire moved the phone away from her mouth. "You need to take him to the hospital immediately," she said.

My little mint up the nose seemed nothing compared to the deadly effect of Nigel's medication on this small child. Suddenly the crowd at the door parted and Sheila walked in. Not Sheila of the Frumpy Tunic but Sheila the Mother: fierce, all-powerful, master of the child's universe. The boy reached for her, sobbing as she took him. Archie automatically lifted the heavy diaper bag from her shoulder and took the car keys from her hand.

"Do we know what he swallowed?" Sheila asked Vera. She clipped her words to save time, already turning to leave as Archie lifted one twin and fetched the other from the sofa.

Vera handed her the paper indicating which pills remained in question while Archie looked on, balancing a twin in each arm, the diaper bag relegated to his back. Sheila folded the paper as Archie turned, allowing her access to the bag, movements like choreography, smooth from endless repetition.

"Keep us informed," Vera pressed her hands together as Sheila slipped the paper into the pocket. But Magda made the first move, her nostrils flaring as she abandoned ship, walking toward the door silently. Archie made no move to stop her; seemed unaware of her action as the affair ended in our presence. I felt we should not be watching; yet we did. Magda left without a backward glance. Oddly, I knew exactly how she felt.

"My car's in front." Sheila didn't seem the least bit frumpy now, having parked at the door of Newton Priors, passing carriages and crashing gates to get there. I patted the boy's back, wondering if I might suggest a simple X-ray of his nasal cavities for mints as long as they had him in the ER.

Eighteen

I did something I knew I'd regret. While waiting in the Freezer for the tea-theatre to start, I clicked on Karen's e-mail. I'd blown it off for the past week as part of my plan to avoid all things negative. Since the meeting on the stair landing when Willis gave me up without a fight, I'd struggled to keep my promise to myself not to go to him, avoiding stairways and detouring around any place Willis might surface, throwing myself into the tea-theatre and avoiding potentially depressing activities such as bad news from Karen. Idle moments such as I experienced just before clicking on Karen's e-mail undid my resolve.


To: Lillian Berry [email protected]

Sent: July 16, 2:12 A.M.

From: Karen Adams [email protected]

Subject: Wedding Pictures

Lily,

I survived the wedding. Here are pictures to prove it. I didn't know anyone except Uncle Jim who was able to make it on the short notice. The rest of the guests were complete strangers although they seem to be very old friends of Nelson and Sue. (I don't feel like calling him Dad anymore.) They all knew each other and I begin to feel like there has been a parallel world existing all through our lives where these people got to know each other while we went to school and celebrated holidays, oblivious to the fact that we were sharing our father with a whole different dimension. Nelson's Other Life.

I tried to meet and greet, introducing Nelson's grandchildren to the strangers, but I finally quit trying and sat by the wall until I could go home. It was Sue's party, and her friends didn't want anything to do with me, or my children. I didn't exist for those people. Even Greg felt it. Greg has a terrible theory about Sue's daughter that I refuse to acknowledge. Check out the pictures and call me. Please.

Your whole sister,

Karen


I clicked on the first attachment just as a volunteer popped her head in the door.

"Lily, where are the programs?" The downside of the tea-theatre's success was to be constantly running out of things. Everybody wanted to come see the husband who played the baron. He was so good at gently roasting our guests, and patrons clamored to be chosen for the skit. Omar revised the script, adding roles he'd initially cut so that we could increase audience participation. But we had a job keeping up with the details.

"Top drawer of the ticket table," I said, willing her to go away.

"Are they folded?" she asked.

"No," I said. "See if Mrs. Russell and Stephen can fold them." They needed something to do with their hands.

The photograph dominated my entire screen, starting at the top and slowly working its way down, filling in hair before foreheads, noses before mouths, loading so slowly I feared it would not finish before I had to go. Finally, I recognized individuals. My father and Sue looked like themselves in an older version of the restaurant picture. But the person standing with them looked confusingly familiar. She looked like me. But I was an ocean away and the picture had been taken without me. It couldn't be me. And it wasn't me. But I saw my father in her face. I zoomed in to focus on the eyes, nose, and mouth, isolating the features as I had isolated my father's features in the rearview mirror when he drove me to school. I'd positioned my own face, without my hair, in the small mirror imagining I was my father. I looked just like him even then, with hair. And this person looked just like me, and just like him. At first, the discovery struck me as funny, an odd coincidence. I wanted to run and tell my mother and sister what I'd found, almost relieved, as if the doctors had finally, after a lifetime of tests and trials, isolated the mysterious cause of my ailment. "Miss Berry," they said gravely, "we have ruled out cancer, personality disorders, and missing organs. Your problem is a half sister." What relief!

I reread Karen's e-mail. She would be sleeping; still the middle of the night in Texas, with Greg to comfort her if the news of a half sister distressed her. I had to admit it was beginning to distress me and I felt the approach of an internal storm, thunder growing distinctly closer.