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matter because they remind us that neither one of us was to blame.”
    â€œOr that both of us were.”
    The silence came again.
    â€œCome on,” he said finally, laying two quarters on the table for the busboy who was mopping tables with a rag. “Time to go home.”
    She pulled on her jacket and heaved her bag over one shoulder and walked beside him, still quiet. At last, just as they arrived in the lobby, she touched his arm to stop him.
    â€œWhat is it, Jen?”
    â€œI blamed you for this, Michael. I blamed you for everything that’s happened to Cody.”
    â€œYes,” he said. “I know that.”
    She had to say the rest of it. She knew him so well from so long ago. And she could see it in his eyes. “And you are blaming yourself, too.”
    He stared straight ahead, out the plate-glass window toward the parking lot.
    â€œThere isn’t anything you could have done.”
    He glanced at her, acknowledging her absolution but knowing it wasn’t going to be that easy for him to accept forgiveness. He let her lead him to a row of chrome chairs lining the wall. They sat.
    â€œI had to blame somebody, Michael. And you were the one who was there, flesh and blood, standing in the room with me.”
    â€œDo you know what I would give,” he asked, “if there had been something…anything…I could have done for him?” He stared at the ceiling, at the splotchy drywall there, seeing only his son’s little body and the babysitter’s frightened face when he rushed in from the hospital to them. “I would die myself if I could trade that for what’s happening to him. I ought to have been able to see it, to stop it.”
    â€œSome things just happen.”
    â€œI don’t know about that.”
    â€œI’ll always have questions about this,” she told him softly. “But they won’t be questioning your abilities. I have faith in everything you did for him, Michael.”
    He gripped her hand and looked at her for the first time in long minutes. “Will you, Jennie? Will you have faith in what I have done? In what I didn’t do?”
    He was such a strong man one moment, more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him the next. Without even thinking, she went to him, to let him hold her when he held out his arms. “Michael.” She stroked his hair the way she would have stroked it every night if only he’d been able to stay beside her, if only he hadn’t always been called to duty at the hospital. If only she hadn’t been so young when they’d married. If only she could have understood then what he had to do.

Chapter Six
    C ody Stratton knew exactly when Andy was going to come in every day. He loved to hide from her and make her laugh. He’d groan when he saw her opening the door and then he’d do his best to burrow down into the covers so she couldn’t find him.
    â€œGuess where I am,” he’d say, doing his best not to giggle. But she always found him no matter what he tried. Then, after she did, it was always the same, up and down…up and down…up and down…his knees and legs folding up accordion-style against his belly while she worked with him.
    â€œNow. You do this at least three times a day,” Andy always told his mother. “You’ve got to work at this to keep him from getting so stiff. When you work with his hands, you want to move your fingers in a circular motion like this, relaxing his fingers apart instead of prying them. When you stretch his neck, you want to move it in a circular motion, too, like this….”
    Cody’s mom always wrote everything down. There was no way she could remember all this stuff if she didn’t. At least, he didn’t think so.
    â€œI just realized,” she said once to Andy while Cody watched her, “you don’t give any review questions. You just plow into something new every time I see