Brenda put the paper down, stunned. For a point of reference, she reread Amrita’s paper (which she had given an A) and then she read Walsh’s paper again. Walsh’s paper was different, it was original, as fresh and sun-drenched as the country he came from, but with a depth that could only come with age and experience. She gave Walsh an A+. Then she worried. She was giving Walsh the highest grade in the class. Was that fair? His paper was the best. Could she prove it? It was a subjective judgment. Would anyone suspect? Was the A+ in any way related to the fact that John Walsh made love to his professor on this very couch, bringing her enough pleasure that she cried out?

Brenda wrote the grade at the top of the paper in very light pencil, in case she changed her mind. But in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to change the grade: He had earned it, fair and square. Stil , she worried. She worried she was fal ing in love.

By the time Brenda made it back to the oncology waiting room, her concentration was shot. Amrita’s accusations (true) blended with Didi’s accusations (untrue). You’re fucking Josh. Admit it. Brenda packed up her screenplay and decided not to tel anyone about what had transpired in the ladies’ room.

A few seconds later, Vicki came down the hal , escorted by Dr. Alcott. Brenda blinked. Was that her sister, real y? It looked like Vicki had shrunk

—she seemed to have lost height as wel as weight. She was as frail as Aunt Liv had been in the month before she died (and Aunt Liv had been petite anyway, eighty-five pounds in her wool overcoat). Vicki was wearing the Louis Vuitton scarf on her head, a pair of white shorts that sat on her hips, a pink tank top that made it seem like she had no breasts at al , and a navy cashmere zip-up hooded sweater because with a fever of 104, she was freezing. Brenda’s mind had been far away in both time and place, but in a flash she resumed her attitude of urgent, incessant prayer.

Dear Lord, please, please, please, please, please . . .

Dr. Alcott handed Vicki over. The waiting room was empty, but stil he lowered his voice. “We’ve given her a shot of Neupogen, and she’l have to be brought in tomorrow and the fol owing day for shots. That should get her counts to rise. I’m also prescribing antibiotics, and Tylenol to get her fever down. She should be feeling better in a few days. We’l try again with a reduced dose of the chemo when her counts are up.” He looked at Vicki. “Okay?”

She shivered. “Okay.”

Brenda clenched Vicki’s arm. “Is there anything else?”

“She should rest,” Dr. Alcott said. “I don’t know about any more beach picnics.”

“Okay,” Brenda said quickly. She was already so racked with guilt (about Walsh, about kissing Josh, about writing instead of praying) and regret (about the goddamned A+, about the Jackson Pol ock painting, about not tel ing Didi to fuck right off)—what did it matter if Dr. Alcott placed blame for the beach picnic at her feet as wel ? I was trying to make her feel better, Brenda might have said. I was taking a holistic approach. But instead, she bleated, “I’m sorry.”

Out in the car, Vicki pul ed a fleece blanket around her legs and melted into the seat.

“I got what I deserved,” Vicki said.

“What do you mean?” Brenda said.

“I wanted to be done with chemo,” Vicki said. “And now chemo’s done with me. Once a week, a low dosage. It wouldn’t kil a one-winged fly.”

“You don’t think?”

“The cancer’s going to ral y,” Vicki said. “It’s going to spread.”

“Stop it, Vick. You’ve got to keep a positive attitude.”

“And I wil have brought it on myself.”

“I don’t see how you can say that,” Brenda said. “It’s not your fault you’re sick.”

“It’s my fault I’m not getting better,” Vicki said. “I suck at getting better.” She leaned her head against the window. “God, the guilt.”

Brenda started the car. “Amen to that,” she said.

T he heart wants what it wants, Melanie thought. And so, on the morning after her first prenatal appointment, she cal ed Peter at the office.

Melanie was lying in bed, listening to the wren that habitual y sang from its perch on the fence outside her window, with her eyes closed. She was tired because she and Josh had been out again the night before—to Quidnet Pond—and she hadn’t gotten home until after midnight. Earlier that day, Melanie had gone with Vicki to the hospital. While Vicki was getting a shot to bring her blood counts back up, Melanie had an appointment with a surly GP, a white-haired doctor perhaps a month or two shy of retirement. The man had zero bedside manner, but Melanie didn’t care. She had heard her baby’s heartbeat. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. What she hadn’t anticipated was the enormous chasm between imagining the sound of the heartbeat and actual y hearing it. The pregnancy was real. It was healthy and viable. She was ten weeks along; the baby was the size of a plum.

Now, she placed a hand on her abdomen. “Hel o,” she whispered. “Good morning.”

She had been waiting for a sign. It had been easy to keep the news from Peter because, although Melanie had been sick and so, so tired, there had been no visible manifestation of the pregnancy. She didn’t even look pregnant. But that heartbeat had been real, it had been undeniable, and that was her cue. It wasn’t that she felt she had to tel Peter. She wanted to tel Peter.

And so, once Josh and the kids left the house and once Brenda headed out to write, and once Vicki’s bedroom door was securely closed, Melanie scuffed down to the ’Sconset Market and cal ed Peter from the pay phone outside.

Melanie took a deep drink of ’Sconset morning: the blue, blooming hydrangeas, the freshly mown grass of the rotary, the smel of the clay tennis courts across the street at the casino, the scent of coffee and rol s and fresh newsprint coming from the market itself. And then there was the smel of Josh on her skin. Even if Peter was mean to her, even if he refused to believe her, he would not be able to ruin her day.

“Good morning,” the receptionist said. “Rutter, Higgens.”

Even if he said he didn’t care.

“Peter Patchen, please,” Melanie said, trying to sound business-like.

“One moment, please.”

There was a pause, a click, then ringing. Melanie was overcome with fear, anxiety, the same old negative Peter-feelings that she thought she’d buried. Shit! she thought. Hang up! But before there was time to orchestrate a hang up, Melanie heard Peter’s voice. “Hel o? Peter Patchen.”

His voice. Amazing, but she had forgotten it, or half forgotten it, so that now these three words shocked her.

“Peter?” she said. “It’s me.” Then she worried he would mistake her “me” for Frances Digitt’s “me,” and so she added, “Melanie.”

“Melanie?” He sounded surprised, and if she wasn’t deluding herself, happily surprised. But no, this wasn’t possible. It was a trick of long distance, of the rusty old pay phone.

“Yes,” she said, trying to keep her voice clipped and cool.

“How are you?” Peter said. “Where are you?”

“Nantucket,” she said.

“Oh,” he said. Did she sense disappointment in his voice? Not possible. “How is it?”

“Great,” she said. “Beautiful. Warm, sunny, breezy, beachy. How’s New York?”

“Hot,” he said. “Sticky. A cauldron.”

“How’s work?” she said.

“Oh, you know. The same.”

Melanie pressed her lips together. The same, meaning he was stil screwing the girl down the hal ? Melanie wouldn’t ask; she didn’t care. She did care about the state of her garden, however—her poor perennial beds!—but she wouldn’t ask about that either.

“Okay, wel , I’m just cal ing to let you know . . .” God, was she real y going to say it? “I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

“I’m pregnant.” The words seemed smal er when she spoke them than they did in her mind. “Pregnant with a baby. Due in February.”

There was silence on Peter’s end. Of course. Melanie focused on a nine- or ten-year-old girl walking into the market with her father. Bubble Gum Princess, the girl’s T-shirt said. She had long, thin legs like a stork.

“You’re kidding me,” Peter said. “This is a joke.”

“It is not,” Melanie said. Though wasn’t it just like Peter to think so. “I would never joke about something like this.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” he said. “You’re right, you wouldn’t. But how? When?”

“That time,” she said. “You remember.”

“During the thunderstorm?”

“Yes.” She knew he remembered, of course he remembered. Even if he’d had sex with Frances Digitt a hundred times that very week, he would remember. Melanie had been out in the garden cutting lilies. She ran into the house because it had started to pour. In the mudroom, she peeled off her soaked clothes and announced to Peter that she was al done with IVF. The disappointment was kil ing her, she told him. She wanted to get on with life. Melanie’s face had been wet with raindrops and tears, natural y. Peter cried a little, too—mostly out of relief, she suspected—and then they made love, right there in the mudroom, up against the porcelain front of her gardening sink. Outside, it rained harder and harder; there was a sharp thunderclap that sounded like a very large bone breaking. Peter and Melanie made love like they hadn’t in years—she hungrily, he grateful y—while the stamens of the lilies bled a deep orange into the sink.

Afterward, Peter said, We could never have done that if we had children.

The stains from the lily stamens remained in the sink, a lingering reminder of their coupling, which made Melanie wistful before she learned about Frances Digitt and bitterly angry afterward. She had been able to forget those stains now that there was something even more permanent. A heartbeat. A baby.