In time, Annie got them through high school, through their first romances, and helped them apply to college. By the time he was fourteen Ted had decided to go to law school. Lizzie was obsessed with fashion and wanted to be a model for a while. And Kate had her mother’s artistic talent, but unlike the rest of them, she marched to her own drummer. She used her allowance to get her ears pierced at thirteen, and then her belly button, to Annie’s horror. She dyed her hair blue and then purple, and at eighteen she got a tattoo of a unicorn on the inside of her wrist, which must have hurt like hell when she got it. And she was a talented artist like her mother. She got accepted at Pratt School of Design and was a very capable illustrator. She looked like no one Annie had ever known. She was tiny, fiercely independent, and very brave. She had strong beliefs about everything, including politics, and argued with anyone who didn’t agree with her, and wasn’t afraid to stand alone. She had been a handful in her teens but eventually settled down once she got to college and moved into the dorm. Ted had his own apartment by then, and got a job after college, before he went to law school. Liz was working for Elle. Bringing up her sister’s children had been Annie’s vocation and full-time job. She had no other life but theirs and her work.

At thirty-five, Annie had opened her own architecture office, after nine years with the same firm. She loved what she did and preferred residential jobs to the big corporate ones she had done for years. After four years in her own firm, she had found her niche. And she was stunned by how much she missed the children when they moved out. It gave the term “empty nest” new meaning, and she filled the void in her life with more work instead of people.

She hadn’t had a date for the first three years the children lived with her, and after that there had been some minor relationships, but never a serious one. She didn’t have time. She was too busy taking care of her nieces and nephew and establishing herself as an architect. There was no room for a man in her life. Her closest friend, Whitney Coleman, scolded her for it regularly. They had been friends since college, and Whitney was married to a doctor in New Jersey, with three kids of her own, younger than the Marshall children. She had been a source of endless support for Annie, and invaluable advice, and now all she wanted was for Annie to think of herself. She had thought of everyone else for thirteen years. The time had moved like a bullet in the night. The early years had been a blur, but after that, Annie had truly enjoyed the children she had raised. She had lived up to the vow she had made Jane and she had gotten the children grown up, and all three were doing well.

“Now what?” Whitney said to her after Kate moved into the dorm. “What are you going to do for yourself?” It was a question Annie hadn’t asked herself in thirteen years.

“What am I supposed to do? Stand on a street corner and whistle for a guy, like a cab?” She was thirty-nine years old and not panicked about being single. She didn’t mind. Things had turned out differently than she’d planned, but she was happy.

The kids were all good people, her architecture firm was a success, and she had more work than she could handle. She was doing well, and so were they. Ted had just applied to law school and had gotten a new apartment with a friend from college, and at twenty-five, Liz had just landed a job at Vogue, after working for three years at Elle. Each of them was on a career path. Annie had done her job. The only thing she didn’t have was a life of her own, other than work. They were her life, and she insisted that was all she needed.

“That’s ridiculous!” Whitney said irreverently. “You’re not a hundred years old, for chrissake. And you have no excuse not to date now-the kids are grown up.” She had fixed Annie up with several blind dates, none of which had worked out, and Annie said she didn’t care.

“If I’m meant to meet a guy, it’ll happen one of these days,” she said philosophically. “Besides, I’m too set in my ways now. And I want to spend holidays and vacations with the kids. A man would interfere with that. And it might upset them.”

“Don’t you want more in your life than just being an aunt?” Whitney asked her sadly. It didn’t seem fair to Whitney that Annie had sacrificed her own life for her sister’s children, but she didn’t seem to mind, and she was happy as she was. Her own biological clock had run out of batteries years before, without a sound. She had three children she loved and didn’t want more.

“I’m happy,” Annie reassured her, and she seemed to be. The two women met for lunch when Whitney came into the city, usually to go shopping. And Annie went to New Jersey for the weekend once in a while, after the kids were gone, but most of the time she was too busy working on weekends to go anywhere. And her work was beautiful. There were several handsome townhouses on the Upper East Side that she had renovated, spectacular penthouses, and several beautiful estates in the Hamptons, and one in Bronxville. And she had turned a number of brownstones into offices for clients. Her business was booming and continued to grow. She had just turned down a job in Los Angeles, and another in London, because she said she didn’t have time to travel. She was happy working in New York. And basically she was happy with her life, and it showed. She had done exactly what she wanted and what she’d promised. She had accompanied her nieces and nephew from childhood to young adulthood, and she didn’t mind the sacrifices she’d had to make at all. And by the time she was forty-two, Annie was one of the most successful architects in New York, and loved practicing on her own.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, on a freezing-cold morning, as Annie walked through the gutted interior of a townhouse on East Sixty-ninth Street with a couple who had hired her two months before. The house represented an enormous investment for them, and they wanted Annie to turn it into a spectacular home. It was hard to visualize as they climbed over the rubble the workmen had left after taking out several walls. Annie was showing them the proportions of the newly enlarged living room and dining room and where the grand staircase was going to go. She had a unique talent for combining ancient and contemporary designs and making it look both avant-garde and warm, although it was hard to imagine right now.

The husband was questioning her intensely about the costs, and his wife was looking anxious now that she saw the state of total chaos the house was in. Annie had promised them it would be complete in a year.

“Do you really think you can get us in by next fall?” Alicia Ebersohl said nervously.

“This contractor is very good. He’s never let me down yet,” Annie said, smiling pleasantly at them. She looked calm and unruffled, as she stepped over several beams. She was wearing gray slacks, stylish black leather boots, and a heavy coat with a fur-lined hood. She still looked considerably younger than she was.

“He’ll probably bring it in at twice the price. I had no idea we were going to destroy this much of the house,” Harry Ebersohl commented with a look of dismay.

“We’re just making room. You’re going to need these walls for your art.” She had been working closely with their interior designer, and everything was in control. “Three months from now you’ll start to see the beauty of the house emerge.”

“I hope so,” Alicia said softly, but she no longer looked so sure. They had loved their friends’ house that Annie had done, and had begged her to take this job, and once Annie saw the house she couldn’t resist, although she already had too much on her plate as it was. “I hope we didn’t make a mistake with this house,” Alicia said, as her husband shook his head in despair.

“It’s a little late to be saying that now,” he grumbled as they went back downstairs and headed toward the front door. When they opened it, they stepped out into an icy blast, and Annie pulled the fur hood up over her blond hair. Both Ebersohls had already commented to each other how pretty she was, and that she apparently was good at what she did too, from everything they’d heard.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Annie said easily, as she walked them to their car with the plans under her arm.

“Our kids are coming home tonight.” Alicia smiled. Annie knew that both of them were in college, one at Princeton, and the other one at Dartmouth, a girl and a boy.

“So are mine.” Annie smiled happily. She couldn’t wait. All three had promised to stay with her over Thanksgiving, as they always did. Her favorite times were when they came home.

“I didn’t know you had children.” Alicia looked surprised as Annie nodded. She never talked about her personal life, just the job. She was the consummate professional in every way, which was why they had hired her. The information that she had children startled both Ebersohls.

“I have three. Actually, they’re my nieces and nephew. My sister died in an accident sixteen years ago, and I inherited her kids. They’re grown up now. The oldest is an editor at Vogue, my nephew is in his second year at law school, and the youngest is in college. I miss them like crazy, so it’s a treat for me when they come home.” Annie was smiling as she said it, and the Ebersohls looked amazed.

“What a wonderful thing to do. Not everyone would have taken that on. You must have been very young.” She hardly looked thirty now, but they knew her age from her credentials on her website.

“I was very young.” Annie smiled at them. “We all grew up together, and it’s been a great blessing for me. I’m very proud of them.” They chatted for a few more minutes, and then the Ebersohls got in their car and drove away. Harry was still looking worried, but Annie had promised him the work would come in at the price she’d quoted them, and Alicia was talking excitedly about the grand staircase when they left.