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real meaning. Love requires dailiness. Love requires care and feeding. Being a wife and mother has taught her nothing if not that. But what did she know? She was just a kid—the same age as that little Peony—a kid who thinks she’s a grown-up. That’s the danger of the age. Clara’s already aware of it, thinking of Samantha, at nine, just on the cusp.
    She picks up the phone and dials home. Jonathan and Sam are probably eating dinner by now. Jonathan would have stopped at Little Notch on his way home and picked up a large pepperoni pizza and a six-pack of Coke. A far cry from the vegetable stir-fries and quinoa casseroles she usually puts on the table. Healthy food, enough sleep, cardiovascular exercise, yoga, meditation—she has spent the last nine years, ever since Sam was born, making sure that she does every possible thing right. As if maybe, just maybe, if she does everything right, she can keep the world from touching them.
    She can picture them sitting at the kitchen table. Sam’s long skinny legs are stretched out on Jonathan’s lap. The pizza box lies soggy and open. The television is on, in the background. The dead of winter is Jonathan’s slow time of year. His days are filled with overseas phone calls and faxes, doing the least favorite part of his job, ordering the materials he needs from Indonesia in time to make jewelry to sell in his shop to the summer crowd.
    Clara walks over to one of the arched windows and pulls up the blackout shade. She wishes she had one of those video phones, so Jonathan could see what she sees. The cars zooming in both directions on Broadway below. The street never—not at any hour—empty. All of it unfurling like a silent film.
    “Hello?”
    It’s Sammy. Clara still can’t get used to the idea that her daughter is old enough to answer the phone. Since Sam’s birth, the years have tumbled, one into the next.
    “Sweetheart!”
    “Mommy—when are you coming home?”
    Sam cuts right to the chase. Clara told her so little before she left. Rushing to get her to school. Lugging her knapsack, art projects, a plastic container filled with cookies for the bake sale. No time to talk, really. Something about a quick last-minute trip to New York, as if such a thing were normal. No big deal.
    “Well, I don’t know, exactly.”
    The words come out before Clara even realizes what she’s saying. What’s this? The plan—at least the plan in her head—was to be here for as little time as possible. Assess the situation and get the hell out. But now she’s here, in Ruth’s apartment.
    “What do you mean, you don’t know?” Sam’s voice quavers.
    “I—”
    “Why are you in New York?” Sammy asks.
    Clara needs to change the subject. She can’t tell Sammy what she’s doing in New York—it’s impossible. She has never figured out how to explain her history to her daughter, so she simply hasn’t. Which isn’t a lie, exactly. More like a sin of omission.
    When Sam was a much littler girl, three or four, she used to ask Clara pointed questions from the backseat of the car as they drove the winding roads of Mount Desert.
    Mommy, do you have brothers or sisters?
    One sister.
    Just one?
    Yup.
    Does your sister have kids?
    She does, sweetheart. You have three first cousins in New York City.
    I want to meet them!
    Someday, Clara had said, wondering when that day would ever be. Hating herself for robbing Sam of the pleasure of first cousins. But how could she involve her family with Robin’s and leave Ruth out of it?
    Where’s your mommy? Sam inevitably asked. Clara’s hands tightened against the steering wheel. How could she do the right thing when she wasn’t sure what the right thing was? She always figured there would be a moment—appearing clearly defined, outlined like an apparition—in which she would know, absolutely, that it was time to tell Sam about her grandmother.
    She’s gone, sweetie, Clara would answer.
    Gone—that has certainly been true. Down on