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shape.”
    â€œCoach, this is a new transfer student, Kent Arens. He’s a senior this year and he wants to play football. I told him I’d bring him down and put the two of you together and letyou take it from there. He’s lettered the last two years in Austin, Texas, and last year he made all-conference. He wants to attend Stanford and study engineering, maybe on a football scholarship.”
    The coach took a good look at the six-foot-two boy who towered over him. “Kent,” he said, extending his beefy hand.
    â€œHow do you do, sir.”
    The assessment continued while the handshake ended.
    â€œWhat do you play?”
    â€œRunning back.”
    While the coach went on asking Kent questions, number twenty-two came jogging off the field and panted to a halt at the sideline.
    â€œHey, Dad,” Robby Gardner said breathlessly.
    â€œHi, Robby.”
    â€œYou gonna be around after practice? Chelsea took the car out shopping, so I haven’t got a ride home.”
    â€œSorry, I won’t be. I’ve ah”—Tom rubbed the underside of his nose with a knuckle—“I’ve got an errand to run.” He told himself it was an evasion, not a lie. Until he knew the truth about Kent Arens, some caution was necessary. “What about the school bus?”
    â€œThe dreaded school bus? No thanks. I’ll find a ride.”
    As Robby headed away Tom called, “Oh, Robby, just a minute.” It was a queer moment of muddled emotions, one in which Tom Gardner wondered if he was introducing his two sons to each other. Given the choice, he would have forgone the introduction altogether, but protocol demanded that as principal he make every effort to ease the incoming student into this new society in whatever way possible. “I want you to meet Kent Arens. He’s a senior, too, and he’s new here this year. Maybe you can introduce him around to some of your friends.”
    â€œSure, Dad,” Robby said, turning to assess the newcomer.
    â€œKent, this is my son, Robby.”
    The two boys exchanged a self-conscious handshake.
    One was blond, the other dark. Tom resisted the temptation to stick around and compare them further. If his suspicion proved true, he’d undoubtedly spend too much time doing that in the future. “Well, Kent, I’ll leave you to the coach. Good luck.”
    He gave the boy a smile, which was returned, before he left the field and headed for his car, passing on the way the aquamarine Lexus owned by Monica Arens. Its presence gave him a jolt not unlike that he’d experienced as a teenager when some girl he had a crush on would cruise past his house in her daddy’s car. But this jolt had nothing to do with crushes. It had to do with guilt over a boy who might possibly be his, and uncertainty about how to handle the situation if it was true.
    The windows of his red Taurus had been rolled up in the warm August sun. He sat for a minute with the doors open and the engine running, wondering what to do next. The picture of those two boys shaking hands kept playing inside his head as he wondered, Are they? Are they? And will I find out soon?
    When the air conditioner started blowing cool, he slammed the doors and pulled Kent’s green school registration card out of his breast pocket. The address was there, printed in careful draftsman-style letters that resembled Tom’s own printing somewhat: 1500 Curve Summit Drive. It was an area of new construction, a subdivision of affluent homes in the hills above the west shore of Lake Haviland in the western suburb of St. Paul Heights, Minnesota. After eighteen years, Tom knew the addresses in his school district almost as well as the police did.
    He felt like a damned philanderer as he drove out to find it, his emotional side wishing Monica Arens wouldn’t be home after all, his more rational self realizing there was no advantage in delaying the inevitable: whatever the truth, he