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we had been.”
    â€œIs that when Dad moved out?”
    â€œNot quite. He waited until the fall term was over. He moved out at the first of the year, right after Christmas break. But from that evening on, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would. So when I saw Branwell come down the stairs to find his father with Tina, I knew that he knew. I knew what he was feeling. Branwell knew, just as I had known, that it would be only a matter of time before Tina would move in, and they would be a different kind of family from what they had been before. I had once been in that same sad place.
    â€œThen Dr. Zamborska said, ‘We thought we’d go outfor dinner this evening, Bran.’ Branwell smiled and said something to the effect that The Ancestors did a lot of eating out. ‘Mostly at the clubhouse.’ Then he smiled and said, ‘I’ll just go upstairs to take off my jacket, and then I’ll be blue peter.’ ”
    I asked Margaret if that was the first that she had heard of blue peter, and she said it was. I asked her if she knew what it meant, and she told me that she guessed.
    â€œCouldn’t you find it on the Internet?” I asked. (Margaret spends almost all her waking hours on the Internet.)
    â€œDidn’t try.”
    â€œWant me to tell you?”
    â€œI know you’re dying to.”
    â€œIt means ‘ready to sail.’ When a ship is ready to sail, it flies a blue flag with a white square that stands for the letter P—blue peter. Is that what you guessed?”
    â€œI guessed it meant ‘ready.’ You didn’t ask me if I guessed whether it had to do with sailing ships.”
    â€œI thought you’d like to know.”
    â€œIt’s not that my life would have been unfulfilled and empty if I had never known, but if you had not had this wonderful opportunity to tell me, yours might have been. Now, do you want me to tell you about therest of that evening when I picked Branwell up from the airport?”
    â€œBlue peter,” I said.
    â€œI hope that means you’re ready to listen.”
    â€œIt doesn’t mean that I’m ready to sail.”
    â€œI guessed as much,” Margaret said. “Dr. Zamborska started to say something, and I knew what it would be. He was about to tell Branwell that he hadn’t planned on Branwell’s joining them, that he had planned on just him and Tina going out. But before he could even start to say it, I got to his side and poked him with my elbow to interrupt. ‘Now that everyone is together,’ I said, ‘I guess I’ll be running along.’ And I was out the door before either Dr. Z or Tina had a chance to reply.
    â€œHe had asked me to stay to baby-sit. He had been planning to take Tina out to the Summit Inn, where you do have to wear a jacket and tie. I found out later that he had a ring in his pocket and had planned on asking Tina to marry him that very night. But when I saw that look on Branwell’s face, a look I recognized from my own personal wardrobe of bad memories, I decided that it would be wrong for them to leave him—especially on his first night home. So I walked out. I left Dr. Z to work out the details. He quietlycanceled his reservations at the Summit, and they all went to One-Potato for supper.”
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    Even before he had left for his month with The Ancestors, Branwell knew who Tina Nguyen was. She was part of his father’s research team.
    Dr. Zamborska’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C. They pay for three assistants. The assistants are graduate students who help Dr. Zamborska’s research while they study for advanced degrees. They spend an average of four years studying with him. Each time one graduates, others apply for the job. Dr. Z is known as a fair but strict teacher and mentor. Many apply, but only one is chosen.
    Dr. Zamborska never dated any of them. He never went