Jenks brightened. "Thank you, ma'am," he said, flitting close enough to send the wisps of her red hair waving. "I'll check the yard. Would you mind if I gathered the pollen from your Rose of Sharon? It will do my youngest a world of good this late in the season."

My mother beamed. "Of course. Help yourself. Those damned fairies have just about killed everything looking for spiders." Her eyebrows arched, and I froze in a moment of panic. She had a thought. No telling what it was.

"Might you happen to have any children who would be interested in a late summer job?" she asked, and my breath escaped me in a relieved sound.

Jenks landed on her offered hand, wings glowing a satisfied pink. "Yes, ma'am. My son, Jax, would be delighted to work your yard. He and my two eldest daughters would be enough to keep the fairies out. I'll send them tomorrow before sunup if you like. By the time you have your first cup of coffee, there won't be a fairy in sight."

"Marvelous!" my mother exclaimed. "Those damn bastards have been in my yard all summer. Drove my wrens away."

Nick started at the foul word coming from such a mild-looking lady, and I shrugged.

Jenks flew an arching path from the back door to me in an unspoken request for me to open it. "If you don't mind," he said, hovering by the knob, "I'll just nip out and take a look. I don't want them running into anything unexpected. He's just a boy, and I want to be sure he knows what to watch out for."

"Excellent idea," my mother said, her heels clacking on the white linoleum. She flicked on the back light and let him out. "Well!" she said as she turned, eyeing Nick. "Sit down, please. Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee? I think I have a beer somewhere."

"Coffee would be great, Mrs. Morgan," Nick said as he pulled a chair from under the table and lowered himself into it. I opened the fridge for the coffee, and my mom took the bag of grounds out of my hands, fussing with soft mother sounds until I sat beside Nick. The scraping of my chair was loud, and I wished she wasn't making such a fuss. Nick grinned, clearly enjoying my disquiet.

"Coffee," she said as she puttered about. "I admire a man who likes coffee with lunch. You have no idea how glad I am to meet you, Nick. It's been so long since Rachel brought a boy home. Even in high school she wasn't much for dating. I was starting to wonder if she was going to lean the other way, if you know what I mean."

"Mom!" I exclaimed, feeling my face go as red as my hair.

She blinked at me. "Not that there's anything wrong with that," she amended, scooping out the grounds and filling the filter. I couldn't look at Nick, hearing the amusement in him as he cleared his throat. I put my elbows on the table and dropped my head into my hands.

"But you know me," my mother added, her back to us as she put the coffee away. I cringed, waiting for whatever was going to come out of her mouth. "I'm of the mind that it's better to have no man than the wrong one. Your father, now, he was the right man."

Sighing, I looked up. If she was talking about Dad, she wouldn't be talking about me.

"Such a good man," she said, motions slow as she went to the stove. She stood sideways so she could see us as she took the lid off the sauce and stirred it. "You need the right man to have children with. We were lucky with Rachel," she said. "Even so, we almost lost her."

Nick sat up interested. "How so, Mrs. Morgan?"

Her face went long in an old worry, and I rose to plug the coffeemaker in, since she had forgotten. The coming story was embarrassing, but it was a known embarrassment, much better than what she might come out with, especially after having mentioned children. I sat down beside Nick as my mom started in with the usual opening line.

"Rachel was born with a rare blood disease," she said. "We had no idea it was there, just waiting for an inopportune match to show itself."

Nick turned to me, his eyebrows raised. "You never told me that."

"Well, she doesn't have it anymore," my mother said. "The nice woman at the clinic explained everything, saying that we were fortunate with Rachel's older brother, and that we had a one-out-of-four chance that my next child would be like Rachel."

"That sounds like a genetic disorder," he said. "You usually don't get better from those."

My mother nodded and turned the flame down under the boiling pasta. "Rachel responded to a course of herbal remedies and traditional medications. She's our miracle baby."

Nick didn't look convinced, so I added, "My mitochondria were kicking out this odd enzyme, and my white blood cells thought it was an infection. They were attacking healthy cells as if they were invaders, mostly the bone marrow and anything that had to do with blood production. All I know was, I was tired all the time. The herbal remedies helped, but it was when puberty kicked in that everything seemed to settle down. I'm fine now, except for being sensitive to sulfer, but it did shorten my life span by about ten years. 'Least, that's what they tell me."

Nick touched my knee under the table. "I'm sorry."

I flashed him a smile. "Hey, what's ten years? I wasn't supposed to make it to puberty." I didn't have the heart to tell him that even with ten years sliced off my life expectancy, I was still going to live decades past him. But he probably already knew that.

"Monty and I met at school, Nick," my mother said, bringing the conversation back to its original topic. I knew she didn't like talking about the first twelve years of my life. "It was so romantic. The university had just started their paranormal studies, and there was a lot of confusion about prerequisites. Anyone could take anything. I had no business being in a ley line class, and the only reason I signed up for it was because the gorgeous hunk of witch in front of me at the registrar's office was, and all my alternate classes were full."

Her spoon in the pot slowed, and steam wafted over her. "Funny how fate seems to push people together sometimes," she said softly. "I took that class to sit next to one man, but ended up falling in love with his best friend." She smiled at me. "Your father. All three of us partnered for the lab. I would have flunked if it hadn't been for Monty. I'm not a ley line witch, and since Monty couldn't stir a spell to save his life, he set all my circles for me the next two years in return for me invoking all his charms for him until he graduated."

I had never heard this one before, and as I rose to get three coffee mugs, my gaze fell upon the pot of red sauce. Brow pinching, I wondered if there was a tactful way to spill it down the garbage disposal. She was cooking in her spell pot again, too. I hoped she had remembered to wash it in saltwater, or lunch might be a bit more interesting than usual.

"How did you and Rachel meet?" my mother asked as she nudged me away from the pot and set a loaf of frozen bread to bake in the oven.

Eyes suddenly wide, I shook my head in warning at Nick. His eyes flicked from me to my mother. "Ah, a sporting event."

"The Howlers?" she questioned.

Nick looked to me for help, and I sat beside him. "We met at the rat fights, Mom," I said. "I bet on the mink, and he bet on the rat."

"Rat fights?" she said, making a face. "Nasty business, that. Who won?"

"They got away," Nick said, his eyes soft on mine. "We always imagined they escaped together and fell madly in love and are living in the city's sewers somewhere."

I choked back a laugh, but my mother let hers flow freely. My heart seemed to catch at the sound. I hadn't heard her laugh in delight in a long time.

"Yes," she said as she set her oven mitts aside. "I like that. Minks and rats. Just like Monty and me with no more children."

I blinked, wondering how she had jumped from rats and minks to her and Dad, and how that related to them not having any more children.