"Mommy, I'm done!" Will called from the dining room. He was kneeling on a chair, trying to hold a logjam of crayons. They were dropping everywhere, and Oreo Figaro was chewing Burnt Sienna.

"Let me help, honey." Ellen got up, putting the BlackBerry away.

During lunch, she tried to tuck her anxiety away in the back of her brain, but it kept coming to the fore, even as she got Will dressed in his snowsuit and retrieved the orange plastic saucer from the basement. She slid into her coat and took him in one hand and the saucer in the other, then went outside in the cold sun, inhaling a deep lungful of fresh air.

"Freezing, Mommy!" Will said, his breath making tiny puffs in the frigid air.

"Look, your breath looks like a little train. You're Thomas the Tank Engine."

Will giggled. "Choo-choo!"

"Here we go!" Ellen scanned the street, which was covered with a soft snow that blanketed the rooftops, filled the rain gutters, and lined the porch steps. The houses, mostly stone or clapboard, sat close together, and many of them shared driveways, like freshly shoveled Ys. Narberth was a stop-time neighborhood, where everybody looked out for each other.

They were making their way down the porch steps when Ellen realized something. Her neighbors must have gotten the white card in the mail, showing the photo of Timothy Braverman. They could have noticed how much he looked like Will, and everyone on the street knew that Will was adopted. They had all read her series, and she had even thrown a welcoming party for him when he was well enough. She used to be glad that Narberth was so chummy, but that was Before. After, it terrified her. She squeezed Will's hand.

"Ow, too tight, Mommy." He looked up in surprise, stiff in his puffy blue coat and snow pants, his arms sticking out like a gingerbread man.

"Sorry." Ellen eased her grip, shaken. She looked up and down her block, worried about running into her neighbors.

Two doors away, Mrs. Knox, an older woman, was brushing snow from her sidewalk, and on the far side of the street, stay-at-home moms Elena Goldblum and Barbara Capozzi were talking while their kids played in the snow. All of them could have seen the white card, especially the moms. Ellen stood frozen on the sidewalk.

"Mommy?" Will asked. "Are we going?"

"I'm just looking at the street. It's so pretty with the snow, isn't it?"

"Go!" Will tugged her hand, but Ellen's thoughts raced ahead. They always went sledding a few blocks away at Shortridge Park, and the place would be packed with Will's friends, their mothers, and the occasional stay-at-home dad, probably Domenico Vargas, who usually brought an old-fashioned plaid thermos of Ecuadorian coffee. All of them would have gotten the white card.

"Will, guess what?" Ellen knelt to see him at eye level and held him by the shoulder. His face was a circle of adorable features, those blue eyes under a pale fringe of feathery bangs, upturned nose, broad smile, framed by the drawstring of his hood. "Today, how about we go to a new place to sled?"

"Where?" Will frowned.

"Valley Forge. I used to sled there when I was growing up. Did I ever tell you about that? I loved it there."

"What about Brett?" Will's lower lip puckered. "Is he there?"

"No, but we can tell him how great it is. It's good for a change. Why don't we give it a try?"

"I don't want to."

"Let's try it. We'll have fun." Ellen straightened up, took him by the hand, and walked him over to the car before he could object.

She got her keys from her pocket, chirped the back door unlocked, hoisted him into his car seat, and locked him in, kissing his cold nose. "This will be an adventure."

Will nodded, uncertain. "We didn't say good-bye to Oreo Figaro."

"He'll forgive us." Ellen closed the car door, stuck the saucer in the trunk, and was going to the driver's side when Mrs. Knox appeared from nowhere in her black down coat, cackling.

"I know what you're up to!" she said, pointing with a red leather glove. "You're playin' hooky!"

"You got that right." Ellen opened the car door and got in. "It's a snow day for grown-ups, too. Gotta go!"

"Why're you drivin' to Shortridge? It's only around the corner."

"See you!" Ellen shut the door, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway, giving a disappointed Mrs. Knox a last wave.

"Mommy?" Will said from the backseat.

"What?"

"Connie doesn't like Mrs. Knox."

"Really?" Ellen backed out of the driveway and adjusted the rearview mirror to see him. He looked stuffed into the car seat, immobilized. "Why not?"

"Connie says Mrs. Knox is a busy-busy."

"A what?" Ellen steered the car down the street. "You mean a busybody?"

"Yes! "Will giggled.

Ellen hit the gas, hard.

Chapter Thirty-six

An hour later Ellen was still driving through Valley Forge Park, trying to find the sledding hill she remembered. She'd checked her Black-Berry at a few traffic lights on the way, but Amy Martin hadn't emailed yet. The road wound through snow-covered log cabins and lines of black cannons, passing George Washington's encampment from the Revolutionary War, but she had stopped pointing out the historical sites to an increasingly cranky three-year-old, kicking in his car seat.

"I'm hot. My coat is hot." Will pulled at his zipper, and Ellen steered right, then left, and finally spotted a packed parking lot.

"We're here!"

"Yay!"

"This is gonna be great!" Ellen turned into the lot and found a space next to a station wagon that disgorged a slew of teenage boys. The tallest one undid the bright bungee cords that fastened a wooden toboggan to the roof rack.

"He's a big boy!" Will craned his neck.

"He sure is." Ellen shut off the ignition, and the teenager slid the toboggan onto his head, where he struggled to balance it. The other teenagers hooted when it dipped like a seesaw.

"He's gonna drop it! Watch out!" Will squealed with delight. "Mommy, what is that thing on him?"

"It's called a toboggan. It's like our saucer." Ellen put on her sunglasses and gloves. "It goes down the hill."

"Why doesn't he have a saucer?"

"He must like a toboggan better."

"Why don't we have it?"

"Someday we will, if you want one. Now, let's rock." Ellen got out of the car, went around to his side, and freed Will from his car seat. He reached for her with his fingers outstretched, then wrapped his arms around her neck when she held him.

"I love you, Mommy."

"I love you, too, sweetie." Ellen set him down and took his hand, then went to the trunk and got the saucer. Laughter and shouting came from the hill on the other side of the road, the sound echoing in the cold, crisp air, and she and Will walked through the plowed parking lot, rock salt crunching under their boots. The teenage boys crossed the street ahead of them, but there was such a crowd on the other side that Ellen couldn't see the hill.

"Isn't this fun, Will?" Ellen held Will's hand as they crossed.

"So many people!"

"That's because they know it's a good place to sled." Ellen surveyed the view beyond the crowd, a gorgeous vista of snowy evergreens, stone houses, and horse farms surrounding the park. The sky was a cloudless blue, and the sun pale gold, and distant. "Isn't this pretty?"

"Very pretty," he answered agreeably, but Ellen realized he couldn't see anything for the kids in front of him, so she picked him up.

"How's that? Better?"

"Oooh! Pretty!"

"Here we go!" Ellen dragged the saucer by its rope and threaded her way through the crowd, noticing that they were older than she'd expected, high school and even college kids in Villanova hoodies. She and Will reached the front of the crowd and looked out over the hill, and Ellen hid her dismay. The hill was much steeper than she remembered it, if it was even the same hill. It dropped off as steeply as an intermediate ski slope, and the snow had been packed hard by the sledding, so its surface glistened, icy-hard.