Jo, her green eyes alive with curiosity and her blond hair virtually curling tighter in anticipation, was hard to resist. Wy grated cheese and chopped onions and minced garlic as she told the tale. When she came to the end of it, Jo let out a long, appreciative whistle.

“Wy?” Gary called. “Have you got any spackle?”

“Who cares?” Jo said impatiently. Gary tramped down the hall and out into the garage, muttering beneath his breath. “It’s really an old C-47?”

Wy shrugged. “That’s what it looked like from where we were standing.”

“World War Two?”

“Maybe. It’s pretty busted up, and I’m not that familiar with DC-3s.”

“I thought you said this was a C-47.”

“They’re the same plane. The DC-3 was used for domestic passenger service, the C-47 for the military, freight, troops. It’s a hell of a plane. They’re not making them anymore but they’re sure still flying them. They’re great for freight.” Her eyes lit. “I’d love to get my hands on one for the business.”

“And you got the tail numbers?”

“The last three numbers, all that were left before the break in the fuselage.” She moved her shoulders uneasily.

“What?”

“I didn’t like seeing that wreck.” She thought. “If it comes to that, I don’t think any pilot likes seeing any wreck.”

“This is an old one.”

“Doesn’t matter. I can’t help wondering, why’d they go in? Weather? They get lost? Instrumentation go out on them? Crew fall asleep?”

Jo, caught up in Wy’s imaginings, said, “Think they knew? Or did they just hit and kerflooey, that’s all she wrote?”

“They knew,” Wy said flatly.

“How do you know?”

“The pilot knew, for sure, and probably the copilot as well. They may not have known but for a split second, but they knew they’d fucked the pooch, all right.”

“I found this light fixture on the workbench,” Gary said, coming into the room. “Where’s it supposed to go?”

“My bedroom, but Gary, you don’t have to-” She stopped when he headed down the hall. She turned to his sister. “What’s the other thing?”

“What?”

“You said, when I tried to kick you out of Newenham, that you couldn’t go because ‘for one thing, I’m on a story.’ What’s the other thing?”

“Oh. That.”

“Wy?” Gary’s was a voice crying in the wilderness. “Where do you keep your paint?”

“At the paint store! What’s the other thing?” she repeated to Jo.

“Okay.” Jo fortified herself with a long swallow of beer. “It’s this. Liam doesn’t have anything to be worried about. Does he? With you and…” She jerked her head toward the bathroom.

“No.”

“He doesn’t seem to know that.”

“I don’t follow you.”

Jo’s sigh was heavy and martyred. “If he were sure of himself with you, he wouldn’t give a damn how many ex-boyfriends were hanging around.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jo, can’t you let this alone? I told you yesterday I-”

“I know.” Jo nodded. “I listened very carefully and I heard every word you said.”

“So?”

“So, what I didn’t hear you say was that you were completely, totally, and irrevocably committed to Liam Campbell, forsaking all others, world without end, amen. If I don’t hear you saying that, I’m pretty sure Liam doesn’t, either.”

Wy was confused. “I still don’t get what this has to do with your bringing Gary down here to get Liam all riled up.”

“You say you love him.”

“I do.”

“You say you want him.”

“I do.”

“But you won’t say you’ll marry him.”

“I can’t have kids.”

“I know that. And you told him, and so does he, now.”

“He wants kids.”

“Does he want them more than you?”

“He says not.”

“And you don’t believe him.”

Wy was silent.

“And all these years, I thought you were so smart.” Jo gave her head a long, sad shake. “Somebody’s got to hold your feet to the fire, girl.”

“And you think you’re just the person to do that.”

“Who better?”

“Seen anything of Jim Wiley lately?”

Beneath Wy’s amazed gaze, Jo’s fair skin flushed a deep and unexpected red. “Up yours, Chouinard.”

“Up yours times two, Dunaway,” Wy said, delighted to turn the tables. “Come to think of it, I haven’t heard any tales this past month of your latest conquests, and usually I get on average at least one call a week. Not to mention which, you’re traveling with your brother, also a rare event, as you usually use your trips to see me as getaway weekends for you and your latest. You and Jim, hmmm. You wouldn’t be seeing each other socially, by any chance?”

“In his dreams.”

“Or in yours,” Wy retorted, and then had to duck.

After dinner and coffee and still no appearance by Liam, Jo and Gary took their leave with suitable expressions of gratitude. During the time before and after dinner, Gary had found and fixed the leak in the bathroom, recaulked the bathtub, installed the new light fixture in Wy’s bedroom, and put a ground fault interruptor in the outlet next to the kitchen sink.

“Handy, isn’t he?” Jo said.

“Speedy, too,” Wy said.

Gary gave Wy a long look. “With some things. With others, I take my time.”

“Too much information,” Jo said. “We’re out of here.”

Wy closed the door behind them and went back to Tim’s room.

He was sprawled across his bed, head propped up on a pillow, reading.

“Hey,” Wy said.

“Hey,” Tim said without looking around.

Wy sat next to him. “What are you reading?”

He turned the cover of the book toward her, and went back to reading.

“Little Fuzzy,”Wy said, pleased. “One of my favorites. For fun or for work?” Mrs. Cash, the English teacher for seventh, eighth and ninth grades at Newenham Public School, was teaching a science-fiction lit class this semester.

“Work.”

“You like it?”

“Yeah.”

She refused to let his laconic replies deter her. “What else is she assigning?”

“I don’t know.”

She stifled a sigh, and then was startled when he actually volunteered a remark.

“She made us watch television today, before she handed out this book.”

“What?”

He angled a sly look up at her.“Star Trek.”

She grinned. “Which one, and which episode?”

“ ‘TNG.’ The one where Data has to prove he’s not a toaster.”

“Ah.” She thought. “So you’re headed for a discussion on sentience.”

“Looks like.”

“How do you like the course?”

“It’s okay, so far.” He turned back to his book.

She looked at him, his hair cropped and spiked with gel in the approved current style, the blue jeans that now, mercifully, fit instead of hanging off his butt. His watch was the X-Men one she had given him for Christmas, to match the Wolverine T-shirt and his very own VHS copy of the movie, which by now was about worn out.

His desk was a disaster area, littered with textbooks and notebooks and CDs and a Walkman and a Game Boy, undoubtedly loaded with Tim’s beloved Tetris and ready to go. On the wall was a poster of Euclid holding a pair of calipers, with a caption reading,There is no royal road to geometry. Next to Euclid was a poster of Jennifer Lopez holding nothing and wearing less.

On a short picture ledge, ordered specially for the purpose, sat a photograph of a girl with pale olive skin, a mass of straight brown hair, and tip-tilted, laughing brown eyes. The brass of the frame was newly shined, and the ledge, unlike any other level surface in the room, was dust-free.

Wy steeled herself. “Natalie’s coming over tomorrow afternoon.” She had learned the hard way not to refer to Natalie Gosuk as his mother.

His back stiffened into one hard, inimical line. “What time?”

“Four o’clock.”

“You’ll be here?”

“Yes. Every time. Always.”

He put down the book and rolled to look at her. “I don’t want to see her.”

“I know.”

“But you’re making me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

If was the first time he hadn’t shouted the question at her in a rage, and she wanted so badly not to blow the answer. “She’s your birth mother, Tim.”