“Don’t do this, Mason,” Pokey begged. “Please? You do not have to do this. You do not have to marry Celia.”

“I appreciate your concern,” he said quietly, “but I have to do what’s best for the child.”

“You don’t even know that the child is yours,” Pokey said bitterly.

“That’s enough,” Mason said, scowling. “You’re talking about the woman I’m marrying. I know you’ve never liked Celia, but you won’t make things any better for this family if you keep up this kind of talk.”

“I don’t care,” Pokey said. “She’s a liar and a phony, and I’ll risk pissing you off if it means keeping you from marrying her.”

“I have obligations,” Mason pointed out. “And I won’t run from them.”

“Fine! Wait til the baby’s born. Get some DNA testing. Pay Celia a shitload of child support and buy her a house. But don’t, for God’s sake, marry her. Look, you never married Sophie’s mother, and nobody cared,” Pokey said.

Mason clenched and unclenched his jaw. “That’s different. For one thing, Sophie’s mother didn’t want to marry me. She barely knew me. I took Sophie because her mother wasn’t equipped to raise her on her own. Maybe it was selfish of me, deciding to become a single father, I don’t know. But I know now that Sophie needs a mother and a father. Two parents. And so will this baby.”

“Jesus, Mason!” Pokey shouted. “Do you always have to be the big brother? Always have to look out for everybody else? Always have to know what’s best? For me, Davis, Mama, the company? You’re so worried about doing the right thing and keeping up appearances, have you even noticed what you’re doing affects other people? And that maybe this one time you actually don’t know what’s best? What about Annajane? She loves you and you love her, and you’re going to just throw that away? You’re going to let her walk away—from you and her friends and her job?”

“Annajane understands,” Mason said.

“Bullshit!” Pokey cried, her hands on her hips. “Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Aunt Pokey?” a small voice called from the hallway.

Sophie peeked around the doorway. Her blond ringlets were a tangled mess, she had hot pink lipstick smeared around her mouth, and her sparkly pink glasses slid down her nose. “Are you and my daddy having a fight?” she asked timidly.

Pokey held out her arms to the little girl. “No, punkin,” she said, looking shame-faced. “We weren’t really fighting, we were just discussin’.”

“And cussin’,” Mason added. “But we’re not really mad at each other. Right, Aunt Pokey?”

Sophie tiptoed into the room. She had obviously dressed herself in her second-best dress, a hand-smocked pink batiste dress she’d worn to her little cousin’s christening, which she’d managed to put on backward, so that the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons fastened in the front. She wore a pair of unbuckled white sandals on her feet, and slung across her chest was her pink plastic purse.

“Don’t you look nice,” Mason said, looking down at her. “Are you all dressed up to go see your cousins?”

“I’m dressed up for the wedding,” Sophie said. “But I can’t wear my wedding dress, ’cuz Letha said she had to throw that nasty thing out after I got sick on it.”

Her impression of her nanny was, as usual, uncanny, and both Mason and Pokey laughed.

Mason picked the little girl up and sat down on the sofa with her on his lap. “I’m sorry, Soph, but you’re not going to the wedding today. This is just for grown-ups. Me and Celia and your Nana. That’s all.”

Sophie’s face crumpled. Her lower lip pooched out.

“I’m not even going to the wedding,” Pokey said. “Who cares about a stinky old wedding, anyway? I bet they aren’t even gonna have any cake.”

“We’re not,” Mason assured her. “Not a lick of cake.”

“But I wanna gooooo,” Sophie wailed, huge crocodile tears running down her cheeks. “I wanna go with Daddy!”

Pokey plunked down on the sofa beside her brother. She patted Sophie’s back. “Come on, punkin, don’t cry. You and me are going to have a girl’s night out. Do you know what that is?”

“Nooooo,” Sophie sobbed. “I wanna go to the wedding. I don’t wanna go girl’s night out.” She buried her face in Mason’s starched white dress shirt. “I. Don’t. Wannna. Idonwanna,” came her muffled chant. “I donwanna. I donwanna!”

“Sure you do,” Pokey said, attempting to shift Sophie onto her own lap. “It’ll be lots of fun. We can bake some cupcakes. Pink ones. I bought pink sugar sprinkles just for us. And we can watch The Little Mermaid. And I’ll make Uncle Pete sleep with the boys and it’ll be just you and me in the big bed. I’ll even make us pancakes for breakfast in the morning!”

But the little girl wrapped her arms tightly around Mason’s neck and clung to him like a small, determined barnacle.

Mason looked stricken. “Help,” he mouthed.

Pokey reached over and gently disentangled Sophie’s arms, wrapping her in her own. “It’s just for one night, Soph,” she said. “And then tomorrow, Daddy will pick you up at my house and take you right back here to your own house and your own bed.”

“Noooo,” Sophie cried. “I donwanna.”

Mason looked down at the hot pink smears on his shirt. “She’s breaking my heart,” he said. “What should we do?”

Pokey looked over Sophie’s head at her brother. “Let’s see if we can distract her,” she whispered.

“Hey Soph,” she said brightly. “Let me see that pretty dress of yours, will you?”

“No,” the little girl said. But after a moment she slid out of Pokey’s lap and did a slow twirl.

“It’s bee-you-ti-full!” Pokey said encouragingly. Sophie did a faster spin, and the flap of her pocketbook opened, and a strand of silver chain slipped out and onto the carpet.

“You dropped your necklace,” Mason said, picking it up to examine it. He frowned down at the chain. “Where did you get this, Soph?”

“It’s my jewels,” Sophie said, tucking the pocketbook protectively under her arm.

“Hmm,” Pokey said, reaching out her hand to take the chain. “This is white gold, and that’s a nice-sized sapphire stone. That’s an expensive-looking jewel for a five-year-old.”

“It’s Celia’s,” Mason said. “I bought it for her at Christmas.”

“Oh, Lawwwd,” Pokey drawled. “If Celia finds out Sophie’s been looting her stuff, you’re gonna have hell to pay, brother.”

“Christ,” Mason muttered. “Like I don’t have enough to deal with.”

“Sophie,” he said. “Have you been borrowing Celia’s treasures? You know you’re not supposed to get into her things.”

“No,” Sophie said petulantly.

“Sophie?” he said, a warning note in his voice. He held out his hand. “Can I see what’s in your pocketbook?”

“It’s my treasures,” the little girl said, taking a step backward. “I found ’em.”

“Okay,” Mason said pleasantly. “But can I see what you’ve found? Please?”

Reluctantly, Sophie unwound the strap of the purse from her neck and handed it over to her father.

“Let’s see,” Mason said, reaching inside. He held up a silver-cased pink lipstick with a missing cap.

“Not mine,” Pokey said. “I don’t wear slutty shades like that.”

Mason shot her a warning look, but reached back inside the purse and brought out a handful of silvery objects, which he dumped on the sofa cushion. “Let’s see what we’ve got here,” he said, taking inventory.

“Couple sticks of chewing gum, some Quixie pop-tops, an earring…”

Pokey picked up the hand-tooled silver hoop earring. “I was wondering where that had gotten to.”

Mason continued with the inventory. “Nail clipper, some kind of eye makeup thingy…” His voice trailed off and he held up a flat foil-wrapped package. “Pills!” He looked panicky. He grabbed his daughter’s hand. “Sophie, you didn’t swallow any of these pills, did you? Tell daddy the truth. Did you swallow any of these pills?”

Pokey reached over and took the packet, turning them over and reading the fine print of the label. A slow smile spread across her face.