"Good morning, Jack," Alexis said lightly when she noticed him standing in the doorway. "I hope you slept okay downstairs."

"It was very comfortable," Jack said.

"Say good morning to your uncle," Alexis advised the girls, but only Christina did so.

"I don't know why I can't wear the red top," Meghan whined.

"Because it belongs to Christina, and she says she prefers you don't," Alexis said.

"Did the plane burn with your daughters in it?" Christina asked.

"Christina, that's enough!" Alexis said. She rolled her eyes for Jack's benefit. "There's fresh juice in the fridge and fresh coffee in the maker. What do you usually have for breakfast?"

"Just fruit and cereal."

"We have both. Help yourself."

Jack went over to the coffeemaker. As his eyes began to search for a cup, a mug came sliding down the granite countertop, thanks to Alexis. He filled it with coffee and plopped in a spoonful of sugar and a dollop of cream. As he stirred, he again took in the room. Christina and Alexis were now embroiled in a conversation about after-school plans. The two other girls seemed silent and sulky. Craig had not emerged from behind his newspaper, which to Jack seemed an obvious slight.

Refusing to be cowed and believing a good offense was the best defense, Jack walked over to the mantel. He was now looking directly at Craig's newspaper, which Craig was holding up to its full extent like a barrier wall.

"Anything interesting in the news?" Jack asked while taking a sip of his steaming coffee.

The top edge of the paper came down slowly, progressively revealing Craig's puffy, slack face. His eyes were like bull's-eyes with dark surrounding rings, while his sclerae were webbed with minute red capillaries, giving him the visage of a man who'd been out on an all-night binge. In contrast to his weary face, he was dressed in a freshly pressed white shirt and conservative tie, while his sandy-colored hair was neatly brushed with a slight sheen suggesting a dab of gel.

"I'm hardly in the mood for small talk," Craig said morosely.

"Nor am I," Jack responded. "At least we agree right out of the starting gate. Craig, let's clear the air! I'm here on my sister's behest. I'm not here to help you. I'm here to help her. If I help you, it's fallout. But let me tell you something; I think it stinks that you've been sued for malpractice. In my estimation from what I know of you professionally, you're the last one who should be sued for malpractice. Now, there are some other social areas in which you don't shine from my perspective, but that's another story entirely. As far as the case is concerned, I've read the material and I have some thoughts. You can hear them or not, that's your call. As far as my staying in your house, that's also your call, since I demand unanimity on the part of couples when I'm a guest. I can easily move to a hotel."

Except for the muted sounds of the local news and some twittering of birds outside, the room went silent and still. No one moved until Craig noisily collapsed his papers, folded them haphazardly, and tossed them aside. A moment later came the renewed clink of flatware against cereal bowls from the table. From the sink came the sound of the faucet being turned on. Sound and action had returned.

"I have no problem being up-front," Craig said. His voice now sounded more tired and sad than morose. "When I heard you were coming, I was irritated. With everything that's going on, I didn't think it was an appropriate time for company, especially since you'd never bothered previously to come for a visit. Frankly, it irked me that you might harbor the mistaken illusion you were the cavalry riding in at the nick of time to save the party in peril. Having you tell me right off that that's not the case makes me feel differently. You're welcome to stay, but I'm sorry I'm not up to being much of a host. As far as your thoughts about the case are concerned, I'd like to hear them."

"I don't expect you to be a host at all, considering what you are going through," Jack said. He sat on the corner of the coffee table diagonally across from Craig. The conversation was going better than he'd anticipated. He had in mind to further the cause by paying Craig a compliment. "Along with all the court-related material, there were a couple of your most recent research papers. I was impressed. Of course, I'd be more impressed if I understood them."

"My attorney has in mind to introduce them as evidence of the extent of my commitment to medicine. The plaintiff's attorney according to his opening statement is going to try to prove the opposite."

"Certainly can't hurt. I can't imagine how he's going to present them, but I'm no lawyer. If he does, I have to give you credit, Craig. You are amazing. Most every doctor I know thinks they would like to do a combination of clinical work and research. It's the ultimate ideal absorbed in medical school, but you're one of the few that actually does it. What's so surprising, it's real research and not those 'reports of an interesting case' type papers that try to masquerade as research."

"There's no doubt it is real research," Craig said, perking up a tad as he warmed to the subject. "We are learning more and more about voltage-gated sodium channels in nerve and muscle cells, and it has immediate clinical application."

"In your last paper in NEJM, you talked about two different sodium channels, one for heart muscle and one for nerves. How are they different?"

"They are structurally different, which we are now determining at a molecular level. How we knew they were different was because of their marked difference in their response to tetrodotoxin. There's a thousandfold difference, which is extraordinary."

"Tetrodotoxin?" Jack questioned. "That's the toxin that kills people in Japan who eat the wrong sushi."

Craig laughed in spite of himself. "You're right. It's sushi made by an inexperienced sushi chef from puffer fish at a particular time of their reproductive cycle."

"Remarkable," Jack commented. Having accomplished getting Craig to perk up, he was eager to move on. Craig's research, although interesting, was far too esoteric for his liking. Jumping directly from one subject to another, Jack brought up his feelings about how the victim, Patience Stanhope, was the key element to win his malpractice case. "If your attorney can indisputably establish the fact in the jurors' minds that this woman was the kind of hypochondriac she was, the jury will have to find against the plaintiff."

For a few seconds, Craig merely stared back at Jack. It was as if the conversational transition had been so abrupt that his brain had to reboot itself. "Well," he said at length. "It's interesting you say that, because I already said as much to Randolph Bingham."

"Well, there you go. We're thinking on the same plane, which lends more credibility to the idea. What did your attorney say?"

"Not much, as I recall."

"I think you should bring it up again," Jack said. "And while we're on the subject of the deceased, I didn't see an autopsy report. I'm assuming there was none. Am I correct?"

"Unfortunately, there wasn't an autopsy," Craig said. "The diagnosis was confirmed by the biomarker assay." He shrugged. "No one expected a malpractice suit. I'm sure if they had, the medical examiners would have opted for a postmortem and I would have requested one."

"There was one other small point in the record I thought was curious," Jack said. "An ER nurse by the name of Georgina O'Keefe, who was the admitting nurse at Newton Memorial Hospital. She wrote in her notes that the patient had marked central cyanosis. The reason it jumped out was because she didn't mention it in her deposition. I went back and checked. Of course, the reason I was sensitive to the issue was because in your deposition, you said you were shocked at the degree of cyanosis when you saw the patient. In fact, this issue was a point of disagreement between you and Mr. Stanhope."