One boy is about to learn that he has already passed such an event, and nothing will ever be quite the same…

“Are you ready for lunch, Brandon?” Jenny asked as she finished reviewing their jointly completed lab report for Earth Sciences. The wall clock showed a quarter until noon. “I know I am.”

“Actually, I’m not,” her boyfriend answered. “They brought breakfast way late today—not ’til almost nine o’clock!”

“I got here not too long after that,” observed Jenny. “So you’re not quite hungry are you?”

“No,” grumbled Brandon. “I had to get a snack before breakfast ’coz they started giving me tests right after I woke up. I’m on everyone else’s schedule while I’m here.”

“That’s no fun!” Jenny agreed with the implicit reason for his complaint. “My tummy’s starting to growl already.”

She closed the textbook for their Earth Sciences course and reached for the one for Computer Science. “Wanna start on our programming assignment then?” Jenny proposed.

“Sounds like a plan!” Brandon agreed. “My immediate goal is to complete all assignments before leaving aus diesem Krankenhaus.”

Jenny giggled in response, betraying that she knew what he meant from the German that she had picked up from him through casual exposure. She turned her attention to her laptop computer and closed her files out from the previous assignments and opened new ones to begin their joint work for Computer Science lab. Just then, she and Brandon heard a knock on the still open door to his room. Three faces, two more familiar than the third, jostled light-heartedly for both position and attention.

“Good morning, guys,” Brandon greeted Jeff, Mark, and Melinda. “C’mon in!”

“Hi, Melinda! Hi, guys!” Jenny added her own greetings. “How are you doing?”

“We’re okay, I think,” answered Melinda, vying for preeminence of her group. “It all depends on whether Jeff is over the shock of Mark trying on my clothes.”

“Uh-oh, Mark!” Brandon immediately jumped on the opportunity to tease his buddy. “Wasn’t Wednesday enough for you?”

“He’s Melinda’s favorite dress-up doll now,” Jeffrey joined in. “Once she saw him in that skirt for Gender-Bender Day, his fate was sealed!”

“He’s just so pretty in pleats!” Melinda continued. “But he does need higher heels!”

Jenny giggled along with the teasing when Mark simply rolled his eyes at it. She thought that he may be actually comfortable with some light teasing over what his girlfriend had mentioned. “Is he cute in a skirt?” Jenny asked.

“Oh, I hope so!” remarked Brandon. “It would be nice if someone else had to worry about how he looks in a dress for a while. Mark, thanks for taking the pressure off me.”

“Sure, buddy! We aim to please,” replied Mark, grinning. “Trying out a Hallowe’en costume. The Goth girl look isn’t so bad for me.”

“Well, if you can pull it off, I guess I at least gotta try!” Jenny quipped as everyone joined in with laughter.

“Seriously though, we came to see if you and Jenny can join us for lunch?” Jeffrey asked.

“I hafta stay for whatever they bring me for lunch,” said Brandon. “But the cafeteria’s food here makes our school’s cooking taste like haute cuisine.”

“It couldn’t be, like, that bad, could it?” Melinda doubted.

“Maybe you guys could sneak us something in from wherever you go?” Brandon petitioned his friends. “Jenny and I have more work to do while we’re still here.”

Another knocking on the door jamb interrupted their chatting. Theresa Windham was standing there with a man about a decade older than Brandon’s father. “May we come in?”

“Sure!” Brandon agreed. “The more, the merrier!”

Jenny noted the older man next to Dr. Windham, briefly making eye contact with him. He looked overly serious?—No!—He looked somewhat domineering to her.

“Sorry, Brandon, but I have you scheduled for an E-E-G at noon,” said Dr. Windham. “That was the only time still open today.”

“Does that mean I gotta go now?” Brandon whined to his psychiatrist.

“In a word, yes,” she answered. “And Doctor Devereaux here would also like to speak with you as well.”

“Oh alright, then!” Brandon yielded. “But most of my friends just got here.”

“That’s okay, buddy,” Jeffrey consoled him. “We’ll come back after lunch, since you can’t go with us, anyway.”

“That’s fine,” conceded Brandon, decidedly annoyed. “But call me first to make sure I’ve finished whatever they want me doing.”

“Take care, buddy! Bye-bye! Catcha later!” Mark, Melinda, and Jeffrey offered their goodbyes, respectively, as they left the room. Meanwhile, Jenny continued what she’d been doing.

Seeing that she hadn’t left, the man beside Dr. Windham addressed her in a rather heavy French accent, “Young lady, you can leave, also.”

“Hey, Doctor!” Brandon responded directly. “Anything you need to tell me, you can say in front of Jenny.”

“No, I will not,” maintained Dr. Devereaux. Then he reiterated, “Miss, you will leave.”

Jenny stared defiantly at the man, before turning to Brandon and saying in Latin, “Scio ne salvere iubear.” With that, she quickly kissed him on the lips before carefully slamming her computer closed and gathering her books up as passive-aggressively as she could demonstrate. She stared Dr. Devereaux down again as she left, calling him in Cantonese, «死鬼佬!» [Sei gwei-lo!] Unsettled by her demeanor, his eyes followed her out of the room. Her defiant gaze caught his eye a third time as she smirked back at him before disappearing around the corner to try catching up to her other friends.

Brandon fought not to betray a smile as his girlfriend asserted herself against Dr. Devereaux. Secretly, the boy took pride in Jenny’s minor triumph. Perhaps the man was not aware that his bewilderment at the girl’s reaction to him was visible to both colleague and patient.

“Brandon, I’m sorry about that,” Dr. Windham apologized in an effort to prevent more misunderstanding between him and her colleague. “Let me introduce you properly. Doctor Devereaux, this is my new patient, Brandon MacDonald, he’s the son of my colleagues Doctor Nathan and Elizabeth MacDonald on the staff here. Brandon, this is Doctor Blaise Devereaux, a clinical psychologist. He’s an expert and will be assisting me with my diagnosis. As part of the testing process, I need him to interview you and also your parents, so I will ask for your cooperation.”

Dr. Devereaux extended his hand and Brandon, hiding his reluctance, accepted it, shaking it firmly once. « Bonjour, monsieur le docteur! » the boy acknowledged, noting that his hand was neither warm nor cold, altogether an absence of feeling. « Bonjour, Brandon! » replied the psychologist. Glancing at her patient’s eyes but a moment, Dr. Windham read uncertainty and reticence in Brandon’s face.

Brandon had never been one to accept stereotypes before. Specifically, he’d never bought that of the rude Frenchman. But not until today had he met anyone so determined to sell him that image. Thus Blaise Devereaux, Psy.D., would become for Brandon the face of French arrogance.

Dr. Windham peeked out the door for a nurse. “Fran, could you bring a wheelchair for Brandon?” Theresa asked. “He’s scheduled in the Neurology Lab right at noon.”

Theresa was quite worried about what her colleague had just done. He’d immediately alienated their patient. She hoped that the rapport that she’d previously built with Brandon would hold despite Blaise’s arrogance. She knew that his students called it “Blaise’s blazing.” However, his renowned expertise in autism spectrum disorders achieved remarkable results and consistently so. She’d seen him turn awkward boys suffering from Asperger’s syndrome into passionate, socially adroit young men comfortable endowing the world with their considerable intellectual gifts. His students and colleagues called these “Blaise’s blessings.” Yet she couldn’t quite believe how he’d rudely created such an unnecessary confrontation with Jenny. Then in a moment of insight, Dr. Windham understood Dr. Devereaux’s success in the diagnosis and treatment of Asperger’s syndrome: It takes one to know one.

Kelly sat next to her friend’s bed, holding Double Abby’s right hand by her own. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t fast enough to keep you from getting hurt. I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t push you out of the way. It all happened so fast, too fast to stop you.

“They never meant to hit you, but they hit so hard. They never even saw us on the sidelines. You were caught in between them and didn’t even have a chance to protect yourself.

“I know you’re hurting all over with all the broken bones and everything. But they did save your spleen. She was a really good surgeon who worked on you. I hope you’ll be up and around.

“I wish there were something more I could do for you. I wish you’d wake up so I could talk to you, Abby, but I know you need your rest,” she said. “Please wake up soon.” Weeping, Kelly bent over and kissed Abby on the cheek.

Florence Abernathy, overheard Kelly crying for her daughter, so she stepped outside the room to talk with her mother.

“Cat, I’m worried Kelly might blame herself for what happened to Abby,” Florence told her. “I’ve seen the video of what your daughter tried to do for her. She acted so selflessly. You mustn’t let Kelly blame herself.”

“She really feels bad about it,” replied Catherine very frankly. “Kelly’s already assigned herself blame. We talked earlier and that was clear to me. She’ll have to deal with it now in her own way. All I can do is to reassure her until she does.” At least that was what Catherine hoped. Her daughter had already turned to the bottle and the stress of her friend’s injuries might even have been a cause of her getting caught drinking.

“But she’s injured, too. Kelly didn’t have to risk herself like that. She could’ve been hurt as badly as Abby.”

“I know my daughter, Flo. And I’m not surprised by her actions. That she did it to save a friend makes me feel better about it all.” Actually, the altruism in Kelly’s action was indeed unexpected. But what Catherine knew that did not surprise her was her daughter’s response to impulse. Kelly had acted in the moment without thinking. She might have easily been in a bed next to Abby right then. And that had frightened Catherine and would continue to worry her.

At lunchtime, Billy—or was it Billie?—Danziger sat across the table from his mother, his sister Nancy to his left, her friend Lauren to his right. After shopping for a couple of hours in the morning, they had stopped to eat. Billy’s lunch consisted of half a sandwich and a cup of soup with a diet cola, the same as everyone else in their party. Normally, Billy’s lunch began with twice that, but not today. He could hardly manage the meager meal before him, as it had to share space with a busy swarm of butterflies in his tummy.

No, Billy sat there in the little soup and sandwich shop in the West Grove Mall wearing clothes, shoes, and accessories borrowed from the three women at the table. He felt too anxious to eat his lunch let alone enjoy it. He’d thought that he were as cool as anyone else for a while, but somehow, he could not quite convince himself that dressing like a girl were needed to maintain coolness. If it were he could’ve done so for Gender-Bender Day and that would’ve been the end of it already. Then perhaps, Billy worried, he was not so cool as he thought he was.

“So, Little Brother, how d’you feel?” Nancy asked him.

“How d’you think?” he quipped. “I feel stupid and embarrassed.”

“But Billie, you’re so cute!” Lauren offered her support. “And you have gorgeous legs.” The college freshman had slipped her shoes off and began to run her nylon-clad foot along Billy’s nylon-clad leg. He had to admit to himself that he enjoyed the sensation. He glanced obliquely at Lauren, who made eye contact with him momentarily. She then traced the tip of her tongue along her upper lip and, for a moment, he forgot how he was dressed. Instead, he wondered, was Lauren making a pass at him?

“I think you’re sweet doing this,” said Lauren. “You do look nice as a girl.”

“You’re just saying that to be polite,” he objected. “I’m a dude in a dress.”

“So? A dress is great for showing off legs like yours.”

“But who wants to look at my legs?”

“I do!”

Billy felt Lauren’s foot slide along his leg again, with the same effect that it had before. He gazed into her eyes again, this time a little more intently. Perhaps dressing like this, he mused, was not so bad after all.

“Lauren, do you have a crush on my little brother?” Nancy asked. Her roommate blushed slightly, but Billy, more so. “Or does my little brother have a crush on my roomie?”

Billy only blushed even more deeply as the women at the table giggled. “It’s really okay,” approved Nancy. “I trust my friend Lauren to take care of my little brother.”

“But that’s not the problem, Nancy,” remarked her mother. “Do you trust Billy to behave with Lauren?”

“Mom!” Nancy objected.

“That’s okay, Nancy,” her roommate demurred. “I’m sufficiently well-behaved for the both of us. Besides, for now I’m only interested in your little sister.”

“What?” Billy exclaimed in surprise.

“You’re much more charming as a girl,” insisted Lauren.

Nurse Fran wheeled Brandon into the small conference room where his meeting was to take place. A nearly elliptical table but with squared-off ends occupied the center of the room. Left to right on the far side of the table sat Anne Pettigrew, Theresa Windham, and Blaise Devereaux, respectively. The nurse bade him sit in the chair next to his mother, Libby, opposite Dr. Pettigrew. Elizabeth was sitting across from Theresa while Nathan sat next to her, across from Dr. Devereaux. Theresa Windham would preside informally over the meeting.

“Now, I’d like to explain why we’re all here,” began Dr. Windham. “This is first and foremost about you, Brandon, and how we can help you.”

“Is it so bad that all of you have to be here?” he asked, overwhelmed by so many gathered in the small room. “I kinda feel like you’re all ganging up on me.”

Dr. Windham smiled to reassure the boy. “Brandon, each person here was involved in diagnosing your illness and that includes both you and your parents. And everyone here has a role in helping you get better, and again that includes you and your parents. So we’re all here as a team. But don’t let the size of the team frighten you. We may even ask others to join the team if needed.”

“So, does that make you my coach?” Brandon asked.

“Oh, you might think of me that way,” replied the boy’s psychiatrist, smiling to encourage his further engagement in the process. “I’ll be doing many of the things for you that a coach might do. The most important will be to help you find and follow a winning strategy.”

“And this is all because of the panic attack I had from the nightmares?” Brandon inquired.

“Believe it or not, it has little or even nothing to do with your panic attack,” asserted his father. “Teri agreed that I had made the right call on that, myself. But she noticed something else while she was talking with you yesterday.”

“Does it involve the transgender or androgyny problem we were talking about, then?”

“No, it doesn’t really involve that, either,” continued Dr. Windham.

“Then what?” Brandon pressed his inquiry as he became increasingly anxious about the reason for the meeting. “Are you saying there’s something else wrong with me?”

“You have a condition that, until recently, we called Asperger’s Syndrome,” Dr. Windham told him. “It’s new name is Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level One. That’s why I asked Doctor Pettigrew and Doctor Devereaux to give you the tests that they did.”

Dr. Pettigrew entered the discussion. “When I gave you the Wechsler this morning, your scores on certain of the subtests were consistent with Asperger’s Syndrome,” explained Anne. “So Teri called Doctor Devereaux and asked him to follow-up with the interview questionnaires for you and your parents. He’s an internationally recognized expert on the diagnosis and treatment of the condition.”

“My review of ze notes of your case by ze Doctor Windham, ze neurologie report, your scores from ze tests, an’ my interviews wiss you an’ your parents,” Dr. Devereaux recounted in his heavy French accent, “zey all confirm ze diagnosis of an autism.”

“Brandon, we all care about you and want to help you as best we can,” his mother told him.

“But what is it?” Brandon wondered to everyone there. “Why do you think I have it?”

Dr. Windham leaned forward across the table. “You have a very mild form of Autism Spectrum Disorder. You have problems reading social and emotional cues, and that, in turn, causes you difficulty in establishing social and personal relationships.”

“Are you talking about why I don’t have many friends?”

“In a word, yes,” affirmed his father. “Although there’s more involved than that. Do you remember why your mom wanted you to take ballet lessons with your sister?”

“Because I was really clumsy.”

“That’s actually a symptom of Asperger’s Syndrome,” explained Dr. Windham. “Your parents must’ve been worried that your physical development was lagging behind what it should’ve been. Now, you didn’t want ballet, so you took gymnastics instead?”

“Yeah.”

“Bohs ze ballet an’ ze gymnastique are good to treat ze clumsiness of Asperger’s Syndrome,” asserted Dr. Devereaux. “Ze folk dance, ze ballroom dance, an’ ze martial arts are good, also. All zese activities require repeating a choréographie. Zis is good for ze neuromusculaire development.”

“Well, at least I’m not so clumsy anymore.”

“So zen it works,” concluded Blaise Devereaux, smiling. “I’m ’oping zat we might ’elp you, also, wiss ze social an’ z’emotional problems.”

“But since I got over the clumsiness, what makes you think I still have this?”

“You still have deficits in your social development,” replied Dr. Windham. “And as you yourself noted, your circle of friends remains quite small. Also, you have deficits in your own emotional development as well as your ability to understand others’ emotional responses. You need to learn how better to observe the feelings of others as well as to express your own. You also need to learn to read cues to social behavior.”

“Am I that bad?” Brandon asked.

“Seems like you are, son,” said his mother, reaching around him with her left arm and smiling. “But that’s why we’re here—to help you get well.”

Catherine popped the trunk open as soon as she saw her husband Brian emerge from the airport terminal. He flashed his always warm smile as he directed the skycap towards their car. Brian carried his own briefcase and laptop bag, while the skycap pushed the rack holding a week’s worth of luggage ahead. Quickly, the young man loaded the trunk of the car under Brian’s supervision. The skycap shut the trunk and Brian discreetly handed him a folded ten-dollar bill as a tip. Brian himself put his briefcase and computer inside the car, in the footwell of the back seat. He then sat on the passenger side of the front, but first leaned across to offer Cat a kiss, which she met halfway.

“How was your trip?” Catherine asked him.

“Fruitful and multiplied,” he chuckled in response. “Yesterday I received a check for more than I earned my first year out of law school. Not bad for a week’s effort. It seems almost unreal. How about you?”

“Principal witness for a case I’m hearing got sick and passed out on the stand Thursday, so I sent everyone home,” recounted the judge. “Then, the attorneys for both sides came down with it yesterday, so I’ve postponed the hearing for another week.”

“How’s the home front?”

“In a word, Kelly’s discovering that life’s challenges can be dangerous and threatening as well as confusing and disappointing.”

“Oh? What happened?”

“Quite a few things, honey,” replied the wife and mother.

“Good, bad, smart, stupid?” Brian asked.

“All over the map I fear,” warned Catherine. “What order would you like them in?”

“Oh—chronological is best whenever Kelly’s concerned,” he answered. “So tell me.”

“When I arrived home after calling the recess in the aforementioned hearing, Kelly had already been home awhile on her bed, sobbing. Brandon MacDonald apparently began dating someone else and Kelly’s heart-broken over him.”

“So she still has a crush on him?” Brian asked for confirmation. “But can’t he see that she’s adored him since they first met?”

“Well, to answer your first question, yes. And as for the second, I think that everyone who’s ever met them knows except Brandon himself,” observed Catherine. “He’s always seemed oblivious to Kelly’s feelings. I do wonder sometimes if there’s something not quite right with him, but psychology is hardly my field of expertise.”

“Are you suggesting that he simply hasn’t noticed her after all this time?”

“In a word, yes! Consider the evidence and ask yourself, what does it tell you about him?”

“But he’s always seemed such a bright, intelligent boy.”

“And that, too, is evidence.”

“Continue, please.”

“Well, I consoled her for a few minutes during which I thought I might’ve noticed a whiff of alcohol on her breath, but I wasn’t certain of it until today.”

“Alcohol?”

“Please wait!” Catherine advised her husband. “I have more to tell you about that, but let’s focus on it after you hear the rest. As serious as it is, Kelly does not regard it as her worst offense.”

“She thinks something else is worse than drinking?”

“Yes, Brian,” she affirmed. “And her concern about it is quite real and legitimate, so—let me continue. After consoling her, the ’phone rang. Her guidance counselor called to apprise me that Kelly had skipped her afternoon classes. Of course, I already knew that, but it gave me a chance to talk with Doctor van de Meer about Kelly and we agreed that she’s become somewhat restless and anxious in her classes. She may need a less traditional approach to at least some of her education.

“Then yesterday, Kelly showed the very best and the very worst of her character, almost at the same time. First, she was elected Freshman Homecoming Princess. Now, she wanted Brandon to be her escort, but he had been rushed to Saint Luke’s earlier in the morning. When she heard that, the news broke her heart, and she passed the crown to another girl so she could continue cheerleading at the game.

“Then at the Homecoming game, a pass play went over the sidelines and her teammate Abby was caught in the collision between the receiver and a linebacker. Kelly rushed to her friend’s aid but was caught in the fray herself, trying to get Abby away from it. She couldn’t stop Abby from getting hurt. Now, Abby’s in Saint Luke’s with multiple fractures and a ruptured spleen. For her efforts, our daughter has a broken wrist.”

“Oh!” Brian whined at the apparent unfairness of the situation.

“Anyway, Kelly kept her wits about her and brought Abby’s purse along for the ride in the ambulance. When they arrived, Kelly helped with the paperwork for Abby’s admission and insurance and then got through to her parents to secure permission for surgery. Nate MacDonald told me that her doing so gave the surgeon the time she needed to save Abby’s spleen. And all this before she had attended to her own injury.

“But I think it was all too much for her, because then Nate caught her in the waiting room with a bottle of peppermint schnapps. And she tried to cover her breath up with hard peppermint candy.”

“That sounds like something you or I might’ve tried at that age,” chuckled Brian.

Catherine smiled and nodded at his remark as she recalled a few of her own youthful antics. Then she resumed her account. “Anyway, Nate had her stay overnight for observation of possible hidden injuries and also referred her to a psychiatrist to discuss her alcohol abuse.”

“So she’s already getting something done about it?” Brian asked.

“Doctor Windham, her psychiatrist, has talked with me about getting her counseling for alcohol abuse, but she also says that Kelly is more likely self-medicating for another reason. So, she wants to continue meeting with Kelly in case there’s a deeper problem. And there may be.”

“Like what?”

“Honey, you may not like hearing this, but it’s not our first time dealing with it.”

“Please don’t tell me she’s like Maureen,” sighed Brian.

“This morning, Kelly said that she thinks she’s a lesbian,” affirmed Catherine.

“Is this maybe because she couldn’t get Brandon’s interest?” Brian hoped.

“Possibly, but I doubt it,” she tried to assess the situation for her husband. “It’s more likely what we call a ‘girl crush’ or she may indeed be lesbian or bisexual. Only Kelly can really know that. She’s just fourteen and is for the first time really beginning to explore life and herself. We have to trust her to find out who she is. We’ll have to let her ask us for help when she needs it.”

“Still, am I wrong to hope that our kids grow up with something like normal sexuality?” Brian inquired, the disappointment audible in his voice.

“Not so long as you can accept the sexuality that they actually have as adults,” concluded Catherine. “Look at how proud Maureen has made us. Does anything about her sexuality change what she’s given back to us?”

“No, I guess not,” Brian’s replied pensively. “She’s a good girl—the best, really. Have you told Kelly about Maureen yet?”

“No, because I believe it will mean more to them both if Maureen tells her,” Catherine explained. “Besides, if Kelly is lesbian, she couldn’t have a better role model than her older sister. Maureen has asked to bring her partner along for Thanksgiving and that may help, too.”

“Speaking of which, I have surprise news about our son,” announced Brian, smiling.

“You heard from Connie?” Catherine beamed.

“More than that, honey,” he told her. “I went to an evening performance he gave yesterday and took him and his new girlfriend to dinner.”

“What?”

Brian smiled at his wife. “Yesterday afternoon, since he knew I’d still be in New York, Connie left me a voicemail that he and his girlfriend Constance would be performing an evening concert at the Ninety-Second Street “Y.” She’s a ’cellist and they played Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin, ’Cello, and Orchestra in B-flat Major. We were able to meet up far enough in advance of the concert, so I treated them to dinner.”

“Her name is Constance?”

“Yes, and like our son, she also goes by ‘Connie’.”

“Omigosh!” Catherine exclaimed laughing. “Well, what kind of girl is she?”

She’s Asian—Korean ancestry to be specific—athletic, petite, polite, and very intelligent,” Brian described her. “I found her quite well-informed about business and economics, world affairs, and current events in general.”

“How well do you think Connie likes her?”

“You know he’s not easy to read when it comes to girlfriends, but I got the feeling that they’re better suited to one another than any of the girls he went with in high school. If he's serious about her, I’d be happy enough, I think.”

“Sounds like she impressed you?”

“Yes, she did. And I’m just as impressed that Connie would consider someone like her. If nothing else, he’s showing growth since he’s been in Philadelphia.”

“That’s good to hear,” Catherine concurred with her husband. Then she reprised an earlier topic: “We need to figure out how to punish Kelly’s alcohol abuse.”

Brian thought for a moment. “Do we ground her? But that’s almost a cliché.”

“No ‘almost’ about it!” Catherine declared. “It is a cliché and it hardly achieves anything. I’d rather have a family hearing and allow her to present her case. As serious as this is, I think some formality is needed.”

“I agree with you there.”

“And instead of grounding her, I’d prefer a constructive punishment, more suitable to the offense.”

“Sounds like you have something in mind already?”

“I do,” his wife admitted. “I’d like her to spend some time in a soup kitchen on Skid Row. She needs to see what alcohol can do to people and she has other issues that the experience may help her with as well.”

“Other issues?” Brian inquired.

“Kelly and I had a very frank talk at the hospital this morning,” disclosed Catherine. “Our daughter is such a paradox, Brian. The selfish princess battles the selfless angel, and the fun, silly girl competes with the responsible, thoughtful young woman. And she’s quite aware of these contradictory forces within herself. She’s just as fragile as she is strong.”

“Perhaps I need to sit down to talk with her myself?” Brian asked himself more than his wife. “Time for a father-daughter dinner?”

“She may really need one right now,” surmised Catherine. “It might help assure her that we still care.”

“I’d like that, myself,” agreed Brian. “I won’t need to take another case right away, so I can take more time for Kelly and Caitlin as well.”

Catherine smiled as she prepared to enter the highway from the airport road. “Home first, you can clean up from your trip, we can pick Caitlin up, and get to Saint Luke’s to see Kelly.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Brian approved as his wife accelerated up to speed on the entrance ramp and drove onto the highway.