Shakespeares Christmas Page 0,15

just as Lou had predicted. Krista was in a whiny mood.

"Luke cried all night," she said sullenly when someone asked her for the third time where her brother was.

"Oh, Krista!" one of the other bridesmaids said disapprovingly. Varena's lifelong best friend, Tootsie Monahan, was blond and round-faced and low on brain cells. "How can you say that about a little kid like Luke? Toddlers are so cute."

I saw Krista's face flush. Tootsie was pushing the old guilt button hard. I'd been leaning against the wall in the living room. I shoved off and maneuvered myself closer to the little girl.

"Varena cried all night when she was baby," I told Krista very quietly.

Krista looked up at me unbelievingly. Her round hazel eyes, definitely her best feature, fastened on me with every appearance of skepticism. "Did not," she said tentatively.

"Did too." I nodded firmly and drifted into the kitchen, where I managed to sneak Krista some sort of carbonated drink that she really enjoyed. She probably wasn't supposed to have it. Then I wandered around the house, from time to time retreating to my room and shutting the door for ten minutes. (That was the length of time, I'd found from trial and error, before someone missed me and came to see how I was, what I was doing.)

Varena popped her head in my door about 12:45 to ask me if I'd go with her to the doctor's. "I need to go in to pick up my birth-control pill prescription, but I want Dr. LeMay to check my ears. The right one is feeling a little achy, and I'm scared it'll be a full-blown infection by the wedding day. Binnie said come on in, he'd see me before the afternoon patients stacked up."

One of the perks of being a nurse was the quick in-and-out you got at the local doctors' offices, Varena had told me years ago. As long as I could remember, Varena had suffered from allergies, which frequently caused ear infections. She had always developed them at the most inconvenient times. Like four days before her wedding.

I followed her out to her car with a sense of release. "I know you need to get out of the house," Varena said, giving me a little sideways glance. We pulled out of the driveway and began the short hop to Dr. LeMay's office.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Only to someone who knows you," Varena said ruefully. "Yes, Lily, it's like seeing a tiger in a cage at the zoo. Back and forth, back and forth, giving all the people who walk by that ferocious stare."

"Surely not that bad," I said anxiously. "I don't want to upset them."

"I know you don't. And I'm glad to see you caring."

"I never stopped."

"You could have fooled me."

"I just didn't have the extra ..." Staying sane had taken all the energy I had. Trying to reassure other people had been simply impossible.

"I think I understand, finally," Varena said. "I'm sorry I brought it up. Mom and Dad know, better than me, that you care about them."

I was being forgiven for something I hadn't done, or at least had done only in Varena's opinion. But she was making an effort. I would make an effort, too.

Dr. LeMay was still based in the same little building in which he'd practiced medicine his entire career, all forty years of it. He must be nearing retirement age, his nurse Binnie Armstrong, too. They'd been a team for twenty-five years, I figured.

Varena pulled into one of the angled parking spots, and we went down the narrow sidewalk to the front door. A matching door, the one that had been labeled "Blacks Only" at the beginning of Dr. LeMay's practice, had been replaced by a picture window. In the past five years, a set of bars had been installed across the vulnerable glass. Kind of wrapped up Bartley's history in a nutshell, I decided.

The door had been painted blue to match the eaves, but the paint had already chipped to show a long-familiar shade of green underneath. I twisted the knob and pushed, stepping in ahead of Varena.

The little building was oddly silent. No phones ringing, no copier running, no radio playing, no piped-in music.

I turned to look at my sister. Something was wrong. But Varena's gaze slid away from mine. She wasn't going to admit it, yet.

"Binnie!" she called too cheerfully. "Lily and I are here! Come see her." She stared at the closed door on the other side of the waiting room, the