would be lying in them. "Would you like a drink? Coffee, or hot chocolate? Though maybe those things aren't good for the baby." My friend Lizanne was breast-feeding; and, though I hadn't asked, she'd generously given me a very thorough grounding on the subject. After being indoctrinated with Lizanne's opinions on the virtues of, and necessity for, mother's milk, I was taken aback when Regina gave me a blank look.
"Huh? No, I'm bottle-feeding," she said, after a pause. "Gosh, if I nursed him, it'd have to be me that fed him every time."
I kept a smile planted on my face. "So, some coffee?"
"Please." She slumped back. "I've been driving for hours." She had driven all the way from Ohio. This was very strange, and getting stranger.
I brewed some coffee, shuddering at Regina's protest that instant would have been fine. After I'd poured a cup for each of us, adding cream and sugar to Martin's niece's, I listened to Regina blather about the long drive, the baby, her mother's condo, her Aunt Cindy...
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she apologized. "I shouldn't have said anything." "Aunt Cindy" was Martin's first wife, the mother of his only child, Regina's cousin Barrett. I sighed internally, still kept my smile pasted on, and assured Regina that she needn't apologize. A little corner of my brain repressed an urge to ask Regina why she wasn't at Aunt Cindy's instead of Uncle Martin's, if Aunt Cindy was so great.
"Did you see Barrett on TV the other night?" Regina said enthusiastically. "Boy, didn't he look handsome? I always call all my friends when Barrett's going to be on television."
Regina was digging at all my sore - or rather, sensitive - spots. Barrett had not come to our wedding. He'd been up for a big part, he'd told his dad, the implication clear that a new part for Barrett was more important than a new wife for his father.
And he hadn't visited Lawrenceton in the three-plus years Martin had lived here. But he'd found the time to come to Regina's wedding, where he'd managed to dodge us with an almost unbelievable agility. Martin had told me he'd had a drink with Barrett in the hotel bar after I'd gone up to bed the night before the wedding, and that had been the contact he'd had with his son - whose career he'd been subsidizing.
I was beginning to wish Martin's only niece had stayed in Ohio. I was also beginning to puzzle at the reason behind her visit. She was being mighty evasive.
"Regina," I said, when she'd finished blathering about Barrett's career, "I'm delighted that you came to visit, but this evening, just for a couple of hours, may be a little awkward. Your uncle and I have a long-standing dinner engagement, and though we could call and tell the Lowrys we have to take a rain check, I'm afraid - " Regina, who happened to be holding the baby (Hayden, I reminded myself), looked up with something approaching alarm. "You two go on like you had planned. I'll be fine here. Just point me at the microwave and I'll be glad to fix my own supper. After all, I just appeared on your doorstep." It seemed to me - almost - that Regina was anxious to get us out of the house. I could feel my eyebrows draw together in a frown. "Excuse me a minute," I said. Regina, her attention focused on the baby, gave me an absent nod.
I went across the hall into the room we'd decorated as a study and a television room. Plucking the cordless phone from its stand, I plumped down on the red leather couch in front of the windows. Madeleine, the cat that lived with us, emerged from her favorite private place, the basket where we put newspapers after we'd read them. While I was punching in numbers with one hand, I was tickling Madeleine's head with the other. One part of my mind noted that I'd have to get Madeleine out of the study before Martin got home. He and the cat enjoyed a hate-hate relationship. It had started with Madeleine deciding Martin's Mercedes was her basking site of choice, especially when the ground was muddy and she could leave some nice footprints on the hood and windshield. Martin had retaliated by parking the Mercedes in the garage and closing the door every night. Since it was then her move in their little game, Madeleine (who ordinarily couldn't be bothered) caught a