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any reason. Especially not a bullshit one.”
    The next morning, when Lon wasn’t around, I opened the #1659 file on my laptop. Our fertility bank hadn’t shared pictures of our donor as an adult, but we’d been able to look at him as a kid. I hadn’t checked out the photo for a while. There he was at seven, the contributor of half my son’s genetic material. And it showed. The hair as pale as buttercream, the light eyes, the pigeon-toed stance that had made my toddler trip over his own feet. And I got good with that.
    Here’s where the miracle really happened. Within a year, Jack’s walk had taken on Lon’s California cowboy swagger. By the time he was eight, he’d developed a beautiful singing voice that my mother-in-law swore was identical to Lon’s when he’d been a choirboy at Saint Dominic’s. For Jack’s tenth birthday we went on a fishing trip to Lake Tahoe, and one night, under an ink black sky sprayed with stars, Lon spun the story, in ways only a man brilliant with words could, of a most-wanted son and how he came to be. When he was finished, Jack said, “No kidding. Wow. That is so cool.”
    The questions came later. Mostly for me, because within the year, Lon was dead.
    What reminded me of this, after more than a decade, was seeing Jack pace the beach as he talked into his iPhone that Friday morning in June. Lon had done that. Back and forth, back and forth, on the conversations with his editor when sales of his last book were flagging and he’d begun to refer to himself as Henrik Hasbeen. Back and forth, when his mother called to say his dad had been diagnosed with cancer.
    As I watched from the deck, Jack walked his endless loop, his free hand slapping a quick tattoo against his thigh the way Lon’s had done. And after Jack jammed the phone in his pocket, he sat down on the flat of Mooncussers Rock and sank his head in his hands. I’d never seen that before. From Lon, yes, during what he called “the bog times.” But not from Jack.
    My instinct was to make it better, whatever
it
was. Kids grow up, but parents don’t outgrow the need to chase monsters, soothe nightmares. The desire to rush to my son was almost irresistible.
    No. Let him fall.
The phrase was one I’d learned from a pioneering movement-analysis professor in grad school. It was the mantra I repeated silently when one of my clients swayed wildly on a damaged leg or a new prosthesis.
Steady him if you can. But if he’s out of control, don’t try to catch him.
You’re no good to him if you go down. And, worst case, even if he hits the floor, it won’t be as hard as his fear of the fall. And he’ll get up stronger and wiser.
    I made myself wait on the deck until I saw Jack raise his head. Then I took the stairs slowly and, forcing a measured tempo, walked along the path to the beach. When I reached him, he was staring at the ocean, his arms wrapped around his knees. And he was laughing.

chapter four

    Walking on sand in bare feet makes no sound and Jack hadn’t heard me approach, but when my shadow merged with his, he looked over at me and that single glance switched off his laughter.
    I gulped a relieved breath. I thought he’d been bent over in anguish, but he’d been laughing.
See,
I told myself.
See, Nora. You worry too much.
    â€œGood phone call?” I asked brightly.
    â€œA funny call,” he said, gazing again at the ocean. “Not as in stand-up funny. Surprising funny. Good? I guess we’ll see.”
    â€œTiffanie?”
    That slipped out. I tried to be Switzerland when it came to her. Neutral. At least with Jack, because (a) I got more information that way and (b) she might, God forbid, be my daughter-in-law one day. But he had to have known what I thought of her. When he’d dated that sweet Carrie back in tenth grade, the one who made it to the semifinals of the
Jeopardy!
Teen Tournament, I sent the