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from one problem to another, shoring up one excuse with another until so much of him had disappeared into his defensiveness that she'd sometimes wondered if there was anything left of the man she had married.
    Nobody, to hear him tell it, had ever given him a decent break; not his parents, who had split up when he was a baby, or any of the people he'd worked for. And certainly not his aunt Cora, who had been in this room through most of his life, becoming nothing more to him than a burden of guilt he'd always resented. But now it was almost over.
    "She's dying, Ted," Janet repeated softly, her eyes meeting his. "I know how you feel about her, but all she wants to do is say goodbye." For a moment she wondered if he'd heard her, but then he gently stroked her cheek with a single finger, in a gesture she hadn't felt in years.
    "Hey, I know I'm not always the easiest guy in the world to get along with, but I'm not a monster, okay?"
    "Last night you said-"
    "Last night I had a lot top much to drink. And I'm not going to pretend I didn't pay for it this morning, and made you and the kids pay for it, too." He forced a smile that Janet sensed was masking pain he couldn't let her see. "I'm not going to try to even any scores," he promised. "It's way too late for that."
    The door to Cora Conway's room opened and a priest emerged. He was ancient, his face deeply creased, his shoulders stooped as if with the weight of the decades of confessions he'd heard. From the waist of his cassock hung the beads of a rosary, and in his arms he cradled a Bible that looked even older than he, the finish of its leather cover long ago worn away by the hands of those who studied it, the binding of its spine weakened-but not quite broken-from constant use. As he pulled the door closed behind him, almost as if to shut out his penitent's final visitors, his eyes fixed on Ted. His mouth worked as if he were about to speak, but then his lips closed and he turned away. With a step so halting he seemed about to fall, the priest made his way down the hall and disappeared around the corner.
    Only when he'd vanished did Ted grasp the handle of his aunt's door. A moment later he stepped into Cora Conway's room, Janet closely following him.
    Both of them smelled death in the air. It seemed they were too late; surely no life could remain in the still and shrunken figure that lay in the bed.
    Cora's wispy hair was matted against her scalp, and her eyes were shut. Her left hand lay in her lap, but her right was closed on an object suspended from a chain around her neck.
    There was a stillness to the room, a heavy silence that made Janet slip her hand into Ted's.
    Another gesture that hadn't occurred in recent years.
    Then, out of the stillness, there was a rasping gurgle.
    Cora Conway's chest rose as she sucked air into her weak lungs, and her rheumy eyes opened.
    She blinked.
    Finally her eyes moved, slowly scanning the room, as if she were searching for something.
    At last they came to rest on Ted Conway. "Stay away," she gasped, her voice barely audible. "Stay away from here."
    Instantly, Janet stepped around Ted and lay her hand on the old woman's shoulder. "It's all right, Aunt Cora. Everything is going to be all right."
    The old woman's collapsed lips worked as she struggled to formulate words. "The children," she finally managed to whisper. "I want to see the children." Janet hesitated, gazing down into the ruined face of the dying woman, but Cora's eyes locked onto her own, and the old woman's left hand closed on her wrist. "Bring them," Cora whispered. The words, though barely audible, were not a plea. Rather, they were a command. "Bring them to me!"
    Still Janet hesitated. In all the years she and Ted had been married, they'd visited Cora Conway only half a dozen times. The visits had been brief, for Ted's aunt had invariably commanded him to leave-just as she had today. The last two times Janet had come, she hadn't even tried to convince Ted to join her.
    She