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he was getting ready to exit the cubicle, Mr. Obnoxious added over his shoulder,
    “If you need a ride home …”
    “We don’t. Thanks.” With hirn and his partner? He had to be kidding. She’d sooner ride with a pair of investigators from the Spanish Inquisition. “There’s someone I can call. But thanks.”
    “You’re sure?” Still he hesitated.
    “]’in sure.”
    “We’ll be in touch, then.”
     
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    KAREN ROBARDS
    They left, the curtaMs fluttering in their wake. Grace was glad to see thern go. Ever since the first one had arrived on her doorstep, their poor opinion of her as a mother had been a palpable thing.
    She didn’t need it. She felt bad enough about her mothering skills on her own.
    Grace sighed. Looking back at her daughter, who to all appearances was now truly asleep, she had to ask herself again: where had she gone wrong?
    Jessica looked like her, Her face, with its high cheekbones, wide mouth, and-the bane of her existence-long nose with the slight bump in its bridge, was identical enough to Grace’s so that casual observers had no trouble determining that they were mother and daughter. Her alniond-shaped, thick-lashed blue eyes were Grace’s to the life. The pointy chin was her own, though, as was the scattering of freckles across her nose.
    With aching fondness, Grace’s gaze traced the butterfly pattern they made. Angel kisses, was how Grace had described them not so many years ago to a little girl who had come crying to her mother over what some other little girl had tauntingly called dirty brown spots all over her face.
    Jessica had been entranced with the idea of angel kisses. She had gone back to the other girl and told her, smugly, that the brown spots meant she was special, because the angels loved her best of all.
    Grace had secretly agreed.
    But the face Grace knew better than she knew her own was that of a young woman now. Grace could not kiss all her hurts and make them better. Grace could
    THE MiDNIGHT HOUI
    43
    ‘lot spill falry tdes to keep the sometimes harsh realities of libe at bay,
    She couldn’t make the diabetes disappear, or take it on herself. In that regard, all the mother’s love in the world did not change a thing.
    What she could do was remind herself that the specters of kidney failure and blindness and I imb amputations that so terrified her were just that-specters. Grim ghosts of frightening future possibilities that did not have to be.
    Jessica had the power to prevent them from becoming reality. Grace couldn’t do it for her. Jessica had to do it for herself.
    So the question became, would Jessica take care of Jessica Sometimes it seemed that she d
    eliberately went out of her way to do the opposite. Until now, Grace had thought that the incidents that had brought on the various crises Jess had experienced since being diagnosed were the result of youthful carelessness.
    Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. I For the first time occurred to Grace to wonder:
    was defying the restrictions imposed on her by her illness the ultimate act of teenage rebellion against her mother?
    Oh, God, she hoped not,
    Jessica stirred and her fingers moved trustingly in her mother’s hold, Watching her, Grace’s throat ached with the pain of unshed tears.
    The curtains parted, attracting her attention, distracting her from her daughter and her thoughts. A thin, bespectacled man in a white lab coat entered the cubicle. A stethoscope hung around his neck, and he
     
    44
    KAREN ROBARDS
    carried a manila file folder that almost certainly containedJessica’s medical chart.
    “Mrs. Hart?” Grace nodded.
    “I’m Dr. Corey. It looks like we have quite a problem here.
    Cbapter
    6
    L OU OKAY, MAN?- Dominick Marino asked, clap—
    lping a hand on his brother’s shoulder as they stepped through the hospital’s wide double doors into the blessed freshness of the night. The moon, small and pale at such a distance, floated high overhead, veiled by moving wisps of clouds. Tiny stars pocked