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relax.” Bite the bullet meant calling her mother. She didn’t expect
Tamara to pick up on that. “Actually, there is something you could
do for me, but tomorrow would be fine.”
    Tamara nodded, her young face reflecting
concern.
    The words backed up in Diana’s throat, but
she pushed them forward. “Could you … call a charity for a pickup
at my home? I have some furniture … I thought maybe a needy family
… could … could …. ” Diana felt tears coming.
    “Of course. I’ll take care of it.” Tamara
gave her arm a little squeeze; then hurried out the door. Diana
knew she didn’t have to tell her that it was the nursery
furniture.
    At her desk, Diana sorted through phone
messages, placed to one side the three from her mom. Greg had
called. So had a family law attorney they both knew. Hmmm. Could be
that Greg had retained him for the divorce? Two clients had called
regarding the progress on their respective cases. Diana was glad
she had some answers for both of them. Getting up-to-speed. Slowly,
but getting there.
    She paused as the name of the next caller
prickled her brain. Darren Rogart. Why would Joe Flannigan’s
son-in-law call her before a custody suit had even been filed? How
did he know Flannigan had retained her?
    The apparent answer set her temples pulsing.
Sometimes Jess could really be a pain in the ass. In this frame of
mind, Diana picked up the phone, punched in her mother’s number and
braced herself for the bullet.
    “Hello.” Neutral tone. Her parents didn’t
have caller ID.
    “Mom?” said Diana in the tentative voice she
hated. The one that always came out then she talked with her
mother.
    “Thank goodness. We’ve been worried sick. Why
haven’t you returned my calls?”
    This bullet was going to taste like shit.
“Mom, I … ”
    “Why is your voicemail message changed? Both
your home and your office messages are different.”
    Greg’s name had been deleted. Where would she
start? With the Greg thing or … or ….
    “Has something happened to Greg?” Panic
cranked her mother’s voice up a notch.
    Diana ground her teeth, her anger so hot that
she no longer felt any physical pain. “Yes, Mother. Something
happened to Greg.” She could hear a little hiss of breath on the
other end of the line. “I caught my secretary giving him a blow
job, so I kicked his ass out.” There. That should either shut her
up or give her a coronary.
    “Well … that’s not exactly … ”
    “If you tell me that’s not having sex─not the
same as fucking her, I’ll hang up.”
    “Diana, you know how I feel about strong
language.”
    “I guess it depends on who’s using it, Mother. ”
    Several little hisses this time. Then, “But
the baby. They say what babies hear from the womb─”
    “Mother, stop it. I lost the baby.”
    Silence. Then, “What?”
    “You’re not hard of hearing. And you’re not
going to make me repeat it.” Tears flowed hotly down her cheeks.
The feeling of having screwed up again in her mother’s eyes weighed
on her heart. So much for dignity and self-assurance.
    “No baby?” A long-suffering sigh from her
mother’s end of the conversation. Diana was not about to answer.
She was not going to say it again. Her worth on this earth had just
evaporated.
    “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” The whine of
the self-righteous. “Now I can’t get a refund on the plane ticket.”
She’d insisted on coming out for the baby’s birth.
    Mother, I had surgery. You could come out
and take care of me. The need for nurture had crept in,
unbidden. She could even have used a few words of pity─not to
wallow in─just some comfort.
    “Diana,” her mother’s voice took on an
accusatory tone, “you didn’t do something to lose the
baby?”
    Do something? What kind of mind would
ask a question like that? What kind of mother?
    Diana hung up. Let her think whatever it was
her sick brain conjured up.
    Through the ringing in her ears, another
sound surfaced: the door to her