"I had to come to New York for that meeting anyway, so I thought I might as well do it. I hope to hell they don't want to talk about the lawsuit. My agent already told them I didn't want to, for whatever that's worth." And then she remembered an invitation she wanted to extend to Mary Stuart. "I have a friend who opened in a play here last week. They said it's pretty good, and she got great reviews. They're going to run it through the summer and see how it does, and if they do okay, they're going to run it through next winter. I'll get you tickets if you want. But she's giving a party tomorrow night, and I said I'd go. If you want to come, I'd love to take you. Would Bill enjoy something like that? He's welcome too, I just didn't know if it was his cup of tea, or if he'd be too busy." Or if he was currently speaking to Mary Stuart.

"You sweetheart." Mary Stuart smiled at her, Tanya always brought so much sunshine and excitement into her life. It reminded her of over twenty years before. It was always Tanya who rallied everyone, got them all going on some crazy project she had, or made everyone have fun, sometimes in spite of themselves. But she couldn't see Bill being willing to do that. They hadn't gone out in months, except for business purposes, and he was working late every night now, getting ready for London. He was leaving in two weeks for the rest of the summer, but she hoped that at the end of her trip, with Alyssa, they would spend a weekend at Claridge's in London, visiting him. But he had already told her he would be too busy to have them stay any longer. And after that, Mary Stuart was flying back to the States. He said he'd let her know how the trial was going, and if she could come over again to visit. In some ways, it didn't sound too much different to her from what Tony had said to Tanya. And perhaps it wasn't. They both seemed to be losing the men in their lives, and had no way to stop them from going.

"I'm not sure Bill would be able to join us. He's working late every night before he leaves for London for the trial. But I'll ask him."

"Would you want to come without him? She's a nice girl," and then Tanya looked embarrassed. She was acting as though she was an unknown actress. "I should probably tell you it's Felicia Davenport, so you don't faint when you meet her. I've known her for years, and she's really terrific."

"You disgusting name-dropper." Mary Stuart was laughing at her, she was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, and she was taking her first stab at Broadway. Mary Stuart had just read about it in the New York Times New York Times on Sunday. "It's a good thing you told me before I met her. I would have died, you're right. You dummy." They were both laughing as they left the restaurant, and Tanya told her she could let her know about the party in the morning. It was at Felicia's rented town house in the East Sixties. on Sunday. "It's a good thing you told me before I met her. I would have died, you're right. You dummy." They were both laughing as they left the restaurant, and Tanya told her she could let her know about the party in the morning. It was at Felicia's rented town house in the East Sixties.

Tanya dropped Mary Stuart off at her apartment then, and she promised to watch Tanya on the show the next morning, and she hugged her tightly as she left her. "Thanks for tonight, Tan. It's so good to see you." She hadn't even realized how brittle and lonely she was until she saw her friend. She and Bill had barely spoken to each other all year, and she felt like a plant that hadn't been watered. But seeing Tanya had been like standing in a rainstorm getting revitalized again. And she was smiling when she walked into the building with a spring in her step, and nodded at the doorman.

"Good evening, Mrs. Walker," he said, and tipped his hat to her, as he always did. The elevator man told her Bill had come in just a few minutes before her. And when she let herself in, she found him in the den, putting away some papers. She was in good spirits, and she smiled at him, as he turned to face her. And he looked startled to see her expression, as though they had both forgotten what it was like to have a good time, to be with friends, to talk to each other.

"Where were you?" He looked surprised. She looked like an entirely different person, and he couldn't imagine where she'd been at that hour, in blue jeans.

"Tanya Thomas is in town, we just had dinner. It was great to see her." She felt like a drunk in church, as she grinned at him, and seemed to have suddenly forgotten the solemnity of the last year, the silence that had sprung up like a wall between them. She felt suddenly too loud, too jovial, and surprisingly awkward with her husband. "I'm sorry to come home so late... I left you a note..." She faltered, feeling herself shrink as she looked at him. His eyes were so cold, his face so expressionless. The handsome, chiseled features that she had loved for so long had turned to stone in the past year, along with everything else about him. He had taken so much distance from her that she couldn't even see him anymore, much less find him. All she could hear was an echo of what had been.

"I didn't see the note." It was a statement more than an accusation. And as she looked at him, she often found herself wishing he weren't still so handsome. He was fifty-four years old, and he was well over six feet tall, with an athletic physique, and a long lean body. He had piercing blue eyes, which had looked like ice for a year now.

"I'm sorry, Bill," she said quietly. She felt as though she had spent a lifetime apologizing to him for something she should never have been blamed for. But she knew he would never forgive her. "I left the note in the kitchen."

"I ate at the office."

"How's it going?" she asked, as he put the rest of his papers in his briefcase.

"Very well, thanks," he said, as though talking to a secretary or a stranger. "We're almost ready. It's going to be a very interesting trial," he said, and then turned off the light in the den, as though to dismiss her. He was carrying his briefcase to their bedroom. It was something he would never have done a year before, and it was a small thing, but it no longer mattered. "I think we're actually going to leave for London a little early." He had said nothing to her until now. He had just made his plans, and that was it, as though he no longer had to consult her. She wanted to know what "early" meant in this case, but she didn't dare ask him. It would probably just annoy him.

If he was leaving early, maybe she would too, although she still didn't have the final details. They had reservations in hotels in Paris, St.-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, San Remo, Florence, and Rome, and they were going to be staying at Claridge's with Bill in London. It was going to be a terrific trip, and after their months apart, Mary Stuart was really looking forward to traveling with her daughter. She had just turned twenty in April. Her birthday was a week before her brother's. And both days had been important to Mary Stuart, And as Bill put down his briefcase and headed for their bathroom to put his pajamas on, Mary Stuart remembered Tanya's invitation, and she told him about it. "I think it's a cocktail party or something. It's being given by Felicia Davenport. Apparently, she's a friend of Tanya's." And at the look on his face, she felt like a fourteen-year-old asking her father to go to the senior prom. He looked appalled that she had even dared to ask him. "I think you might enjoy it. Her new play has gotten rave reviews, and Tanya says she's a nice woman."

"I'm sure that's true, but I have to work late again tomorrow night. This is an enormous case we're preparing, Mary Stuart. I thought you understood that." It was a reproach even more than a refusal, and his tone suddenly annoyed her.

"I do, but you have to admit, it's an unusual invitation. I think we should go." She wanted to do it. She was tired of sitting home and grieving. Seeing Tanya had reminded her there was a whole world out there-even with her own problems, and worries about Tony, her lawsuits, and the tabloids, she wasn't sitting at home, crying in the corner. It had reminded Mary Stuart that there were other options.

"It's out of the question for me," he said firmly, "but you're welcome to go if you want to." He closed the door to the bathroom and when he came out, his wife was waiting for him with a purposeful look.

"I will," she said, with a stubborn look in her eyes, as though she expected him to fight her.

"Will what?" He looked completely confused by what she was saying. And if he didn't know her better, he would have thought she'd been drinking. She was behaving very strangely. "What are you talking about?" he said, looking annoyed, and unaware of the fact that she seemed more relaxed than usual and actually looked very pretty.

"I will go to the party," she said, looking determined.

"Fine. And I will not, as long as you understand that. It'll be fun for you to meet people like that. Tanya certainly seems to have interesting friends, but that's hardly surprising." He seemed to forget about it then, and went to bed with a stack of magazines he needed to glance through for legal and business purposes. There were several articles about some of his clients. And Mary Stuart disappeared into the bathroom, and emerged ten minutes later in a white cotton nightgown. She could have worn chain mail or a hair shirt and he wouldn't have noticed, and she lay in bed quietly while he read, thinking about her conversation with Tanya, and the things she had said about Tony. She wondered if Tanya was right, and if he really would be leaving soon, or if he would stick around and work it out. It seemed so unfair of him not to stand by Tanya, but she seemed resigned to his defection, and almost to expect it. Mary Stuart couldn't help wondering if Tanya should take a less accepting role, and at least try to stop him. It was so easy to look at someone else's life and decide what they should do. She had been completely unable to do it in her own life. In the past year, she had been completely helpless to reverse the tides, or to reach Bill at any time. He was totally beyond her reach, behind a wall of ice that grew thicker and thicker by the moment. She felt as though she hadn't really seen him in months, and she had begun to lose hope of ever reaching him again. She had no idea what they would do about their future. And he was certainly not open to discussion about that either. She had the feeling that if she had even mentioned it to him, he would have acted as though she were crazy. As he had tonight, when she came home with a lighter step, and a smile on her face. He had looked at her as though she came from another planet. It was obvious that laughter was no longer to be tolerated, and any kind of closeness between them was a thing of the distant past. And she only really noticed how bad it had become when she saw them through other people's eyes. Alyssa had looked horrified when she came home at Christmas, and couldn't wait to go back to Paris. And yet, as awful as it was for all of them, Mary Stuart had no idea how to stop it. And Bill didn't want to.

He turned out the light when he finished reading, and said nothing at all to Mary Stuart. She was lying on her side, with her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, wondering if he would ever become human again, if he would ever reach out to her, if anyone would ever care about her, or touch her, or tell her they loved her, or if that was all in the past now. At forty-four, in more ways than one, her life was not only shrinking, it was over.

Chapter 4.

Mary Stuart diligently stayed home to watch Tanya on television the next day, and wanted to leap out of her seat and smash the screen when the interviewer segued from a question about Tanya's childhood in a small town in Texas right to one about the recent rumor linking her to a trainer, and then a snide reference to the lawsuit she'd just been slapped with for sexually harassing an employee. But in spite of Mary Stuart's fury, Tanya handled it gracefully and seemingly with ease and a friendly smile, as she brushed it off as blackmail, and typical fare for the tabloids. But when she came off the set, her arms were glued to her sides, and she felt as though she'd spilled a glass of water under each armpit, not to mention the beginnings of a massive headache.

"So much for daytime TV," she said to the publicity woman who had accompanied her to the set, and escorted her to her next stop, the appointment with the literary agent about doing a book about her life. But in the end the meeting held little appeal for her. All they wanted was sensationalism, not substance. She was sick of all of them by the time she called Jean that afternoon, and found out that she was once again all over the L.A. papers, and there was something in the tabloids about her husband spending a weekend in Palm Springs with an unidentified starlet.

"Was that harlot ?" she asked pointedly, and Jean laughed. It was not a pretty story. Jean read the L.A. piece about the lawsuit to her, and Tanya had to fight back tears as she listened. The ex-bodyguard was claiming that she had taunted him repeatedly by strolling around the house naked when they were alone, which would have made her laugh, if she hadn't been so distressed by the story. "I wish I could remember the last time I was alone in that house," Tanya said, feeling depressed. She could just imagine Tony's reaction. But she declined Jean's offer to read the tabloid story about him to her. She went out and bought it herself after she hung up, and it was a beauty. There was a photograph of him trying to hide from a photographer, and a picture of a young actress Tanya knew, who couldn't have been a day over twenty. But it was also impossible to tell if the photograph had been computerized, and the paper just made it look as though they were together. These days you could never be sure about pictures. But she didn't like it anyway, and although at first she resisted, she eventually called him at the office. She caught him just as he was leaving.

"I gather my name's been up in lights again today," she said, trying to inject a little humor into a dismal situation.

"You could say that. Your friend Leo seems to have a lot to say about you. Have you read it?" he said, sounding really furious and barely able to conceal it from her.

"Jean read it to me. It's all bullshit though. I hope you know that." She sounded very calm, and very much in control, and very Southern.

"I'm not sure what I know anymore, Tan."

"What they wrote about me is no worse than the tabloid story on you and the girl you supposedly took to Palm Springs. They even printed a picture of you," she said, trying to tease him. "And that's not true either. So what's the big deal here?"

There was a long pause, and then he spoke very slowly. "As a matter of fact, it is true. I was going to tell you about it, but I didn't get a chance before you left." She felt as though he had hit her with a club. He had cheated on her, it was in the tabloids and he was admitting it to her. For a long moment, she was silent. She didn't know what to say.

"That's quite a story. What do you expect me to say now?"

"You have a right to be real pissed off, Tan. I wouldn't blame you at all. I think someone tipped them off. I have no idea how they turned up at the hotel. I figured it would hit the papers."

"You're a little too old to be that naive, you know that? You've been around Hollywood long enough to know how it works. Who do you think called them? She did. This is a big coup for her, walking off with Tanya Thomas's husband. Big time, Tony. How could she pass up an opportunity like that?" It was a nasty thing to say, but it was probably true, and he knew it. It hadn't even occurred to him when it happened. And at his end of the phone, there was a long, long silence. "You're a celebrity now, Mr. Goldman. How do you like it?"

"There's not much I can say, Tan."

"No, there isn't. You could have at least been discreet, or taken someone who wouldn't sell out your ass and mine to the tabloids."

"I don't want to play this game with you, Tanya," he said, sounding embarrassed and angry. "I'm moving out tomorrow." There was another long silence, while she nodded and fought back tears.

"Yeah, I figured that," she said hoarsely.

"I can't live like this anymore, being a constant target for the tabloids."

"I don't like it either," she said sadly. "The only difference is you have a choice, I don't."

"I'm sorry for you then," but he didn't sound it. He had turned mean suddenly. He'd gotten caught with his pants down, and he didn't like it. He didn't like playing second fiddle to her, he didn't like being sold out and betrayed and made a fool of. He didn't like any of it, and he couldn't wait to get out of her house and her life, and the spotlight he had been forced into while he was married to her. At first he had wanted it, but when they'd turned the heat up too high, he found he didn't like it.

"I'm sorry, Tan... I didn't want to do it over the phone. I was going to tell you tomorrow when you got home." She nodded, as the tears rolled down her cheeks, and he inquired if she was still there, and she finally answered.

"Yeah, I'm here," more or less, what was left of her. It was all so damn hard, and so unbearably lonely. She had been through so much for so long, been so used and so exploited and treated so unkindly. She had been robbed blind by the manager she'd married, and now Tony didn't have the balls to stick it out after three years, and he was running off to Palm Springs to fuck starlets. Just what did he think the tabloids would do with that? How could he have been so careless and so stupid?

"I'm sorry," he said weakly, but by then it didn't matter.

"I know... never mind... I'll see you when I get back," she said, anxious to get away from him. He had hurt her enough. She didn't have anything else to say. And then she had another thought. "What about Wyoming?"

"Take the kids. It'll be good for them," he said grandly, relieved to be off the hook himself. He was anxious to be off to Europe, and he was taking the same starlet with him.

"Thanks..." And then, "Tony... I'm sorry too..." She started to sob then, and a moment later she hung up the phone. She was still crying when it rang again. She almost didn't answer it, she was sure it was Tony, calling back to see if she was all right. But it wasn't. It was Mary Stuart, and she could hear instantly how upset Tanya was. And through tears, Tanya managed to explain that Tony had just left her. She told her about the two articles, and that Tony had been cheating on her in Palm Springs. It was all tangled and nearly unintelligible, but Mary Stuart managed to figure out what was happening, and insisted she come over. They had plenty of time before the party, if they even went after all. All Tanya wanted to do was go home, but they weren't sending the plane for her until the next morning.

"I want you to come up here for a cup of tea, or a Kleenex, or a glass of water... come on, you. If you don't come, I'll come and get you," Mary Stuart insisted, and Tanya was reluctant but touched by the offer.

"I'm okay." But she sounded anything but convincing while she cried harder.

"No, you're not okay, you liar." And then, the ultimate threat. "If you don't come, I'll call the tabloids," Mary Stuart said firmly, and Tanya laughed.

"You're disgusting," Tanya said, laughing through her tears. "I don't see you for a year, and what do I do, I end up getting divorced in the two days I do finally see you."

"At least I can be here for you. Now come on over, before I call the Enquirer Enquirer and the and the Globe Globe and the and the Star Star, and any others I can find. Do you want me to come and get you, Tan?" she asked gently, but Tanya blew her nose again at the other end.

"No, I'm okay. All right... I'll come over. I'll be there in five minutes." And she was, with uncombed hair, and red eyes and a red nose. But in spite of it all, she still looked gorgeous, as Mary Stuart told her, as she put her arms around her and held her like a child crying in her arms. She had had a lot of practice with Todd and Alyssa, and she was a good mother. She had done a lot of comforting and consoling in twenty-two years. But sadly, not enough for Todd. If she had, things might have been different.

"I can't believe this... it's all fallen apart in about five minutes," Tanya said about her marriage. Except they both knew that it had actually taken a lot longer. Tony had been steaming for a long time, about all the things that irked him in her life, he just hadn't said so. And she realized now that he had been unhappy for a lot longer than she thought. Looking back, she could see all the signals, but she had missed them as they happened.

Mary Stuart made her a cup of tea, despite the heat outside, and Tanya sat down in the immaculate white kitchen and drank it.

"What do you do in this place anyway?" Tanya asked, as she looked around her. "Order out?"

"No, I cook here," Mary Stuart said primly, but with a smile at her friend. Tanya looked battered and bruised, but a little bit better for the comfort. "I just like things clean and organized."

"No," Tanya corrected her. "You like things perfect, and you know it. But it can't always be perfect, sometimes everything is a mess and that's just the way it is, and you can't change that. Maybe you need to accept that. I keep getting the feeling that you're beating yourself up for what happened." It was true, and Tanya wanted more than anything to release her friend from the torment she could still see in her eyes.

"Wouldn't you beat yourself up?" Mary Stuart asked softly. "How could I not blame myself? Bill blames me... I know it... he can't even look at me anymore. We live here like strangers. We're not even enemies anymore... at first we were, there's not even that now."

"Is he coming tonight?" Tanya asked her, feeling sad for both of them. The hands life had dealt them had not been easy. At least not lately.

But Mary Stuart shook her head in answer. "He said he has to work late at the office."

"He's hiding." Like most people, she was wise about everyone's life but her own, but Tanya was also smarter than most people. She just picked lousy husbands.

"I know he is," Mary Stuart said as they wandered to her bedroom. "But I can't find him. I've looked everywhere, and I don't know where he is anymore. It's like Invasion of the Body Snatchers Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There's a man living here, and he looks like Bill, but I know he isn't. But I have no idea where they've put the real one."

"Keep looking," Tanya said, and surprised Mary Stuart with her earnestness. "It's not over till it's over." Somehow Tanya felt they had something worth saving. They'd been married for nearly twenty-two years. That was a long time to walk out on. On the other hand, people did it, and if Mary Stuart never found him again, it was wrong of her to waste her life with him forever, and Tanya knew that. She just hated to see her give up so soon, after everything that had happened to them. And it was so unfair that he should blame Mary Stuart.

"Is that true for you too?" Mary Stuart asked her, as they walked back down the hall toward the living room, past a bunch of closed doors that Tanya suspected were other bedrooms. "It's not over till it's over?"

"I think in my case, it's different," Tanya said with a sigh. "Maybe it never was, or never should have been. But I think it's been over for a while, and I didn't want to see it. I never realized how unhappy he was with all the garbage I can't control. But if that's going to make him crazy, then I can't do anything about it." She still loved him, but she was also smart enough to know when she was defeated. And in some ways, it had never been completely right between them since the beginning and she knew that too, although she would have hated to admit it.

They settled in the living room and talked for a while, and then Tanya got up and said she had to go to the powder room, and Mary Stuart told her where to go. There was a tiny guest bathroom down the hall, on the left, and Tanya walked swiftly toward it. She opened the door, turned on the light, and then gasped. She had opened the wrong door, and she was standing in Todd's bedroom, staring at the trophies and the pictures and the memorabilia all around her. Everything in the room was perfectly in place, and it was as if he was in school, and would be home from Princeton any minute. And as she stood looking at all of it, Tanya didn't hear Mary Stuart come up behind her, or see the look of devastation in her eyes as she looked around her.

"I never come in here anymore," she said in a whisper that made Tanya jump, and she turned to see the ravaged look in her friend's eyes and instinctively put her arms around her. Tanya didn't think she should have left the room that way. It was like a shrine to him, and just knowing it was there, so close to her every day, had to be incredibly painful. There was a wonderful photograph of him on the desk, with two friends from school. Tanya had forgotten how exactly he looked like his mother when he smiled, but now she remembered, and it made her cry to see it.

"Oh, Mary Stuart," she said as tears filled her eyes too, "I'm so sorry... I opened the wrong door, and I just kind of fell in here..."

The boy's mother smiled through her tears and pulled away, standing next to Tanya and staring at the same picture. "He was so wonderful, Tanny... he was such a terrific kid... he always did the right thing... he was always the star, the boy everyone wanted to be, the kid everyone fell in love with..." There were tears slowly rolling down her cheeks and Tanya stood staring at the picture, it was as though she expected him to speak, or appear in the room, but they both knew he wouldn't.

"I know. I remember him perfectly... he looked so much like you," Tanya said in a soft voice.

"I still can't believe it happened," Mary Stuart said, looking at Tanny, and then sitting on the bed. She hadn't done that since Christmas. She had come in here alone, late on Christmas Eve, and lay on his bed, clutching his pillow, and cried for hours. As usual, she hadn't dared tell Bill she'd been in there. He had told her once before that he thought the room should be kept locked, but when she asked him what he thought she should do with Todd's things, he had told her to do whatever she wanted. And she hadn't had the heart to take any of it apart. She just couldn't bring herself to do it.

"Shouldn't you put his things away?" Tanya asked her sadly. She could only imagine how difficult it would be, but she wondered if it would be healthier for them. Or maybe they should think about selling the apartment. But she didn't dare say that.

"I just couldn't," Mary Stuart answered her. "I just can't put his things away," she said, and tears roiled down her cheeks all over again, thinking of the child who had once lived there. "I miss him so terribly... we all do. Bill doesn't say anything, but I know he must too. It's killing him... it's killing all of us..." She knew how it hurt Alyssa too. She had seen her go into his room once. And she didn't think it was a complete mystery why she wanted to stay in Paris. Who could blame her for that? Coming home was pretty depressing, and for the moment, there was no relief in sight. Neither she nor Bill seemed to have recovered.

"It wasn't your fault," Tanya suddenly said firmly, taking her friend by both arms, and looking into her eyes with a sense of purpose. It was as though she was meant to be here. "You have to believe that. You couldn't have stopped him once he made his mind up."

"How could I not see what was happening to him? How could I love him so much and miss it completely?" Mary Stuart knew she would never forgive herself for what she hadn't seen and what had happened.

"He didn't want you to see it. He was a grown man, he had a right to keep his own secrets. He didn't want you to know, or he would have told you. You're not expected to know everything, to see into someone's mind. You couldn't have known, Mary Stuart, you have have to believe that." What Tanya couldn't believe was that Bill had tortured her for the past year and hadn't released her from her own guilt. Instead, he had confirmed it to her, both by his actions and by his silence. to believe that." What Tanya couldn't believe was that Bill had tortured her for the past year and hadn't released her from her own guilt. Instead, he had confirmed it to her, both by his actions and by his silence.

"I'll always think it was my fault," Mary Stuart said sadly, but Tanya would not let her go. She was determined to free her from the hooks that held her. It was the ultimate act of friendship, and a matter of Mary Stuart's survival.

"You're not that important," she said quietly. "As much as he loved you, you weren't that important to him. He had his own life, his own friends, his own dreams, his own disappointments, his own tragedies. You couldn't have made him do it if you wanted to, and you couldn't have made him not do it, no matter how much you wanted to. Not unless he had come to you, and begged you to stop him. And he would never have done that, he was too private a person, just like you are." Tanya was very serious as she looked her in the eye, determined to help her friend now.

"But I would never do anything like that," Mary Stuart said, still staring at her son's picture, as though she could still ask him why it had happened. But they all knew why now. It was so pathetically simple. The girl he had loved for four years had died in a car accident, on an icy New Jersey road four months before, and he had quietly sunk into an ever deeper depression. No one had realized how depressed he was, or the full extent of his despair after she died. They had thought he was coming out of it at Easter. But in retrospect, Mary Stuart had realized that he only seemed happier at Easter because he had probably decided to do it when he went back after the vacation. He had been so close to his mother then. They had gone for a long walk in the park, and talked philosophically and laughed, he had even talked in vague terms about his future. He told her he knew now he would always be happy. And then he did it, the night he went back. He committed suicide two weeks before his twentieth birthday, in his room in Princeton. The boy in the next room had found him. He had come in to borrow something and he had found Todd in bed, asleep, and something about the way he lay there aroused suspicion. He had checked him immediately and administered CPR, until the police and the fire department came. But they said later that Todd had been dead for several hours when the boy found him. He had left a note to each of them, telling them that he felt so peaceful and so calm, and so happy at last. He said it was cowardly of him, he knew, and he regretted any pain he would cause them, but he simply couldn't live without Natalie anymore. He said he had truly tried. And he hoped that once they forgave him, they would be relieved to know that he and Natalie would be together forever in Heaven. Although his parents had said they were too young, he had wanted to marry her, after graduation, the following summer. And in a sense, Todd said in his note, they were married now. And through it all, once they heard the news, and long afterward, Bill had blamed Mary Stuart. He said that she had filled his head with foolishness and romantic notions, she had allowed him to become too seriously involved with Natalie for the past four years, and if she hadn't forced religion on him, he would never have had such absurd notions of the hereafter or of God. According to Bill, Mary Stuart had, in fact, set the stage for disaster. And he laid Todd's suicide entirely on the conscience of his mother. At the time, what he said to her had almost killed her. But more than anything he could have said to her was the agony of her loss of her older child, her only son... her firstborn... the child who had always been her sunshine, and brought her so much joy and pride.

And as Tanya listened to her, she wanted to go to Bill Walker and shake him. His accusations were the most insane she had ever heard, and she sensed easily that he was trying to ease his own pain, and feelings of failure, by blaming it all on Mary Stuart. It was so cruel, it was almost beyond bearing. And it was easy to see what had happened to Mary Stuart as a result. She was nearly dead inside.

"The poor kid." Mary Stuart was sobbing quietly as they sat in his old room, still trying to understand why he had done it, a whole year after he had. "He was so in love with her, when he got the call after Natalie's accident, I thought it would kill him." And in the end, it had. It had killed all of them. There was nothing left of Mary Stuart now, or Bill, or their marriage. They had all died with Todd, the important parts of them anyway, their hearts and their souls, and their dreams, had all died with the boy they had so loved and had lost so unfairly.

"Have you ever gotten angry at him for all this?" Tanya asked, and Mary Stuart looked startled.

"With Todd? How could I?"

"Because he hurt all of you. Because he took something from you. Because he chickened out when he should have had the guts to live through it, and he should have told you how much pain he was in."

"I should have known." Mary Stuart turned it on herself again, but Tanya wouldn't let her do that.

"You can't know everything. You're not a mind reader, you're just a human being. And you were a wonderful mother to him. He shouldn't have done this to you." Mary Stuart had never even allowed herself to think those things, and it frightened her to hear them. "It wasn't fair of him, and you know it. And it's not fair of Bill to blame you. Maybe it's time for you to get good and mad at both of them. They've put an awful lot on your back, Mary Stuart."

For a long moment, she didn't say a word as she looked at Tanya. "I've felt it was my fault since the night he died."

"I know you have. But that was kind of convenient for everyone, wasn't it? Maybe even now, Todd needs to take responsibility for what he did. Maybe you need to give that back to him, and tell Bill what you think. You can't just silently accept all the guilt and all the burden of what happened. Todd goes down in history as a hero, and not a poor, sick, foolish kid who did an incredibly stupid thing we'll all regret forever. But whatever it was, for whatever reason, maybe that was his destiny. And it is what happened. It can't be changed now. You can't take it back, or make it your decision, or your fault. It was all his doing. And Bill has no right to blame you, that's how he absolved himself. It was all your your fault, so he could be free to be angry and miserable and rotten. Mary Stuart, you're not the responsible party here, you're the scapegoat." fault, so he could be free to be angry and miserable and rotten. Mary Stuart, you're not the responsible party here, you're the scapegoat."

"I know," she said softly. "I figured that out a while back, but it doesn't change anything. Bill will never admit it. As far as he's concerned, it's all my fault."

"Then maybe you should leave him. Or are you going to let him punish you for the rest of your life? Are you going to stay on your knees for the next forty or fifty years, whispering 'mea culpa'? That's a long time to feel guilty. You're way too young for that." Listening to her was like having someone pull the drapes back in a dark room and let in huge splashes of sunshine. She had been sitting in a dark comer for a year, lost in the gloom, and grieving. And it was odd sitting in this room while they talked about it. It was almost as though Todd was with them. And listening to Tanya speak to her suddenly made it all seem very different. She wanted to be angry at Bill, wanted to shout at him, and to shake him. How could he be so stupid? How could he have destroyed their marriage?

"I don't know what to think anymore, Tan. It's been so confusing. And poor Alyssa, it must have been a nightmare coming home for Christmas last year. We were all such a mess, she couldn't wait to go back to Paris." In the end, she had left four days early. And that had made her mother feel even more guilty.

"You've got years to make it up to her. What you have to do is think of yourself, and what you need. You can't keep letting Bill do this to you. You have to find your peace over what happened. You have to have a long talk with yourself, and with your son, and see what you come up with. And then you have to talk to Bill. He's gotten out of this pretty easy so far."

"I don't think he has," Mary Stuart said wisely. "I think it's so painful for him that he's hidden behind a wall of ice until he was completely numb. I think he's terrified to come out now."

"If he doesn't, he'll destroy you and your marriage." If he hadn't already. Tanya wasn't sure how much her friend could salvage, but at least she was thinking about it. And Tanya was glad she had ventured into Todd's room and been in it with her.