Anne leaned forward, accepting an air kiss from one of the local Democratic honchos, a handsome older man with exquisite taste in clothing.

  Friday afternoon, when the doorbell rang, Anne was on the Internet, gathering information about the Millennium Democracy Institute, an international assemblage of informed politicians who would gather in Washington, D.C., one weekend a month to write a handbook for emerging democracies across the world. From this group, delegates would be chosen to represent the MDI, traveling to fledgling capitalist nations across the world. MDI could be of stunning international significance, and Anne had been asked to become one of the members.

  Behind the scenes, those in power were already discussing the possibility of Anne running for the U.S. Senate in 2002.

  And from there—with her ambition, wealth, intelligence, and good looks, not to mention her sterling character and her genuine desire for reform—who knew what Anne could achieve? She was only in her early forties. She might even be one of the first female vice presidents. She might even—

  With a sigh of regret, she pulled her attention away from the computer screen and flicked it off. She glanced at her calendar—yes, she did have an appointment now, at three o’clock. The afternoon had slipped past so quickly. Thank God Randall took Tessa with him during the weekends. That way she could work without interruption.

  She surveyed the items so neatly arranged on her desk and, cramped from sitting, rose and stretched her arms high over her head. From the hall she heard Carmen’s polite voice and the equally polite tones of the woman Carmen was leading down the hall toward Anne’s office.

  Anne looked down at her calendar again. “Judge MacLeod,” she’d written there in red ink. Who, the woman had said, when she telephoned, wanted to meet in private, about a personal matter.

  Judge Kelly MacLeod entered the room. In her thirties, she was tall, with a chignon of blond hair and pale blue eyes. She could be my younger sister, Anne realized, holding out her hand.

  “Judge MacLeod. Nice to meet you. Won’t you sit down?” Coming around the side of her desk, she settled opposite the judge in a wing chair by the fireplace. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Thank you, no.” The woman seemed oddly nervous.

  “All right, then.” Anne turned to Carmen. “That will be all, Carmen. Shut the door, will you?”

  Carmen went out, closing the door with a whisper of wood on wood.

  Anne tilted her head, waiting.

  “First of all, Mrs. Madison—”

  “Anne, please.”

  “Anne.” Kelly MacLeod licked her lips. “First of all, Anne, I’d like to congratulate you on winning the election. I’ve followed your career, and I voted for you. I know you’ll do a great deal of significant good work in the future.”

  “Thank you.” Anne crossed her legs. Something was making the other woman apprehensive, Anne could feel it like the rumbling of distant thunder.

  “I’m here, as I said on the phone, on a personal matter.” The judge took a deep breath. “Twelve years ago I gave birth to a baby girl. She had a small birthmark on her neck—” Her voice caught. She cleared her throat and began again. “I was a surrogate mother to the baby. I was artificially inseminated by a couple who wanted a child they weren’t able to have by themselves.”

  Anne put her hand to her throat. “You’re saying that you are Tessa’s birth mother.”

  Judge MacLeod nodded.

  Anne stared at the other woman and saw that what she said was true. The pale hue of Tessa’s skin, the long line of her bones, the shape of her eyes and ears, the way she sat, with such ramrod dignity—it was all Tessa.

  “We paid you fifty thousand dollars,” Anne reminded the woman.

  Judge MacLeod put out a hand, as if to stop her words. “I’m not here about money.”

  “Then what—?” Suddenly fear ignited within her. All at once she knew what this woman wanted, and adrenaline sped through her body, filling her with alarm. “No.” She half rose from her chair. “You can’t have her. She’s my daughter. You’re a judge. You know the laws—”

  “Please. I’m not trying to take her away from you.” The judge put her hands together in supplication. “Listen to me, please. It’s very complicated. I’m here to ask for your help. For your advice.”

  “My advice?”

  “Yes.”

  Anne looked down at her skirt. A wave of nausea from the adrenaline rush blackened her vision; then it passed. She took a deep breath. “Go on, then.” Anne rubbed at the spot on her skirt.

  “I need to tell you a story. A true story.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “This summer,” the judge said, “I fell in love. With a man I met in a cemetery.”

  “Dear God,” Anne moaned. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the chair.

  “My mother had just died. His mother had recently died. We talked. We talked, and we fell in love.”

  Anne opened her eyes and looked wearily at Kelly. “Of course you fell in love with Randall,” she said. “Every woman does.”

  Judge MacLeod said quietly, “And Randall fell in love with me.”

  Anne snorted. She felt stronger now, on safer ground. She clasped her hands together. “This summer? Randall fell in love with you this summer? Randall was having an affair with Lacey Corriea this summer. I have proof if you’d like—”

  “I know about Lacey Corriea. Randall told me. That doesn’t matter. He’s asked me to marry him.”

  Anne stared at the other woman. She was very pale and trembling. Anne thought perhaps she really had not come here out of triumph or vengefulness. “What do you want?”

  “I told Randall I believe I’m Tessa’s mother.”

  And Anne suddenly understood it all. The knowledge burned through her like a conflagration, leaving her soul in ashes.

  “And you and Randall are going to get married and live happily ever after with your daughter?” Anne asked. Hideously, tears were pushing at the defenses of her eyes. How could she feel so empty and yet so full, nearly explosive, at the same time?

  Very softly Judge MacLeod said, “She’s your daughter, Anne. I know that. I don’t want to take her away from you. I don’t have the right. That’s why I’m here. Because I know that she’s your daughter, and I’m asking you to help me.”

  “To help you do what?”

  “I don’t know, precisely. Maybe simply to let me into the equation. I love Randall. I want to marry him. I want to be part of Tessa’s life, and his life, which means being part of your life. I need your help. For one thing, I need your help in deciding when to tell Tessa I’m her birth mother.”

  Anne couldn’t keep her voice steady. “If you marry Randall, if you tell Tessa you’re her mother—she won’t need me. She won’t want me.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Judge MacLeod disagreed, her voice low and respectful. “I really don’t. You are the mother she knows, Anne. You are the one who held her and rocked her and cared for her when she was a baby.” Tears came to her eyes. “You’re the one whose smell she knows by instinct, whose voice is as familiar as her own. You’re the one whose praise she needs, and the one she runs to when she’s hurt. She knows you. You are her mother. You’ve been her mother for twelve years. I am a stranger to her.”

  Surprised and oddly comforted by the other woman’s tears, unable to sit still any longer, Anne rose and paced the room. It was too much, too powerful, this strong blond woman who could be her sister, who was her daughter’s birth mother, here in the room, saying these things.

  “But Tessa will like you,” Anne said bitterly. All at once her heart seemed to break. Turning to look at the other woman, she whispered, “Tessa hates me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t—”

  “She does. She disagrees with me all the time.” Astonished at her confession, Anne put her cold fingertips on her cheeks and felt her own tears there.

  Kelly MacLeod rose and went to Anne, standing near her but not touching her. “Of course she hates you. Of course she disagrees with you. She’s twelve years old. You’re her mother. You’re the person she has to rebel against. Didn’t you ever hate your mother? Didn’t you ever rebel against her?”

  Anne choked a laugh out at the thought of Sarah, frustrating, infuriating, hopeless Sarah. Her mother. She was a better mother to Tessa than Sarah had been to her—wasn’t she?

  “If Tessa didn’t love you as completely as she does, she couldn’t rebel against you. If you weren’t so important to her, she wouldn’t hate you!”

  Anne turned her back on the other woman. She put her hands to her face, but they did not hold back the words. “Tessa isn’t rebelling,” she whispered. “She’s stopped rebelling. She’s being very good. She’s being perfect.”

  “Oh, Anne—”

  “She fainted in school yesterday.” Anne wiped her cheeks with her hands. Bleakly she turned to stare at Kelly MacLeod. “The nurse told me she’s not getting enough to eat. She’s malnourished. My own child.”

  Kelly drew in a deep breath, looking shocked and sad.

  “I’ve tried so hard to do what’s right. You know how cruel children can be, teasing one another for the slightest flaw! You know how easy it is to gain weight. And Randall is such a big man, and he’s her biological father—I was afraid she would be big. Fat. And children would tease her.”

  “I know,” Kelly agreed.

  “But I never meant for this to happen.” Anne shuddered with revulsion. “Sometimes I think that nature knew what it was doing when it prevented me from having my own children.”

  “That’s nonsense!” Kelly exclaimed. “Don’t even think that way. No mother does everything perfectly. No father does, either. We’re all only human, we all have to just feel our way along, trying to do our best.”

  Anne looked at Kelly. She felt infinitely tired. “That’s kind of you to say.”

  Kelly said, “It’s true.”

  “You think I haven’t ruined Tessa?”

  “You know you haven’t.”

  Anne walked to her desk, opened a drawer, and took out a box of tissue. She held it out to Kelly, who took one and blew her nose and wiped her face while Anne did the same thing. Anne straightened her dress. Then she sat down at her desk. Immediately she felt better, stronger, in control. Having the large, ornate, majestic piece of furniture between her and this other woman was exactly what she needed. She took a deep breath.

  “All right, then, tell me again what you want.”

  Kelly MacLeod sank into a chair facing the desk. She looked at Anne with a level stare and said, “I want you to be my friend. I want to marry Randall someday. I want to be Tessa’s stepmother, and someday, I want to tell her that I’m her birth mother. But not right away. Not until the three of us agree the time is right.”

  Anne passed her hand over her forehead. “It’s all so peculiar. So abnormal.”

  “What? That she’ll have three adults to love her? As well as Mont and your parents? Oh, yes, there’s also my half sister, Felicity. She’s fifteen, and living with me now. God only knows how those two will get along.” Kelly leaned forward. “Anne. There’s no one right kind of family. No normal family. No perfect family. I’ve seen children living happily with their grandparents. With stepparents. With uncles and aunts and cousins. I’ve seen two women, living together, adopt a baby and raise a happy child, and I’ve seen two men, living together, do the same thing. I’ve seen a single man adopt his nephew and niece when their parents died in a car accident. I’ve seen a single woman adopt a little girl who was orphaned.” She pressed her case. “You’ve read about all this. This isn’t new to you. And it’s only going to get more complicated with developing technology. And who is to say what’s right or wrong? Certainly it took the three of us to bring Tessa into this world, and you must agree that was the right thing to do. What would be wrong, if the three of us who created her, loved her and cared about her, worked together in her best interests?”

  Anne stared back. This woman wanted to share her daughter’s life. That was terrifying. And yet, this young woman was a judge. She was intelligent, well educated, and reasonable. God knew she was articulate.

  “But we won’t agree on everything,” Anne protested. “We’ll fight.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Kelly replied honestly. “But if you and I have learned anything in our careers, it’s how to compromise. And we’ll be doing it for Tessa.”

  Anne rose. “This is a lot to throw at me all at once. I need some time to think.”

  Kelly stood. “Of course. Here are my phone numbers, in case you want to call and talk to me about anything.” Taking a card from her purse, she laid it on Anne’s desk.

  Anne stared at the white piece of paper marring the serene perfection of her desk. Picking it up, she slipped it into the middle drawer without looking at it. “It’s Randall I need to speak with.”

  “Of course.”

  They walked down the hall in silence. Anne opened the door and stood back to let the other woman pass.

  Instead, Kelly stopped and looked around her, at the gleaming, orderly entrance hall with its polished table and the stern oil portraits of Anne’s grandparents. “This is a beautiful house,” she said.

  “Yes, it is.” Anne’s tone was cool.

  “Thank you for seeing me.”

  Anne didn’t reply.

  Anne watched the other woman walk across the drive and settle in her car. So that, she thought, was what Tessa would look like when she was grown.

  Something moved in Anne’s heart. It was painful. It was strangely exciting. It was like a terrible fear, and the oddest kind of hope. It was, she imagined, how a woman felt on the delivery table, clutching a nurse’s hand for support. Perhaps this was how one of the women Anne worked for would feel, a single mother living on welfare, needing help feeding or educating or protecting her child, when one of the programs that Anne was fighting for was passed and implemented. When that woman knew with relief that someone out there was on her side. When she realized she would no longer have to do this alone, this challenging, chartless, heartbreaking job of being a mother.

  Fifteen

  Saturday morning Felicity, with a face like a storm cloud, flung herself into the front seat of Kelly’s Subaru.

  “Felicity,” Kelly said. “Please. I’m asking you as nicely as I know how. Be pleasant.”

  “I am pleasant,” Felicity growled. Reaching forward, she snapped on the radio and hit the dial until she found a hard rock station.

  Kelly sighed. Was this how it was going to be for the next few years? “I just don’t understand why you object so strenuously to spending one day outside in the sunshine.”

  “Because,” Felicity said through gritted teeth. “I’d rather be with my friends.”

  “You were with Sly last night. You’ve been with your new friends in school. You’re having Jamie over to spend the night tonight. I don’t think one afternoon is so tragic. Come on, Fel. Give it a chance. You might even like these people.”

  “Why, because you do?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. I mean, my judgment isn’t completely terrible, is it? After all, I like you.”

  Felicity moaned and threw her head back so hard Kelly was surprised the headrest didn’t fly out the back window.

  “Look,” Kelly persisted, keeping her voice as rational as possible, “you’ve met Randall. You think he’s nice enough, don’t you?”

  Felicity shrugged.

  “And I’ve met his father, Mont, who is as sweet an old dear as ever walked the planet.”

  “Yeah, I am so dying to meet some dried-up old geezer.”

  “Don’t be ageist,” Kelly snapped. “Mont Madison’s a doctor. He has a farm. He’s working on a book. He’s not a dried-up old geezer.”

  “Whatever.”

  “And Randall’s daughter, Tessa, will be there.” Kelly swallowed. “I haven’t met her, but I’ll bet she’s really nice.”

  “Oh, goodie. A twelve-year-old. Gee, maybe we’ll play dollies.”

  Kelly snapped. “Felicity Lambrousco! What the hell has gotten into you? I’ve been as nice to you as humanly possible over the past few weeks. And in return you act like one of Satan’s spawn.”

  “So fine. Send me back to René.”

  “What?” Kelly looked over at the adolescent huddling inside her storm cloud of emotion. Felicity’s face was blotchy and sullen.

  “Oh, Fel.” Kelly reached over to touch Felicity’s hand. Felicity snatched it away. “What is going on in your convoluted little brain?”

  Felicity’s black mascaraed lashes glittered with tears. “You’re going to marry this Randall guy.”

  “Maybe. Yes, it’s possible that I am going to marry this Randall guy. It’s very possible that sometime within the next year or so I’ll marry him and move out to live on his farm. And if I do, Felicity, you’re moving with me. You’re living with me, wherever I go, whether you like it or not.”

  “You can’t make me,” Felicity growled.

  “Hey, you know what? I’m a judge. I know quite a few people in high places. I bet I can make you stay with me, at least until you’re an adult.”

  “You wouldn’t do that.”

  “Of course I would. I’ve lived too long without you, Fel. I’m not letting you get away. Ever.” Reaching over, she took Felicity’s hand. This time, Felicity let her keep it.

  “Do you think she’ll want to ride, Dad?”

  Tessa was wired, a spinning mass of nervous energy. She didn’t care about meeting Dad’s woman friend. It was the girl she was bringing with her. A fifteen-year-old. Tessa was nearly puking with nervousness. Felicity—such a cool name. Tessa’s dad had met her, said she was nice, in a Goth sort of way. Tessa thought she’d die with excitement. She’d never known anyone who was Goth.

  “I don’t know if she’s ever ridden before, Tessa,” her father said. The Burchardts had brought over a trailer-load of hay. Randall and Tessa’s grandfather were in the barn with pitchforks, lifting the bales off the trailer, stacking them in the loft for winter. The air smelled as sweet as spring.