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“Kind of battle-worn, aren’t I?” he said. “But you know, with some plastic surgery and a couple caps, I could be a high-flier just like Rhage.”

Marissa glanced back at the figurine and thought about her life. And Butch’s.

She shook her head slowly and leaned in to kiss him. “I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Not one single thing.”

Epilogue

Joyce O’Neal Rafferty was in a rush and thoroughly bitched out as she headed into the nursing home. Baby Sean had spent all night throwing up and it had taken three hours of waiting at the pediatrician’s before the doctor could squeeze them in. Then Mike had left a message that he was working late, so he didn’t have time to go to the supermarket on the way home.

Goddamn it, they had nothing in the refrigerator or the cupboards for dinner.

Joyce hitched Sean up on her hip and raced down the corridor, dodging meal carts and a gang of wheelchairs. At least Sean was asleep now and hadn’t thrown up for hours. Dealing with a fussy, sick baby as well as her mother was more than Joyce could handle at once. Especially after a day like today.

She knocked on the door to her mother’s room, then went right in. Odell was sitting up in bed, leafing through a Reader’s Digest.

“Hey, Mom, how’re you feeling?” Joyce went over to the Naugahyde-covered wing chair by the window. As she sat down, the cushion squeaked. And so did Sean as he woke up.

“I’m good.” Odell’s smile was pleasant. Her eyes vacant as dark marbles.

Joyce checked her watch. She’d stay ten minutes, then hit Star Market on the way home.

“I had a visitor last night.”

“Did you, Mom?” And without a doubt, she was going to buy enough for a week straight. “Who was it?”

“Your brother.”

“Teddy was here?”

“Butch.”

Joyce froze. Then decided her mother was hallucinating. “That’s nice, Mom.”

“He came when no one was around. After dark. He brought his wife. She’s so pretty. He said they’re getting married in a church. I mean, they’re already husband and wife, but it was in her religion. Funny…I never figured out what she was. Maybe a Lutheran?”

Definitely hallucinating. “That’s good.”

“He looks like his father now.”

“Oh, yeah? I thought he was the only one who didn’t take after Daddy.”

“His father. Not yours.”

Joyce frowned. “I’m sorry?”

Her mother assumed a dreamy expression and looked out the window. “Did I ever tell you about the blizzard of ’69?”

“Mom, go back to Butch—”

“We all got stuck at the hospital, us nurses along with the doctors. No one could come or go. I was there for two days. God, your father was so upset about having to care for the kids without me.” Abruptly, Odell seemed years younger and sharp as a tack, her eyes clearing. “There was a surgeon there. Oh, he was just so…different from everyone else. He was the chief of surgery. He was very important. He was…beautiful and different and very important. Frightening, too. His eyes, I see them still in my dreams.” Just as suddenly, all that enthusiasm evaporated and her mother deflated. “I was bad. I was a bad, bad wife.”

“Mom…” Joyce shook her head. “What are you saying?”

Tears started to fall down Odell’s lined face. “I went to confession when I got home. I prayed. I prayed so hard. But God punished me for my sins. Even the labor…the labor was terrible with Butch. I nearly died, I bled so badly. All my other births were fine. Not Butch’s…”

Joyce squeezed Sean so hard, he started to wriggle in protest. As she loosened her hold and tried to soothe him, she whispered, “Go on. Mom…keep talking.”

“Janie’s death was my punishment for being unfaithful and carrying another man’s child.”

As Sean let out a wail, Joyce’s head spun with a horrible, terrible suspicion that this was…

Oh, come on, what the hell was she thinking? Her mother was crazy. Not right in the head.

Too bad she looked really frickin’ lucid right now.

Odell started nodding as if responding to a question someone had asked. “Oh, yes, I love Butch. Actually, I love him more than any of the rest of my children because he’s special. Could never