I don’t know all that much about those tests, but I do know that they can tell you if you carry genes for certain conditions—like the one that makes it 85 percent likely you’ll get breast cancer. And other things too: those scary, degenerative diseases…

I shake my head, reminding myself that there are plenty of other less dramatic conclusions to come to. It’s like Oliver’s favorite saying: when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. Abigail might keep a lot of things from us, but she wouldn’t keep that.

But still, the unease doesn’t quite leave me as Sam and I chomp our way through the packet of chocolate chip cookies.

I’m just about to suggest that we start getting ready to leave for our dinner reservation when my phone lights up again, this time with Dinah’s number. That’s odd. I dust cookie crumbs off my fingers and swipe to accept.

“Dinah! Hi.”

“Hey, Gillian.”

Her voice sounds a little off.

“Is something up?”

She hesitates, and I pick up my phone and leave the room. The sound of Sam’s program follows me out the door; I shut it behind me.

“Di?”

She sighs.

“I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have called now. I feel kind of stupid. But Gillian, I just thought maybe I should pick up the phone after listening to some stuff Josie said to me earlier.”

I swallow.

“Stuff? What stuff?” I’m assuming she means some kind of argument between Josie and Sam. That seems likely enough, just based on how tetchy he was earlier when I went down to the basement to get him.

“He didn’t do anything bad, Gillian. This isn’t a complaint.” She pauses. “And maybe I’m overstepping here…but I guess from what Josie described, it seemed like Sam was behaving in a somewhat unusual way…And I guess I was just wondering, well, if that was something you had picked up on too?”

“Unusual?” I say. “Like how?”

“Nothing big,” she hurries to say. “And nothing that would matter on its own. But just all together, it sounded a little…well, I guess you might say, compulsive.”

“Compulsive?” I echo.

I can hear the awkwardness in her voice.

“Stuff with the video games, for example. Josie said he had these funny little rituals when he was playing. Buttons he had to hit in some particular order even though it was nothing to do with the game. And she said he was starting to find the game quite upsetting at one point because he didn’t get a chance to complete all the moves correctly. I mean, exactly correctly; in some particular way that he seemed to have decided was necessary.”