She didn’t bother to read it first like Mac had, wanting to digest the question before she shared it. Tara cleared her throat. “Why haven’t you had any kids?”

Tara’s smooth white throat spasmed as she laughed. Her face was tilted all the way up to the ceiling like she was conversing with God. “Who asked this?” she said between tears. The tension in the room deflated under her cackling and Rainy started to laugh along with the others. The question, though very valid, could have been posed to any of them; they were all childless. As the author of the question, Mac raised a hand, which for some reason made Tara laugh harder.

“Okay...okay...sorry,” she said, spreading a palm over her chest. “I don’t know why that tickled me so much. Matt and I tried for about four years, then we talked about adoption, but we never actually made a move toward those first steps. That’s really it. I don’t think we wanted it enough. And we’re pretty happy just the two of us. You’re going to be a great mom, though,” she said, pointing a finger at Mac, “when you’re ready. You and Viola are the graduating class.” No one said anything for another minute and Rainy considered that they were all wondering about everyone else’s reasons.

“What about you, Braithe?” Mac asked. So that’s who her question had really been directed to. Rainy was more interested in her answer than she’d like to admit. Stephen and Braithe had a box at the Seattle ballet, they vacationed to places like Greece and Italy and had a wine cellar in their house with bottles that cost anywhere from three hundred dollars to three thousand. Rainy had assumed they were too busy to have children; she’d never considered that maybe they couldn’t have them.

“I used to want children,” Braithe said. “I always thought I’d have three: a boy and twin girls. I wanted to name the girls Juniper and Orla, isn’t that funny?”

“Those are pretty names,” Mac said. “What about the little boy?”

“He’d have his dad’s name.”

Everyone fell silent, imagining a little Stephen with tight curls and dimples and waiting for Braithe to tell them why it never happened. But Braithe didn’t explain. She reached for the ice bucket. Her hand emerged and she curled her knee up to her chest and wrapped her arm around it to read the slip. She absently fingered the ends of her hair, her mouth moving as she read. Three to go, Rainy thought. Would she have to lie? If Ursa asked the first question, and Mac the second. That left her own, Tara’s and Braithe’s questions unanswered. She’d already decided that she wanted to be the last one to go. That way, she could make her answer short and sweet and end this game.