“Relax,” I called after them. “Rose Noire is trying to teach him to meditate.”

“To meditate?” Michael said, pausing in the doorway. “That horrible noise is meditating?”

“She’s chanting ‘om,’”I explained. “That’s Timmy’s version of om.”

He went to look anyway, and then came trooping back sheepishly with the others when he discovered that no one was being tortured. Well, perhaps Rose Noire was, but she was gritting her teeth and enduring it.

Everyone else still flinched when a particularly heart-rending groan resounded from the yard. I found myself wondering if I’d discovered an important truth normally revealed only to actual parents: that you can find even the most horrible racket soothing if it’s far enough away and demonstrates that the child responsible is still perfectly healthy.

Still, I wasn’t sorry when Dad and Dr. Blake offered to take a turn amusing Timmy after dinner. And I felt positively mellow when Mother took Rob and Rose Noire off to do the dishes.

“Meg has had a difficult day,” Mother said.

I leaned back, poured myself another glass of wine, and savored being alone with Michael for the first time all day.

“You did have a difficult day,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” I said. “Not even Timmy’s fault. Karen, now—when she finally turns up, I have a bone to pick with her.”

“What if she doesn’t turn up until sometime tomorrow?”

“We’ve already taken that possibility into account,” I said. “Remember, the mountain of equipment she left included a portable crib. I set it up in the bedroom next to ours at naptime. We hauled the rest of his stuff up there for the time being—it was in the way down here in the hall.”

“So he’ll be fine tonight,” Michael said. “But tomorrow?”

My stomach suddenly tightened, and I pushed my glass away. What if she didn’t turn up tomorrow? What if she never turned up at all? What if she had dumped Timmy on us before disappearing as completely as Amelia Earhart and Jimmy Hoffa? The mountain of equipment had also included a bag containing a Timmy-sized snowsuit and two matched knitted hat and mitten sets.

“I’ll manage tomorrow,” I said. “I just hope everyone who helped with Timmy today doesn’t get wise and disappear.”

“Maybe your mother could help.”

“Mother? Are you crazy?” I had to chuckle at the idea, and my stomach unclenched a bit. I tried another sip of wine.

“Well, she’s done it before, hasn’t she?” Michael said. “I know it’s been quite a while since she’s taken care of a toddler—”

“Meaning quite a while since I was a toddler? Gee, thanks.”

“Actually I was only thinking about the ten years or so since your nieces and nephews were toddlers.”

“Good save. But no, Mother was never a hands-on grandmother. For that matter, she was never a hands-on mother. She doesn’t do childcare—she delegates.”

“You mean you had nannies?”

“No, but we always had two or three needy relatives living with us. Aunts or cousins who were going through what the family euphemistically calls ‘a bad patch.’ A messy divorce, a complicated bankruptcy, something like that. They did the diapers and midnight feedings and potty training—anything messy or strenuous.”