But if Beau possessed his mother’s inclination toward literality, he tempered it with kindness. “I think I would love babies very much,” he said. “I would like to know how they understand things, since they don’t have words.”

“There’s a whole field of science studying that,” Hannah told him, delighted. “It’s called developmental psychology. The researchers have to come up with clever ways to assess the babies, since they can’t use language.”

Beau listened, his little head tilted and his big round eyes locked on hers as she told him about famous experiments in child psychology: the visual cliff, the broccoli-goldfish challenge, the emergence of empathetic crying. Around them, the others were talking about work as the server delivered plates of small appetizers to their table. She scooted her chair closer to Beau.

“You’re saying babies care about what happens to other people before they can even talk,” said Beau, his eyes shining. “This is a wonderful kind of science.”

“Is wonderful your favorite word?” asked Hannah. She couldn’t suppress her own smile. What a precious child.

“Yes. My other favorite word is facetious.”

Before Hannah could inquire as to the provenance of that last term, something in the adult conversation caught her ear. Compton, on her other side, leaned across the table to direct a question to Declan.

“How’d you get interested in developing antiviral therapies?”

“Guilt, mainly,” said Declan. He leaned against the wall of the entryway. “I got arrested in grad school and had to make amends.”

Georgia perked up. “Now, that sounds interesting.”

He smiled, splaying the fingers on both hands in an I’m guilty gesture. “I was getting my graduate degree in pharmaceutical chemistry and I messed up a lab experiment.”

Georgia stared. “What happened, did you accidentally clone Hitler?”

A contrite expression crossed Declan’s face. “There’s more to it. It wasn’t my lab work. It wasn’t even a grad school thing—I, uh, broke into the lab where my buddy was a teaching assistant for one of those college bio course experiments where you grow bacteria from your own cheek swab. I thought it would be funny to switch it up so it looked like his sample had grown some sexually transmitted monster. He’d identify it for the students, expecting to see lactobacilli or whatever, and instead it would be gonorrhea. Hilarious, right?”

Now Kira interrupted. “The first time I heard this story,” she said, “my initial reaction was not dismay at Declan’s misdeed—which it should have been—but a burning question.”

Hannah had no idea what Kira meant, but next to her, Compton snickered. She cocked a finger at Declan. “Yep. Where exactly did you come by a sample of gonorrhea?”

“Nailed it,” said Kira. “And he gave me some innocuous answer, but I couldn’t quite banish a flicker of suspicion, right? No matter how much he claims a policy of honesty, no man on earth is going to fess up to committing a lab crime while also admitting he’s been infected with an STD. There are some things one does not share.”