Jake and Louisa were cross-legged on the floor, drinking, as Mike put it, the only decent eggnog south of Miami.

Ellen was on her second eggnog and quite relaxed. She was recounting Mike's lurid past to Thea.

"Once he locked himself in the bathroom and your grandfather had to get the ladder and climb through the window."

"I didn't do it on purpose, Thea," Mike said comfortably.

"He was old enough to know better," Ellen said mischievously. "Four, just like you."

"You know I'm almost six, Grandma," said Thea judiciously. "So you're just teasing me."

"Smart kid," said Jake. "She must have gotten it from Carla."

"Talented too." Carla smiled, brought her own head to Thea's, and touched their brows. "You ought to see her finger painting on our brand-new clean bedroom wall."

"Mommy spanked me," Thea said proudly. "She really did! It hurt."

Carla's eyes met Ellen's. For an instant the two were communicating perfectly. Carla blushed because Ellen knew: Carla had neglected her daughter so badly for the statue this week that even a spanking felt good.

Carla's eyes misted. She swooped down, lifted Thea, and held her close. "I didn't mean to hurt you, dumpling," she murmured. "And afterward I cried."

Thea squirmed loose. "I didn't." She headed for a package, squinted at the card, and deciphered: "M-I-K-E." She picked it up and handed it to her father.

"Did you ever spank Daddy?" Thea asked Ellen as Mike opened his gift from Louisa and Jake.

"His father paddled him once or twice," she murmured.

"And Uncle Sean?"

Her mind went back. It was just before the last regatta. Sean, nine, dazzled by a yellow Ferrari, had hitched a ride with the local mafioso, a summer visitor named Moscotti. The younger son of the police chief, riding with a hood! She had seen him getting out. As Sean escaped to the garage, the gangster—whose own son she had welcomed, against severe parental pressure, into Sean's Cub Scout den—had warned her that children should not ride with strangers.

She had stood, face blazing, as the Ferrari roared away. Then it all came out.

"Sean!" she shrieked.

Sean appeared at the garage door, carrying the bait bucket he used to feed Sammy the Seal. He was scared. He knew that she had seen the car—and him. His face went white when he saw hers. It was probably the worst thing he had done in his life. He let out a questioning little bleat.

"Come here!" she cried. "Now!"

He sidled across the lawn, terrified. "I..."

She met him at the side of the porch. "Don't you ever, ever, ever—"

"I forgot," he said, whining. "And you let Johnny Moscotti in the Cubs—"

She slapped him, hard, like a housewife in a Naples slum. He had never been slapped in his life, and he stared at her in silent shock.