“Maybe Pitte doesn’t want to have kids.” Dana shrugged her shoulders. “Some people don’t. What’re you doing back there, Zoe?”

“New do. I’m mixing some skinny braids in. It should be young and kicky. Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Want to have kids?”

Dana munched popcorn and considered. “Yeah. I’d like to have a couple. I figure if I don’t find a guy I can stand being with for the long term in the next few years, I’ll just do it on my own. You know, make love with medical science.”

“You’d do that?” Fascinated, Malory reached into the bowl. “Raise a child on your own. I mean, on purpose,” she added, looking up at Zoe. “You know what I mean.”

“Sure, I would.” Dana settled the bowl between them. “Why not? I’m healthy. I think I’d be good at the parenting thing, that I have a lot to offer a kid. I’d want to make sure I had solid financial security first, but if I’m cruising toward say, thirty-five and there’s no guy in the picture, I’d do the deed.”

“Sort of takes the romance out of it,” Malory commented.

“Maybe, but it gets results. You’ve got to look at the big picture. If there’s something you want, deep down want, you can’t let anything stop you from getting it.”

Malory thought of her dream, of the child she’d held in her arms. Of the light filling her world, her heart. “Even if you really, really want something, there are lines.”

“Well, murder and a certain amount of mayhem are discouraged. I’m talking about making important choices, then going the distance and dealing with the results. What about you, Zoe? Would you do it again? The raise-a-kid-on-your-own part?” Dana asked.

“I don’t think I’d set out to do it again. It’s hard. There’s nobody to share the load with, and sometimes the load seems impossible for one person. But more, there’s nobody who looks at the child and feels what you feel. Nobody to share that love and pride and, I don’t know, surprise with.”

“Were you scared?” Malory asked her.

“Yeah. Oh, yeah. I still get scared. I think it’s supposed to be scary because it’s so important. Do you want babies, Mal?”

“I do.” She rubbed the stone gently between her fingers. “More than I realized.”

BY three, Dana and Zoe were sleeping in her bed, and Malory was picking up the worst of the debris, too restless to settle in on the sofa. There were too many thoughts, too many images flitting around in her mind.

She studied the little blue stone again. Maybe it would work. She’d accepted bigger things than having a piece of rock under her pillow as the cure for the insomnia that was plaguing her.

Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she really hadn’t accepted any of it, not in that deep-down way Dana spoke of. She was exhausted, yet she wasn’t putting the stone under her pillow and letting herself try.