“But what if he does mean them?” Dominique countered. “What if he decides that he doesn’t want a relationship after all?”

“Then we’ll do what we have to,” she finally answered. “If I can lose a child and come back, you can survive this.”

“Thank God we didn’t tell Justin that we were a couple. He’ll be devastated enough as it is.”

When Dominique left the next morning, she let Justin stay with Faith. He’d noticed how quiet she was last night, when she’d finally rejoined the family downstairs. When he’d asked her what was wrong, she’d been honest. “I miss Jake, and I’m worried about his brother.” They were going to San Diego and returning on New Year’s Eve. Dominique hoped that she would have it together by then.

Today, the day after Christmas, Dominique sat in the otherwise empty offices of Capricious magazine. She’d returned to the one thing that had been the constant in her life the last ten years besides her son—work. The issue they’d been working on had been put to bed before the holidays so Dominique plunged herself into the summer issue that would feature her story. “My story,” she grumbled, as she pored over pictures of possible locations for her photo shoot. At the moment, Dominique couldn’t imagine anybody being interested in her sad tale.

Two hours later Dominique stopped and stretched her back, now feeling the pain of being humped over a viewing table for two hours. She’d gone to the photo gallery, pulled some of the shots rejected from past publications, and gone through them to see if there was a gem she’d missed. She also realized that for the first time since Jake had wished her Merry Christmas, she actually had an appetite. She walked to her desk, pulled out a half dozen takeout menus and, after flipping through them quickly, reached for her phone.

“Yes, I’d like a double cheeseburger with everything on it,” she said, after the young girl answered the phone and took her phone number, which pulled up the company’s address. “An order of onion rings and an order of fries.” Dominique waited as the girl pushed buttons. “Yes, a strawberry shake. No, large.” She hung up the phone and felt a twinge of guilt at what she knew was emotional eating. The bad feeling deepened when she thought of Harold and the fact that too many meals like this were partly why he was lying in a hospital. But Dominique was hurting and, right now, a double cheese and starchy potatoes sounded like the perfect antidote. She shook off the guilt and refused to feel bad. I’ll eat a salad tomorrow.